IT professionals must adapt or die

The role of IT professionals will change dramatically over the next 10 years as technology becomes more advanced, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Technology group.

The organisation said in new report on technology in the workplace in 2020 that the role of IT professionals will evolve to align with business objectives, and that IT professionals need to enhance their skills to compete with the pace of IT growth.

"There is a real opportunity for candidates to develop more depth and less breadth in their skill-set," said Jeff Brooks, chairman of REC Technology.

"In the past, IT workers tended to opt for a broad range of skills to maximise their employment potential, but looking forward it will inevitably be specialist skills and a strong business acumen that will be most in demand."

The Technology 2020 report said that specialised skills will shift from an in-house role to dedicated product and service suppliers for technology like cloud computing.

Basic programming will fall out of favour as software becomes more robust, but IT professionals will still be required for legacy platforms.

Datacentre operators will be needed for their increasingly rare skills with Linux and Windows, and soft skills like project management will be better served as suppliers build modular technology and make installations easier.

"These technological changes will have a major impact on workforce management in the next 10 years," Brooks concluded.

"The IT department will be at the heart of these changes, and IT professionals will have a key job in making the transition to these new ways of working as smooth as possible."