Hot Tech Skills for 2006

Posted on January 4, 2006

Computerworld has an article about what computer skills will be in demand in 2006. The article says developers, security experts and project managers will be in the most demand. Security sounds like the most obvious need with so many important tasks moving online but apparently many IT workers have already jumped on this and added security certificiations to their portfolio. Here is what Computerworld said about security-related jobs.

David Foote, principal and chief research officer at Foote Partners LLC in New Canaan, Conn., says there has been strong demand for people with Cisco security skills as well as those with IT auditing certifications. Still, he says, compensation for security skills has tapered off in recent months as many unemployed and underemployed IT workers have obtained security skills to become more marketable. The resulting increase in security specialists has helped to deflate wages, at least in the short term, says Foote.
Dice's Melland says he's starting to see skills shortages in different geographies, including a need for network security experience and government security clearances. To meet its own changing business requirements, NStar is adjusting its skill mix of full-time IT workers and contractors through attrition, new hires and retraining, says Zimon. High on its list are security analysts because NStar is in the final throes of a four-year effort to create a team of security and risk management specialists.

As technology continues to go global adding a second language to your resume could be beneficial as well. The article said that most of the jobs being outsourced are the lower-level tech jobs.

There's a lot of talk about developer jobs being sent overseas, but "most of the stuff that's going offshore is low-level coding jobs," says Craig Symons, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

Even if that is true there are a lot of programmers that made a decent income doing these lower-level coding jobs.