Many IT professionals will seek increased salaries and opportunities to advance their skills outside of their current organizations come 2019, according to the 2019 State of IT Careers published today by Spiceworks. While fewer than 10% of IT professionals plan to leave the industry altogether, more than a quarter say they will look for new roles within the sector.
The report found that 51% of IT pros in Europe have plans to find a new employer next year, in large part because they are seeking a pay raise, though more than half (51%) want to advance their skills and 37% would prefer an improved work/life balance.
“Overall, the job outlook looks promising for IT professionals in 2019,” said Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks. “As a result, many tech professionals are polishing up their resumes in hopes of landing a position that offers a more competitive salary or an opportunity to advance their skills. At the same time, many organizations in Europe are eager to find employees with the right expertise to help upgrade their outdated infrastructure and stay compliant with GDPR.”
According to the report, 32% of organizations intend to hire more IT staff in 2019, which will hopefully allow them to overcome their biggest challenge of keeping IT infrastructure up-to-date. While 45% of respondents said that refreshing aging infrastructure is expected to be their greatest obstacle, 43% of organizations in Europe noted that regulations will likely be a struggle for them.
When hiring new staff, participating organizations said that cybersecurity skills and AI expertise will be the top skill sets they look for in recruits.
“Companies looking to maximize efficiencies and grow profits understand the potential artificial intelligence has to automate tasks and reduce the cost of doing business. But to effectively deploy and manage AI-enabled tech, organizations need workers with relevant AI skill sets and experience. And large enterprises, which often have resources dedicated to R&D, are already ahead of the game when it comes to experimenting with and getting value out of AI," Tsai said in the report.
While larger enterprises are looking for cybersecurity and AI expertise, midsize companies intend to hire staff adept in DevOps, and smaller companies will likely seek out IT professionals well-versed in hardware and infrastructure, according to the report. Still, 59% of responding companies have no plans to make changes to their IT staff next year, while 5% will decrease their IT staff and 8% remain unsure of what will happen with IT staffing.
