Privacy consultants and data architects could become the most in-demand IT roles in the coming years
A majority of UK employers believe a shortage of digital talent within their company has seen them forfeit a competitive advantage, according to a new study revealing the ten digital roles that could be crucial to success in the coming years.
Technology consultancy CapgeminI analysed data from professional social network LinkedIn analysed the supply of digital talent across multiple industries and countries to find that British business owners were concerned about the skillsets within their company, but most were doing nothing to bridge the gap in talent.
The subsequent report expanded on the differences between so-called hard? and ‘soft? digital roles. Hard skills, in areas such as automation, cyber security and advanced analytics, remained in demand. However, soft digital skills identified primarily as customer-centricity and a passion for learning were those most absent from in UK workplaces.
Meanwhile, employees had their say. Over half said their company’s digital training programmes as useless and boring, while around a third believed their existing skill set would become redundant in the next three years.
Therefore, opportunities to develop digital skills within a workplace could become an important recruitment tool. Some 70 per cent of UK employees would seek a move to another role if they felt their digital skills were stagnating, while almost half said they were likely to gravitate towards jobs that offered better digital skill development.
Read more: UK business ownersreveal which business tasks they want automated within three years
Researchers also found that businesses offering an entrepreneurial, startup-like culture that promoted agility and flexibility would be most capable of attracting digitally-skilled workers.
Commenting on the findings, Claudia Crummenerl, head of executive leadership at Capgemini, said now was the time for business owners to look ahead and ensure their workforce is ready for the future challenges.
organisations face a mammoth task in terms of digital upskilling, she said.
given that skill redundancy is a key concern among our employee respondents, ensuring a clear development path is essential to address this. In the future, the digital talent gap will continue to widen and no company can sit back and be comfortable.
Based on the analysis from LinkedIn’s data within the report, on average Data Scientist and Full Stack Developers have had the highest demand over the past year. Below shows a list of the top 10 digital roles that are set to gain the most prominence in the next two to three years, in order of position:
Based on LinkedIn data, the following ten digital roles are set to become the most important in the next two to three years
Information security/Privacy consultant
Chief digital officer/Chief digital information officer
Data architect
Digital project manager
Data engineer
Chief customer officer
Personal web manager
Chief internet of things officer
Data scientist
Chief analytics officer/chief data officer
Crummenerl added: Organisations need to be consistently innovating and planning their workforce evolution.
Business Advice visited Paris Viva Tech 2017to find out more about today’s technology landscape
