The global economy is still having a bit of a tough time recovering and the recent issues in the euro zone aren’t helping. Within the US, there has been some recovery, but job growth has been feeble and unemployment increased slightly in May. This and big layoffs this year by companies like Yahoo and HP has left many technical professionals and hopefuls are wondering about the future for careers in the technology industry.

IT Market Analysis Suggests…

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Of course, there are lots of opinions and projections about the matter. Forrester recently released a report, European Information and Communications Technology Market 2012 to 2013, that suggests purchases of technology by European business and governments will grow by 1.2 percent in 2012 in and 3.1 percent in 2013, if the Euro doesn’t meet its demise. Forrester also predicts growth of US tech market will slow, but continue to grow in the mid-single digit range; the Asia Pacific tech market will follow similar trends. Analysts at JPMorgan reduced their IT spending growth projections for 2012 from 3.8 percent to 2.2 percent, citing economic conditions, but added that some categories like cloud computing and security software would likely outperform the market. Although these are not job numbers, IT spending can be a leading indicator for employment. If there is no IT investment, it is unlikely there will be IT job growth.

In addition to technology spending, technology trends also impact the employment outlook for technical professions. Each year some skills become more important and others fade away. Gartner predicted ten trends would impact IT most in 2012 at their annual symposium at the end of 2011:

• Media tablets and beyond
• Mobile-centric applications and interfaces
• Contextual and social user experience
• Internet of Things
• App stores and marketplaces
• Next-generation analytics
• Big data
• In-memory computing
• Extreme low-energy servers
• Cloud computing

Information Week’s research found that the increasing use of data by businesses to make decisions is driving substantial growth in big data and analysis related professions. Analysis by EMC supported Information Week’s forecasts, showing big shortages for data scientists. Analysis by Wanted Analytics found that demand for cloud computing skills increased 92 percent between February 2011 and February 2012 and over 400 percent since February 2010. This month’s Enterprise 2.0 conference identified four major IT trends that are shaping the future of IT:  consumerization, social collaboration, big data and gamification.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) biennial update of employment projections provided a more direct examination of technology employment. The agency predicts that all computer occupations in the US will increase by 22 percent by 2020, which some analysts have called anemic when compared to markets like China and India. Offshoring will continue to reduce the availability of US-based jobs in some fields like programming. The BLS projects demand for developers will increase from 28 percent to 32 percent; the BLS predicts demand for database administrators will increase by 31 percent and IT managers by 18 percent.

The BLS analysis has a number of vocal critics. Many industry analysts say the agency’s projections:

• have been wildly wrong in the past
• extend too far into the future to be reliable
• look at a small segment of IT occupations and completely exclude newer roles that tend to be more hybrid in nature
• are not suitable for volatile markets like IT

In spite of the criticisms, the BLS statistics are regularly cited across the industry.

An article in Forbes last month provided a much less detailed projection. Forbes used jobs data and employment cites to identify promising technology careers that didn’t even exist a decade ago like mobile app developer, user experience designer and market research data miner.

What This Means

Although the many analyses of the IT outlook vary and take different perspectives, some common themes exist. Companies are becoming more data driven and computing is become more mobile, which is increasing demand for those skills. Those trends are intersecting and also increasing demand for supporting skills like user experience and cloud computing. Even in the face of economic decline, job numbers for these competencies should still see an increase because can help companies save money, operate more efficiently and be more competitive.

Unfortunately, many students are not graduating with the skills employers are seeking. A study by Millennial Branding showed 34 percent of companies are recruiting engineering and computer information systems majors. The number of computer science graduates is significantly less than the demand, although according to data from the Computing Research Association, the numbers are increasing.

Computer science degrees aren’t the only educational area the tech industry needs. Library science is a really hot degree right now because of big data trend. Library science improves knowledge of techniques to manage large amounts of data. Majors in mathematics, statistics and actuarial sciences have similar value for big data related professions.

The market for technical professionals isn’t growing as fast as it was in the boom years, but that was a bubble and the technology market tends to be cyclical.  However, pursuing a career in technology is solid bet, but technologists cannot become complacent. There is constant market innovation and professionals should dedicate themselves continuous study and acquisition of new skills. In addition, soft skills like verbal and written communication and negotiation have also grown in importance. Technology solutions drive the business and implementers will find themselves working directly with non-technical users to solve problems.