The 6 Top Tech Jobs of 2021

Adam Shapley, Managing Director, Hays New Zealand and Hays IT Australia & New Zealand

We’ve said goodbye to the 2010’s and welcomed in a new year and decade, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the IT talent gap, which continues to afflict the tech industry.

Innovation and emerging technologies remain the driving force of disruption, impacting nearly every industry and organisation – and providing plenty of job opportunities. Here we present our latest tech trends for 2020 and outline opportunities for IT professionals to upskill, explore new and or different career prospects or find assurance in their current tech skill-set. Read our list below:

1. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

According to research house Gartner, RPA software is the fastest-growing segment of the global enterprise software market. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that RPA specialists are an area of mounting demand. RPA specialists will be required as organisations investigate ways to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives to remain competitive and drive innovation. Industries including insurance, banking, finance, human resources and telecommunications are the biggest adopters of RPA. If you’re thinking about upskilling in RPA, there are several online courses available. Click here to find out more.

2. Internet of Things (IOT)

From your Google Home to your Fitbit and your home security smart cameras, there are literally millions of devices, gadgets, appliances and “things” that are connected to the internet, and they are all collecting and sharing data. As the IoT industry soars, so does the demand for IoT skills.

The IoT talent gap is spread across a range of technologies including security, cloud computing, data science and analytics. In addition, there are numerous industry specific verticals you can consider too, such as home automation, healthcare, automotive and insurance. As you can see, there is ample opportunity to develop your career in the IoT industry, provided you are motivated enough and possess – or are willing to gain – the right skills.

3. Cyber security

In a report we released, our Cyber Security Talent Report, we revealed that two of the top five cyber security challenges organisations face trace back to the acute cyber security talent gap: a lack of in-house expertise and difficultly finding the right talent. The shortage of cyber talent will continue to create strong job opportunities for suitably qualified candidates in 2020. We will see particularly strong demand for Security GRC Specialists. As data breaches and cyber threats become more common, they’re considered a high-level risk by C-suite executives. As a result, security experts with experience across IT risk, compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity are highly sought. If you’re interested in pursuing a career in cyber security, download our Cyber Security Talent Report.

4. Cloud

The adoption of cloud computing services remains high across most enterprises. In addition, more and more organisations recognise the benefits of multi-cloud and or hybrid cloud solutions, with Gartner predicting that by 2021, over 75% of medium and large organisations will have adopted this type of solution. Either way, cloud professionals are in demand now and will remain so well beyond 2020. While we are seeing more IT professionals upskilling and gaining experience in this field, there is a shortage of those with proven commercial experience. Cloud professionals most commonly work in AWS and Azure, but Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is also increasing in popularity.

5. Full-Stack

Full-Stack Developers continue to offer copious benefits to organisations. With the perfect mix of front-end and back-end skills, Full-Stack Developers are well-versed across a range of technologies. Stack Overflow’s 2019 Developer Survey of over 80,000 developers revealed that over 50% identified as a Full-Stack Developer. Though this is such a high percentage of the developer population, full-stack development skills are still in demand by employers. Organisations both small and large seek full-stack .net developers and full-stack java developers. The front-end technologies associated with these roles are predominantly react.js, node.js or angular.js. Cloud experience, certification and microservices experience is desirable. So too are engineers with strong API development experience.

6. Data

The importance of data and its value to organisations is increasingly being realised and as such the demand for data professionals continues to grow at a rapid rate. Data analysts, IT Architects, Test Managers and Data Visualisers are all roles that fall under the data science umbrella. In particular, Data Scientists and Engineers with experience in SQL, R or Python and data visualisation tools are highly sought. Data Engineers with a balance of software engineering and data science experience are in particularly short supply.


About this author

Adam Shapley, Managing Director, Hays New Zealand and Hays IT Australia & New Zealand, began working at Hays in 2001 and during this time has held significant leadership roles across the business including responsibility for multiple specialisms in various locations across Australia & New Zealand.

In 2018, he was appointed to Hays ANZ Management Board and made Managing Director for Hays New Zealand.

Adam is also responsible for the strategic direction of the Hays Information Technology business across Australia & New Zealand including driving growth across Digital Technology, Projects & Business Change and IT Operations & Support.

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