Top IT Skills Employers Are Looking For

 According to Computerworld ‘s 2011 annual forecast survey of companies who plan on increasing hiring in next 12 months, 23 percent of the survey’s respondents reported that they plan on increasing their staff. According to the survey, there are 11 crucial skills that employers are looking for in potential IT candidates.

1. Forty-seven percent of survey respondents will be looking for incumbents who possess programming or application development skills. With companies needing to utilize IT to grow their businesses, expertise in in agile programming, rapid programming and RAD is highly sought-after.
2. Forty-three percent of survey respondents will be looking for incumbents with exceptional project management skills to manage IT projects and IT staff.
3. Technical support/help desk experience is a skill in demand for forty-two percent of the survey respondents.
4. Networking skills are in high demand for 38 percent of survey respondents, although finding incumbents who possess these skills may be a challenge. According to a Robert Half Technology survey of 1,400 CIOs, finding applicants with the skills to convert non-virtual environments into virtual ones is won’t be easy.
5. IT security expertise in encryption, compliance and auditing, incident analysis, data loss prevention, identity and access management, biometrics, threat and vulnerability assessment, voice-over-IP system safeguards, web content filtering and e-discovery support is also among  high-demand skills survey respondents are looking for.
6. Data center skills such as storage experience will be in top demand for 21 percent of the Computerworld survey respondents.
7. Web 2.0 skills such as Adobe Flex, Adobe Flash, JavaScript, JavaScript Object Notation and AJAX are the skills that 17 percent of the survey’s respondents will be looking for.
8. Telecommunications skills are highly wanted by 16 percent of survey respondents. Incumbents with experience integrating various communication tools and designing telecommunication infrastructures will be a plus.
9. Business intelligence skills will be another sought-after skill in the months to come, according to 13 percent of the survey respondents. This skill is crucial as more IT departments look for ways to enhance company profitability.
10. One survey respondent reported that hiring employees with collaboration architecture experience will be a high priority for their firm.
11. Many companies will be looking for incumbents with business acumen and communication skills, according to the survey. Incumbents with an understanding of IT technology and the industry who can communicate technical concepts will be highly desired.

The job outlook for IT remains volatile, but as IT departments transition from a support function to a profitability model, workers with skills that will enable them to quickly adapt to changing market conditions are the ones who will fare out the best.