Research from recruitment specialists Robert Half Technology has revealed that cloud computing is the most lucrative skill to have in the IT job market today.

Cloud topped the bill in the survey of 100 IT directors and CIOs across the UK, with 39% of respondents citing it as the most important.

Security (37%) and project management skills (33%) were the next popular, with virtualisation (29%) and network administration (27%) rounding out the top five.

Interestingly, coding and development skills were mentioned although not as popular; knowledge of C# was cited by 15% of those polled, compared to 13% who said Java.

This translates into the hiring of staff, according to the research. Nearly half (41%) of IT directors said they would hire specialist staff to support cloud initiatives, although the same number of respondents said they had enough employees for their cloud projects. More than four in five (82%) of …