As companies seek to embrace these emerging technologies and digital transformation more broadly in order to remain competitive, the demand for tech skills has never been higher. But demand is far outstripping supply – in turn hampering growth. With approximations that the digital skills gap is costing the UK economy £12.8bn and reports that tech jobs are up by 191% – the need for tech skills is now.
With this in mind, we spoke to Kavita Kurup, Global Head of Human Resources, UST, about what she thinks will be the top tech skills needed in 2023.
Kavita serves as the Global Human Resource at UST – a leading digital technology solutions company that provides advanced computing and digital services to Global 1000 companies, leveraging innovative technology solutions & pioneering social programs. Her global team of HR practitioners is re-imagining leadership and talent practices to create a dynamic, challenging and work environment, fuelling UST’ s differentiation in the market and the organization’s purpose of transforming lives.
Here are Kavita’s predictions for the three most in-demand tech skills for next year:
CYBERSECURITY SKILLS TO BUILD BUSINESS RESILIENCE
Globally, as cyber-attacks show no sign of wavering and the costs associated with them continue to increase at an alarming rate – up 2.6% from last year, costing organisations US$ 4.35 million on average per attack. Being able to identify vulnerabilities within the business and implement protective measures are now critical to business resilience. Organisations are looking for people who can conduct risk assessments and identify ways to solve or defend the business against both internal and external threats. Employees are also expected to engage in continuous learning and development to identify vulnerabilities in the latest technologies and look at how malicious actors may exploit them.
CLOUD COMPUTING SKILLS TO DRIVE THE GREEN TRANSITION
Next, sustainability is high on the agenda particularly with COP27 just around the corner. As the future of work and the planet are becoming interconnected – companies are being forced to move away from purely financial gains to achieving more sustainable growth while doing good for local communities and society at large. Cloud technologies can help companies reduce energy consumption, improve efficiency and data-driven decision making, and remove the need for physical hardware waste. As such, cloud computing skills such as cloud service platform expertise, cloud security and machine learning and AI are high in demand. The shift to a more sustainable cloud-based business model will only accelerate in 2023.
DATA ANALYTICS SKILLS TO TRANSFORM CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
Finally, as businesses focus on customer experiences to drive economic growth and revenue – they are searching for data analysts to support this. In particular, candidates who can conduct quantitative analysis, as well as interpret and visualise data. Data visualisation is a combination of both data science and mathematics but also being able understand the dynamics in the broader business environment and imagine new solutions. As we see a shift towards more immersive consumer experiences – being able to interpret customer, demographic and financial data and use it to revolutionise customer experiences will be crucial when trying to compete in new areas such as the Metaverse.
