Australia facing "massive" IT skills gap in 1H20

Australia is continuing to face a “massive” gap between the demand and supply of IT talent, and skills shortages are going to continue to plague IT in 2020, according to research from Hays.

The most in demand IT roles for January–June 2020 are cloud engineers and cloud architects, the specialist recruitment company said in its latest Jobs Report.

While more professionals are upskilling into the area, companies still face a shortage of talent with proven commercial experience in the major cloud platforms.

Project managers are the second hottest job category, driven by demand across all areas of the financial sector. This is followed by network engineers, security governance, risk management and compliance specialists, and end-user support professionals.

Other high-demand roles include cloud product specialists — such as those with experience across ServiceNow and Salesforce — and end-user support professionals.

Hays lists the most in demand digital technology roles separately. Leading this category are full stack software engineers — which are in high demand among start-ups, SMEs and large enterprises — followed by cloud engineers, data engineers and data scientists.

RPA specialists and React.js and React.Native engineers are also high-demand digital technology positions.

Hays’ report also notes an ongoing preference among employers for permanent rather than contractor staff as they seek to retain IP and build a strong team culture. But job candidates are resisting the change, preferring the hourly rates and greater flexibility afforded by contract roles.

Commenting on the results, Mike Featherstone, Managing Director for ANZ at online education company Pluralsight, said the results also highlight the need for IT leaders to respond to the acute skills shortage.

“As cited in [the report], the top skills required for information technology relate to rapidly evolving technologies, and workplaces need to recognise the tech-forward future they’re facing. It’s imperative for CIOs and CTOs to implement a skills development program as a way to keep current and position talent at the forefront of innovation while also addressing the local tech skills gap,” he said.

“For employees, tapping into and developing their tech skills in areas such as cloud, security and network engineering is a golden opportunity to not only expand career paths but also withstand a complicated tech trend curve. In-demand skills will continue to remain in demand until tech leaders provide employees with the opportunity to fulfil their robust need for professional development in tech.”

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