After reviewing Global IT Trends For 2009, it became quite evident that despite the global economic down turn, the future of the IT industry still remains extremely bright. As a matter of fact, forecasts from industry leaders project that IT specialist would be pivotal to the success of businesses this Year.

According to the Baseline magazine;

… Many of the hottest roles and skills address issues specific to survival, such as productivity, efficiency and process improvement. Most relevant are those experts who can use technology to help drive profit ….. quoting David Foote- chief research officer for Foote Partners.

This, no doubt, is in line with the increasing interest in the adaptation and use of Social Media for market development, not to mention the increase in the deployment and use of Web 2.0 applications, Web/Video conferencing, and Telepresence systems.

Below is an excerpt from a chart in a report by ‘David White, JISC funded ‘SPIRE’ project 2007’, representing trends in Web 2.0 usage;

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Though the current job market is brutal, it is quite evident that some IT specializations remain in high demand. According to Foote, Executives are interested in keeping their customers, getting new customers, making acquisitions and anything to keep the revenue channel going.

Here is a list of “hot” IT jobs for 2009 à la The Baseline Mag;

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Brace Yourself ……..

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• Business intelligence Experts
  BI experts can help organizations “In a lot of decisions having to do with how the customer base is changing, market differentiation, pricing and services.” Foote says

• Resiliency Services Professionals
  while many larger enterprises may be slimming down, some of their already mature business continuity practices, resiliency services are big in the mid-market. Many of these jobs will be through outsource services firms.

• Vendor Procurement Specialists
  “It’s pretty clear that in this next year, companies are going to be renegotiating contracts like crazy,” Foote says. A savvy vendor procurement specialist is critical to getting the upper hand in these negotiations.

• Outsourcing and Vendor Managers
  Slightly different than a procurement specialist, vendor and outsourcing managers are project management specialists who act as liaisons and enforce SLAs once the ink dries on the contract.

• Enterprise Architects
  Forrester Research voted this one as “Very Hot” last August in an internal survery of analysts. Since the economy tanked, the role’s importance has grown as IT is called to automate and streamline processes and infrastructure.

• ITIL Managers
  Governance and standardization are keys to getting automation efforts off the ground in an orderly fashion, and companies will be paying a premium for ITIL and business process experts in 2009.

• Virtualization Gurus
  HR gurus with the job site Dice.com are reporting that even though IT job listings went down 12 percent last year, virtualization postings went up 37 percent.

• Security Architects
  IT security is staffing up, and some of the highest demand is for architects who can understand the complexities of various IT ecosystems and emerging risks from technology like virtualization.

• AJAX Developers
  Businesses will continue to leverage Web 2.o technology to differentiate themselves, so it’s clear that AJAX and XML skills remain in high demand.

• Storage Directors
  Another hot role per Forrester, this one is critical as organizations hope to coordinate for better storage utilization rates, slimming down on hardware purchase costs in the process.

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The Mobile industry is not left out! According to a report titled “Mobile Internet 2010,”- there are more than 4 billion wireless subscribers globally and many of these will be using their handset as the main Internet terminal.

In order for that potential to be achieved however, the report said carriers need to boost their networks, and handsets makers need to do a better job of incorporating Web services into a phone’s user interface.

It goes without saying that Mobile application developers would also be in huge demand this year.We just have to wait and see how it all unfolds.

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