10 Top IT Skills for 2013 By Benjamin Brumm

I read the results of a recent survey on Computerworld (a website I frequently visit), which asked IT executives which kind of IT professionals they plan to hire in the next 12 months. The results that came in were:
1 - Programming and Application Development - 60%
2 - Project Management - 40%
3 - Help Desk/Technical Support - 35%
4 - Security - 27%
5 - Business Intelligence/Analytics - 26%
6 - Cloud/SaaS - 25%
7 - Virtualization - 24%
8 - Networking - 19%
9 - Mobile Applications and Device Management - 19%
10 - Data Center - 16%
The percentages represent the percentage of respondents that were planning on hiring that kind of IT professional in the next 12 months. I found a few interesting things in these survey results.
Application Development Is A Clear Standout
From the survey results, it seems that programming and application development is the clear #1 skill that will be in demand in the next 12 months. This suggests that companies are planing to begin projects that require software development, either in a support role or development stage. I come from a development background, so may be a bit biased, but I think this is a good thing - software projects do wonderful things for companies.
Skills Are Not Technology-Dependent
The skills mentioned in the survey results are not technology-dependent. This means that programming is not broken down into languages or platforms, and networking is not broken down into technologies or areas.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps the respondents to this survey didn't know or didn't care about the technologies. IT executives were the ones who responded to the survey, so they may only know that they need developers and don't care about the language.
Sourcing Of Staff Is Not Discussed
A hot topic in the IT industry at the moment is the idea of outsourcing IT work to other countries, or even sourcing staff from other countries using work visas. The survey doesn't really mention this, but the idea is that some roles in the IT industry are commonly outsourced to other countries which generally charge at lower rates.
Skills such as help desk, support, and software development can be outsourced as they don't need the face-to-face contact that other roles such as project management requires.
In conclusion, this survey is a helpful survey in getting an understanding of the job market, but isn't detailed enough to help me make any decisions. Personally, I'm looking to move my career into project management, which is on this list, but it doesn't really affect my choice.

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