Jumping the IT Talent Gap: Cyber, Cloud, and Software Devs

While hype over artificial intelligence may be spurring organizations to hire professionals with matching skills to maintain a competitive edge, many businesses have more fundamental IT talent gaps. An April survey of 1,400 executives and IT professionals found skills gaps throughout cybersecurity, cloud, and software development — along with interest in skill development for these areas for 2025. In fact, understanding tech skills gaps is something many organizations struggle with — just a third of executives surveyed said they completely understand their organization’s skills gaps, and 68% of technologists say that business leaders aren’t aware of their IT skills gaps. Chris Herbert, chief content officer at Pluralsight, says to combat this lack of knowledge, business leaders need a data-driven approach to uncovering skills gaps. “This can be in the form of tech skills assessments, which can benchmark where technologists fall on a sliding scale of expertise in a given tech skill,” he says. He adds that it can be useful to survey tech teams internally in areas where they feel they need to deepen their skills. Creating a culture of learning always starts at the executive level, he says. “Business leaders need to be vigilant about the areas where their tech teams are falling behind and set up systems and initiatives that will help enable direct managers to assess their team’s skills on a consistent basis,” Herbert says. Related:2024 InformationWeek US IT Salary Report: Profits, Layoffs, and the Continued Rise of AI Anant Adya, executive vice president and head of Americas delivery at Infosys, says that businesses are moving away from hiring or training workers based on expertise in a single technology and towards cultivating talent proficiency across many disciplines. “Building diverse talent pipelines and offering opportunities to build both hard technical skills and soft communication skills are effective strategies,” he says. Adya adds there is great value in investing in “data readiness” and fostering a culture of responsible experimentation as part of upskilling.

Continued Demand for IT Pros

According to CompTIA’s State of the Tech Workforce 2024 report, tech occupation employment over the next decade is expected to grow at about twice the rate of overall employment across the economy. Projected growth rates for several tech occupations are well above the national rate, most notably for data scientists and data analysts and cybersecurity analysts and engineers. Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, explains AI is “undoubtedly” the wildcard factor on the minds of many employers and workers. Related:Forrester Speaker Sneak Peek: Analyst Jayesh Chaurasia to Talk AI Data Readiness “While some of the AI hype has moderated, there continues to be plenty of experimentation and anticipation for what comes next,” he says via email. According to CompTIA analysis of Lightcast data, AI job postings account for 10-12% of all tech job postings in recent months. “Every industry is hiring technology professionals,” he says. “There really aren’t high-tech or low-tech industries anymore” He lists infrastructure, software, cybersecurity, and data as the four big buckets, with help desk and support in another category. “Increasingly, the problems become less technology problems and more related to the industry — compliance and privacy, for example,” he says. “You have to know the drivers and priorities within the industry.” He notes that there are also more and more jobs that require technology professionals to interact with other teams and to understand more about the business and the problems they are trying to solve.

Power of Programmatic Upskilling

The Pluralsight survey indicated upskilling employees is proving to be more cost-effective and timelier than hiring new talent. While hiring can cost over $23,000 and take up to 10 weeks, upskilling costs around $5,000 per employee and can be implemented faster. Related:The Impact of AI Skills on Hiring and Career Advancement Despite these advantages, time constraints remain a major barrier to successful upskilling programs, as reported by organizations over the past three years. Pluralsight’s Herbert says it is crucial to make upskilling within the organization “programmatic,” which involves mapping your technologists’ skill-building journey to business needs. “This is where developing a culture of learning comes in,” he says. “If upskilling is integrated as a core business competency, tech teams will have the nimbleness needed to switch focus from one skill area to the next as business needs ebb and flow.” Steve Watt, CIO at Hyland, says that CIOs should also provide robust upskilling opportunities to show IT professionals they’re dedicated to their growth and career interests. “The job market for IT professionals is being swayed by the demands of AI but security and cloud professionals have invaluable skills that are still very much in need,” he explains. By offering opportunities for IT professionals to sharpen their core skills in their roles, companies are helping strengthen their own business while showing talent they’re committed to their long-term success and interests. Adya says that training must balance skills required for basic infrastructure with those needed for swiftly emerging technologies. “For cloud in particular, programs should be self-paced, in collaboration with academic institutions, specialized for local hiring, and grounded in digital reskilling,” he says. The program should additionally incorporate hands-on experiences and input from cross-functional teams. “Companies should additionally create incentives, necessary infrastructure and support to properly add employees to the process,” he says.

Top IT Talent Desire Flexibility

Watt says remote work flexibility continues to be a key differentiator as well. “Because IT and security are ubiquitous across every industry and skills transfer almost regardless of vertical markets, these workers have a lot of options when picking a company or industry to work in,” he says. Being inflexible — especially with IT and security staff when it comes to remote work — can significantly hinder the ability to attract and retain top talent. “I recently spoke with another CIO who had commented that after a rollout of a mandatory three-day-in-office policy they lost 20% of their IT staff in about 4 months,” he says. “They rolled that policy back specifically for IT very quickly.”