Demand for AWS engineers well outstrips supply

Australian job postings for AWS engineers have grown 37% in the past year, well outstripping the supply of job seekers looking for these roles, according to analysis by global job site Indeed.

The statistics show that over the past year the number of AWS job postings was consistently six to 12 times the number of job seekers looking at the roles.

AWS specialist recruiter Carmen Panos, founder and director of the Cloud Talent Group, said there is a “massive demand” for certified AWS engineers in Australia.

But she said she often has difficulty placing AWS skilled IT professionals due to the lack of AWS Associate-level certification.

“There already was a shortage of right-skilled technology professionals to fill the rising number of AWS roles available in the ANZ market, and this has been compounded by employers increasingly preferring or requiring a minimum of Associate-level AWS Certification,” she said.

“I have one customer at the moment who is looking to put on 50 cloud engineers with a mix of AWS skills and certification preferences for different practices within the cloud business. There is a massive demand for certified AWS engineers, but opportunities for the uncertified are fewer and far between.”

Panos said AWS certification is quickly becoming a baseline expectation, and a certification can improve salaries for professionals such as solutions architects and DevOps engineers by as much as 30%.

But she warned against seeing AWS Associate-level certification as enough on its own, stating that employees are also expecting a core set of skills, as well as a demonstrated understanding of the platform and ability to effectively take advantage of it.

Sebastian Krueger, director of cloud engineering and co-founder of New Zealand-based specialist AWS consultancy API Talent, agreed that skills and hands-on experience are also vital.

“There are plenty of potential entry-level employees in the IT market, but we do see a skills shortage in terms of experience,” Krueger said.

“We continue to optimise our hiring approach and we look for staff with knowledge of particular patterns within AWS collateral, who can demonstrate that they understand AWS principles.”

Some companies in the region are pursuing professional development programs to fill skills shortage gaps. New Zealand’s Xero, for example, holds workshops and courses, as well as ‘AWS Game Days’ where staff are issued a series of challenges to test their skills and ingenuity with the platform.

Meanwhile, adoption of the AWS platform in the region continues to grow. New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has just entered an all-of-government supplier agreement with AWS aimed at helping agencies accelerate the adoption of public cloud services.

The cloud framework agreement will provide simplified contractual processes for individual agencies seeking to improve the customer experience, streamline operations and create new delivery models. Adoption of the agreement is optional for individual agencies.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/4Max

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