Diversity, transferable skills and upgrading skill sets: The keys to cloud employability in 2018

There are plenty of new jobs being created in the cloud sector – but organisations need to think long-term around securing the cloud skills their business needs.

That is according to a new report from UK technical recruiter Experis. The company, whose latest Tech Cities Job Watch focuses on the cloud sector, explores the skills required as well as the employers who may be looking for them.

According to the report, Google offers the most attractive salary out of the four biggest cloud providers from the Q2 data, with £71,701. This is just ahead of AWS (£70,090), followed by IBM (£68,251) and Microsoft Azure (£64,647). For contractors, AWS, with £502 per day, has the best rates, ahead of IBM (£492), Azure (£471) and Google (£445).

The vast majority of roles advertised in the UK however come from the big two. AWS, with more than half (54%) of all jobs advertised, and Azure (41%) made up 95% of postings, with Google (4%) and IBM (1%) severely trailing.

The report gives five takeaways when it comes to businesses looking for the right cloud skills; be willing to offer attractive remuneration; offer the opportunity to upgrade existing skillsets; cross-train your staff, with SQL and MySQL cited as transferable skills; consider outsourcing; and address the diversity imbalance.

This publication has long-since explored the problem of the cloud skills gap, with various reasons blamed as to why supply outstrips demand. According to a study from Skytap published in June, organisations can be ‘their own worst enemy’ in this regard, with many wanting to migrate to the cloud through refactoring or rewriting existing applications – thus requiring the highest level of IT skill.

According to Firebrand Training technical writer Alex Bennett, security, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), and serverless architectures are among the key skills employees need in 2018 to be noticed – but also noting the cross-sector skill sets of Experis. “The key to employability in today’s cloud jobs market is to gain cross-platform skills,” Bennett wrote. “By transferring your knowledge between cloud platforms, you’ll diversify your skillset and boost your employability in 2018.”

“In spite of the difficulties, business models are becoming increasingly reliant on the cloud to function,” wrote Dave Hannah, Experis brand leader in his foreword to the report. “As a result, demand for cloud talent is soaring, as employers recognise that they need to recruit specialists to lead adoption and integration.

“Since cloud adoption is only set to increase in the years ahead, we can expect the war for talent to intensify,” added Hannah. “In a market like this, it’s important that organisations take a long-term view of how they will stay ahead of the competition and secure the skills their business needs.”

You can read the full Experis report here (email required).