Core skills
The 'core' technical IT skills, according to e-skills, demanded by employers for both contractors and permanent staff are unchanged from last year except for the addition of .Net this year:
- SQL
- C++
- Unix
- Oracle
- C
- Windows NT
- Java
- Visual Basic
- MS Office
- .Net
Contract staff with SAP and Windows 2000 skills were consistently in demand in 2002 and on the permanent side SQL Server and TCP/IP skills were in demand, although TCP/IP as a percentage of all permanent advertisements decreased in each quarter over the last year.
Small increases in demand have been tracked over the last two quarters in the following skills areas: Freehand, OLAP, Smalltalk, BPCS and EPOS for permanent positions, with JDBC, JSP EPOS, VPN, VBA and Switches had increased demand for contractors.
.Net
Significantly, .Net skills are appearing on the must-have list alongside Java and XML. Hull University is developing--with Microsoft--the first .Net Post Graduate Degree course for Computer Science in the UK, beginning in September 2003.
As part of the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance, universities create a "lending library" where students can legally access copies of the products for home use.
Dr David Grey, a lecturer at Hull University said he believes that providing students with the inner workings of the .Net Framework will give them a significant edge in the skills and expertise needed to excel in the Web services area.
Soft skills
There is a trend for firms to hire more business-aware staff with customer focus, client-facing and interpersonal abilities but also in more technologically specific areas such as:
- Project Management
- Security
- XML
- EAI
- .Net
- C#
Training and Certification
2003 will be an undeniably tough year for all IT employees within the tech sector. As always the candidates with the right skills set, training, certification and experience will do best.
15%
7%
