Dive Brief:
- Skill sets demanded by the tech industry are constantly changing, prompting job seekers to remain agile and up to date on current programming languages, according to an Indeed report. The year-over-year growth for potential hires searching for React skills, a JavaScript library used for user interfaces, grew 313%, while employers searching for it increased 229%.
- While searches for jobs including Linux programming grew by 31%, employers reduced their search for this skill by 27%. Similarly, candidates continued to search for jobs in need of Python with a 29% increase, while employers reduced their search by 18%.
- Job seekers' searches for AWS increased 98% — nearly double the 50% growth for Azure searches.
Dive Insight:
About 64% of programmers are full-stack developers and about 24% are back-end web developers. But deciding what programs are still relevant in the enterprise is a frustration all CIOs come to face with every new stage in digital transformation.
Though the technology landscape tends to outpace the skills needed to maintain it, usually one programing language lays the foundation for another. For example, despite Python's slight decrease in searches, it is still integrated in other searched programs like Azure, Spark and Django, according to the report.
Employers decreasing their search for specific programming skills indicates a value decline in the program itself, though some "dead" languages are kept alive for sake of an outdated system. In contrast, the hike in React searches means companies are growing more reliant on consumer-facing technology companies.
But the need for cloud-based skills are also on the rise because the move to modernize is unavoidable. Companies that lack a team experienced in cloud stand to lose more than $258 million every year. About 65% of IT professionals say that kind of strain put on their companies limits any major innovation.
