If you are in college or thinking about college, you have to put your mind out about 3 to 5 years into the future and try to predict where the needs are going to be; very difficult for IT. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008-2009 Edition provides an excellent starting point for identifying the direction in which this economy is heading. When you are there, check out Chart 7 “Percent change in employment in occupations projected to grow fastest, 2006-16”. These are the new projections for USA careers reaching out for the next 8 years.
The BLS research indicates that the hottest career path deep into the next decade is in IT and specifically in Networking. Fourth on the list is computer software engineers, and coming in a very respectable 17th is forensic science technicians.
This is great news; and, even though we have followed the BLS research for a number of years, it is sometimes easy to get caught up in the statistics. It begs the question: who else is talking about hot careers and what are they saying? Let’s take a broad sweep of some recent news articles and postings.
If you are going to drop a wad of cash on an education, wouldn’t it be great to know if you were going to train for a career that will at least provide a living wage income? What are the degrees that will provide you the best value for your money? We call it “return on investment” (ROI) and the key word here is Value. Clare Kaufman listed on Yahoo! Education the top 5 degrees which offer the best ROI for your education dollar. The five include one MBA, 2 BS degrees, and 2 two-year degrees of which one is in IT. She writes, “Two years in school can afford techies with a wealth of applied skills in network, database, and systems administration; computer programming, Web design, and more. An IT specialist makes an average salary of $62,521…”
CNN posted an article by Anthony Balderrama on the “Ten best jobs for two-year degrees” where he lists the 10 hottest careers and the degrees behind them. Number one on his list is Computer Specialist where he notes median average wages at $71,510 and a 15% projected increase in employment. It is also valuable to note that his #10 choice degree is Computer support specialist with median wages at $42,400, which is about what the entry-level general technical graduate can expect (depending on your location).
A big part of the reason behind the high demand for IT people has to do with the incredible slump in CS and CIS enrollments in colleges since ’01. Many have written about this phenom including myself; so rather than reiterate old material, take a look at some new reports. Phillip Reese writes in the Sacrament Bee,
“In the past five years, Sacramento companies added about 4,100 computer science jobs – about 800 new jobs a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median annual salary for computer science jobs – including programming, Web development and help desk support – is around $70,000…. During the same period, the number of information technology degrees issued by the Los Rios and Sierra community college systems fell 65 percent, from 614 in 2002 to 213 during 2007.”
Supply low + Demand high = great paying careers
But just how high is the demand going to be? Plenty. David Pitt, an AP writer published in Boston.com reports, “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 854,000 professional IT jobs will be added between 2006 and 2016, an increase of about 24 percent. When replacement jobs are added in, total IT job openings in the 10-year period is estimated at 1.6 million…. The bureau estimates that one in 19 new jobs created in the 10-year period will be professional IT positions.” That’s 1.6 million new IT jobs needing 1.6 million new workers.
So, what’s hot in IT? Probably the best people to ask would be the ones looking forward. Eric Chabrow blogged on CIO Insight where the hottest IT jobs are, and unsurprisingly, the hottest two are networking and computer support with systems analysts in a close third. Deb Perelman’s BLS analysis in eweek.com points squarely at security as the next hot niche.
All of this is exciting news, and we have not even begun to talk about other hot items such as the new Health Informatics (HI) industry which is so new and so strong that we cannot even yet see its boundaries, nor IT management such as Database (DBM) which has to get hot if only because there are so few in the pipeline.
So while many believe that 2008 is the year, we in IT academia must have our focus out to 2012 thru 2016 by preparing you to be relevant in that job market.
Snap!
