With the rapid growth in specialised IT programming skills, which
one should you gun for? Nicholas Enticknap reports
For the first time, an Internet-related skill was the most
sought after over the last three months. Java featured in 3,700 job
advertisements in the latest issue of the SSP/Computer
Weekly Survey of Appointments Data and Trends, over 400 more
than the previous chart-topper, C++.
Java demand is led by the software houses, which advertised just
over 2,000 jobs during the three months. It was the most sought
after skill in the financial and media sectors as well and is, with
Windows NT, one of only two skills to feature in the top 10 of all
the industry sector league tables.
Generic Internet expertise has underlined the changing face of
IT by retaining its position at number three. It was the only other
skill to appear in more than 3,000 ads over the period, nearly
treble the level of demand a year ago.
Other Web-based skills also feature strongly in the table. HTML
is now in ninth place, while XML, which only entered the league
table this year, is at number 12. Wap, another of the year's
newcomers, is at number 22, up three places from the second
quarter.
Nearly 40% of Wap jobs are advertised by the communications
companies: the only other industry sector league table to feature
the wireless protocol is publishing, which is the most
Internet-aware sector, with Java comfortably top, HTML in third
place and XML in sixth place.
Only two other skills in the top 25 appear in more ads this time
than a year ago. The rise of Corba to 17th illustrates the
increasing dominance of object-oriented programming development,
while one place higher is Solaris. Its rise can be attributed to
the growth of e-commerce, as Sun servers are proving very popular
with application and Internet service providers.
Solaris appeared in just five more ads this time than a year
ago, but that 1% growth is much better than for Unix overall, which
fell by almost exactly the market average of 42%. It remains in
fourth place. IBM's Unix variant, AIX, saw demand fall by a similar
amount, and it is now 34th.
Another Internet-related skill, TCP/IP, almost joined the growth
skills, with demand down just 5% from a year ago.
These skills are being looked for in applicants for all kinds of
job position, and not just for specialist Web development jobs.
There were only 700 of these advertised in the press during the
quarter, just 3% of the 21,000 total IT jobs on offer.
The client/server skills which dominated the league table during
the 1990s are now falling from favour. Even Windows NT is losing
out to the Internet, and SSP's figures must give Microsoft serious
cause for thought. Demand for NT expertise is down by more than
half relative to this time last year, from 4,900 jobs to 2,200, and
it has fallen to sixth in the table.
Windows 2000 is tabulated separately by SSP, but there were only
140 jobs listing this latest variant of NT during the quarter.
Adding them in to the NT total does not affect NT's position in the
table.
The software house sector is largely responsible for NT's lost
popularity as Java and the other Internet skills take an increasing
hold. Microsoft's flagship appeared in fewer than 800 ads from the
sector, compared to 2,000 a year ago and 4,500 in the year before
that.
The user sectors, with the exception of publishing, are still
committed. NT remains the most popular skill in the public sector,
a position it has held for nine quarters now. It is also still top
in the engineering and utilities/energy sectors.
Other high flyers of the 1990s to lose a lot of ground over the
quarter included Oracle (down 57%), Sybase (down 59%) and Visual
Basic (down 49%). Oracle has fallen rapidly to seventh from its
position at the top of the table just five quarters ago. Sybase has
suffered from the fall in financial sector recruitment: these firms
account for 40% of all Sybase demand.
Visual Basic lost its position at the top of the financial
sector league table this time, with Java featuring most strongly
here as well over the three months. But Visual Basic remains
popular in the software house sector, which accounted for 60% of
all demand for this language. Two other skills, Progress (down 61%)
and Access (down 67%), have now fallen out of the top 25. All of
these skills can be regarded as legacy now!
Novell, which disappeared from the top 25 last time, featured in
less than 200 jobs in the past three months. The adverse publicity
surrounding job losses at the company more than offset the arrival
of Netware 6. Novell still shows strongly in the public sector
league table, which accounts for a quarter of all demand.
Surprisingly, both major groupware products, Exchange and Notes,
have also lost a lot of popularity, with demand falling by 61% and
81% respectively. They are now in 32nd and 33rd places.
Enterprise resource planning systems have faded following the
Y2K boom, though this is less surprising as user attention turns to
customer relationship and supply chain management and
business-to-business initiatives. Demand for SAP skills fell by
three quarters, with just 260 jobs on offer over the three months.
Of these, 170 were offered by software houses, compared to 650 a
year ago and 1,400 the year before that. In the manufacturing
sector, though, SAP was the third most popular skill over the three
months jointly with Unix. Peoplesoft demand fell by two-thirds:
there were just 55 of those jobs advertised.
The traditional legacy skills have all fared worse still, as one
would expect with mainframe and AS/400 site recruitment falling to
their lowest ever levels. Cobol remains in the top 25 - just - but
featured in well under 300 ads. Demand for Cics, DB2, MVS and
RPG400 fell by three quarters or more, as much as 90% in the case
of MVS which featured in just 92 ads this time compared with 900 a
year ago and 1,600 the year before that.
Some specialist IBM skills are disappearing even faster, along
with the demand for system programmers. JCL and VSAM featured in
just eight ads, VTAM in two and JES2 in none at all. A year ago
there were 187 JES2 jobs on offer, 159 requiring knowledge of VSAM
and 101 calling on VTAM skills.
Table 1: Skills most in demand over the past quarter
| 3Q00 Pos | 3Q99 Pos | Skill | Jobs on
offer | Jobs on
offer | Change
3Q00 |
| | | | in 3Q00 | in 3Q99 | cf
3Q00 |
| 1 | 8 | Java | 3,703 | 2,638 | +40% |
| 2 | 1 | C++ | 3,253 | 5,947 | -45% |
| 3 | 13 | Internet | 3,075 | 1,064 | +189% |
| 4 | 4 | Unix | 2,626 | 4,473 | -41% |
| 5 | 5 | SQL | 2,477 | 4,184 | -41% |
| 6 | 3 | Windows NT | 2,203 | 4,929 | -55% |
| 7 | 2 | Oracle | 2,184 | 5,064 | -57% |
| 8 | 6 | Visual
Basic | 2,001 | 3,920 | -49% |
| 9 | 12 | HTML | 1,823 | 1,109 | +64% |
| 10 | 7 | C | 1,799 | 3,252 | -45% |
| 11 | 11 | TCP/IP | 1,088 | 1,141 | -5% |
| 12 | - | XML | 1,033 | 0 | N/A |
| 13 | 17 | Object-oriented | 801 | 954 | -16% |
| 14 | 18 | Lan | 519 | 943 | -45% |
| 15 | 15 | Wan | 485 | 1,013 | -52% |
| 16 | 30 | Solaris | 443 | 438 | +1% |
| 17 | - | Corba | 433 | 0 | N/A |
| 18 | 9 | Windows | 401 | 1,482 | -73% |
| 19 | 27 | Delphi | 325 | 566 | -43% |
| 20 | 22 | Sybase | 321 | 790 | -59% |
| 21 | 23 | Office | 304 | 789 | -61% |
| 22 | - | Wap | 281 | 0 | N/A |
| 23 | 35 | Ada | 278 | 315 | -12% |
| 24 | 10 | Cobol | 273 | 1,248 | -78% |
| 25 | 16 | SAP | 262 | 994 | -74% |
| all jobs | | | 21,054 | 36,228 | -42% |
Table 2: Top 10 skills in each industry sector
1
| All | CV | SW | CC | FB | DR | MP | En | Mn | UE | PS |
| 1 Java | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 7 |
| 2 C++ | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 7 | 3 | - | 9 | 10 |
| 3 Internet | - | 2 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 3 |
| 4 Unix | 3 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 8 | - | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 SQL | 8 | 4 | - | 2 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 6 Windows
NT | 4 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| 7 Oracle | 6 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 8 | 4 | - | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| 9 HTML | - | 6 | - | - | 3 | 3 | 8 | 7 | 10 | 8 |
| 10 C | 1 | 9 | 5 | - | - | - | 2 | - | - | - |
Key:
CV: computer suppliers
W: software houses
CC: comms firms
FB: financial/banking
DR: distribution/retail
MP: media/publishing
En: engineering
Mn: manufacturing
UE: utilities/energy
PS: public sector
The SSP survey
This article is based on information contained in The
SSP/Computer Weekly Quarterly Survey of Appointments Data and
Trends.
The Survey analyses advertisements for computer professionals in
the trade press and the quality national dailies and Sundays. It is
primarily intended for recruitment agencies and IT managers with a
substantial recruitment requirement.
The posts advertised are broken down in the Survey into 63 job
categories. Within each job category, the Survey provides details
of the number of posts advertised and the average and median
national salaries offered for the last quarter and for each of the
previous four.
The Survey provides further analyses within each job category by
hardware type, industry type and region. It also provides a
breakdown for the major job categories of the technical skills most
in demand. In each analysis, it again details the average salary on
offer for each of the past five quarters.
The price of a single issue of the survey is £ 225, and for an
annual subscription is £ 325. This covers four issues, and includes
a free copy of a Windows-based software product which allows
selection of combinations of region, industry and software skills
for a specified job type. For further information write to Julie
McInally, Floor 12, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey
SM2 5AS