Here are the in-demand technology skills for 2021

The rapid adoption of digital technologies across every sphere of the economy has accelerated the demand for people with advanced technical skills. These are six key technology areas where skills will likely be in high demand in 2021:

Cloud

The demand for cloud computing skills is on the rise as more organisations are adopting cloud services to build greater elasticity in their business operations. Cloud migration, cloud management and cloud native development within multi-cloud environments are going to be priority areas. Building skills across cloud technologies and cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, and others should be a priority for IT professionals.

Cybersecurity

Threats and vulnerabilities continue to grow with the rapid pace of cloud deployments and the shift to employees working remotely. However, organisations are finding it difficult to find and hire qualified cybersecurity professionals to protect their security infrastructure and networks. This complex, fast-growing space requires strong technical aptitude as well as soft analytic and strategic skills. It is important for cybersecurity professionals to build a deep understanding of the architecture, administration, and management of operating systems, networking, along with virtualisation software.

End-to-end enterprise cybersecurity services with skills across applied cybersecurity, cyber defence and managed security services are sure to be in greater demand in 2021 and for the foreseeable future.

Data & AI

These are two areas that are rapidly expanding hand-in-hand with cloud technology. These technologies will continue to be key drivers of economic value for organisations to drive intelligent automation, labour & capital augmentation, and innovation diffusion. Learning skills such as Informatica PowerCenter, Python Programming Language, Hadoop, Splunk, Tableau, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Virtual Agents, Computer Vision, WorkFusion, Amazon Alexa will be important skills for IT professionals seeking AI or data science-related positions.

Software engineering

As business and technology strategies become indistinguishable, software engineering is laying a strong foundation for companies to compete on their technology architecture. Enterprises have more technology choices to make than ever before. From the distribution of cloud deployments, types of AI models, and wide range of edge devices to the design, or even basic physics, of hardware and computation—each layer of the stack is expanding into new dimensions. Enterprises can custom tailor every layer of it now but building and wielding the most competitive stack means bringing software engineering goals at the core of organisation goals.

Enterprise platforms

As organisations continue adapting to the workplace of the future, chief experience officers are using enterprise platforms in the cloud to create new workflows for new value chains, transforming experiences across siloed systems and functions across the enterprise. Hence, there is a very high demand for skills in modern software as a service (SaaS) applications such as SAP Cloud, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle Cloud and Workday.

Industry X

In an effort to drive greater efficiency, resilience and sustainable growth, organisations are seeking to embed intelligence into nearly every facet of their enterprise – from research and development, engineering and production to operations and customer service. This trend will expand the need for professionals with advanced skills in several areas such as robotics, digital manufacturing operations, IOT platforms & services, and connected worker solutions, with a priority on competencies in areas such as Advanced Embedded System Engineering, Embedded Applications Testing, Manufacturing Engineering MES, IXO IOT Applications.

Above all, one of the most important skills in wide demand today, irrespective of role and career stage, is a person’s ability and motivation to learn continuously.

(The writer is Managing Director, Lead - HR, Advanced Technology Centers in India, Accenture)