Special Report Preview:
1 . Where are IT careers heading generally? Firstly I am happy to report that we appear to be comfortably into an IT industry up-cycle that is not in danger of losing momentum in the foreseeable future. But the world and the world of IT are changing, so it is not a given that a valued skill today will be a valued skill tomorrow.
A shortage of new talent
Not all the dotcom crash shockwaves have passed through the IT industry. In 999 doing an IT degree was the Gold Rush equivalent of a pneumatic shovel. Unsurprisingly, very few signed up for IT degrees in 2002. The few that did must have been hermetically sealed from the world to make such a counter intuitive choice. The net effect is that there is now very little new raw material pouring out of the academic establishments into the IT marketplace. This is causing an acute shortage of talent in the market, which is bad for employers and great for skilled IT professionals.
Like manufacturing, IT is now subject to globalisation. India is the high profile delivery venue. China, Eastern Europe and South America are also on the ascendancy. It is early days and those going east looking for bargains are generally not getting the savings they hoped for. However they are getting the management headaches they didn’t bargain for. Whilst we are not quite experiencing an offshoring backlash, European buyers do appear to be having reservations about the offshoring concept. This makes predicting the impact of offshoring on IT careers very difficult. Should offshoring gain momentum then it is likely that the lowest value jobs will migrate first. The corollary of which is that the highest value IT roles will be last to leave.
The 21st century IT professional
The IT vendors are engaged in a vicious war to guarantee their places in the IT end game. Thus we are seeing significant Pac-man activity throughout the industry. Again it is not clear who will be left. Choosing a vendor-oriented career is thus a risky move, unless you are confident that the vendor you choose will be one of the ‘last men standing’.
This consolidation in the marketplace will lead to consolidation in the technologies. This will over time lead to technology skills becoming commoditized. We are starting to see a trend whereby the clients are taking the technology skills for granted and placing great store in the sector / business process experience. The day of the ‘pure-play propeller head’ is coming to an end. Hybrid business-technologists represent the 21 st century IT professional.
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