IT Jobs Recovery Continues, Picks Up Steam

There have been a spate of news stories in the IT press covering the state of IT hiring. Once a quarter or so, I look at the job posts in Dice.com across many different keywords - a useful proxy for the IT hiring market at least for the U. S.

Three months ago, IT hiring was definitely picking up across the board. Fast-growing skills included iPad, HTML5, Amazon, Android, Twitter, and Facebook; categories with the greatest number of jobs posted included SQL, Oracle, Java, Windows, Unix, and Linux. Versus last summer, there was about an increase of about 30% in the number of jobs posted. How have things changed in the past three months?

Generally, the jobs picture is very similar to three months ago, with an overall increase in the number of jobs posted of around 6.1% (46.2% vs last April). If these jobs are being filled, this shows a sustained and strong increase in demand for IT skills. Within the overall IT category, this analysis does not cover some areas separately (e.g., desktop support, systems administration, network administration or really many network skills, and database administration), although many of these categories get covered through the occurrence of the relevant keywords. Perhaps I'll add these topics for future analyses.

Overall

This analysis looks at four general areas skills for which IT hires: Database, Applications, Languages, and Platforms.

Database

The skills keywords I look at in the Database category include SQL, Oracle, SQL Server, PL/SQL, MySQL, DB2, Sybase, Hadoop, Informix, NoSQL, and many variants on these terms.

Across the board, there is significant increased demand for all these database skills versus three months ago (+5.1%), and versus a year ago (+34.5). Hadoop and NoSQL were not being tracked in the analyses from a year ago, but the fastest growth in other categories since last year and three months ago has been for MySQL (+52% vs last year, +9% vs 3 months ago). Hadoop and NoSQL demand has grown by 12% and 69% vs 3 months ago.

The weakest demand in this category has been for Informix (-12% vs 3 months ago, +10% since last year) and Sybase (+0.9% vs 3 months ago, -5% since last year).

Although there is rapid growth in demand for skills like Hadoop and NoSQL, the largest demand by far is for more standard skills like SQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.

Skill	Jobs	Growth over 3 months	Growth over 12 months
SQL	23453	5.6%	33.8%
Oracle	16684	4.7%	33.1%
SQL Server	9692	4.6%	34.7%
PL/SQL	3587	4.5%	35.1%
MySQL	3123	9.3%	51.5%
DB2	2564	4.8%	28.5%
Sybase	1314	0.9%	-4.7%
Hadoop	363	12.0%	New comparison
Other NoSQL	245	69.0%	New comparison
Informix	168	-12.0%	9.8%

Applications

The skills I look for in the Applications category include SAP, BASIS, ABAP, Dynamics, Peoplesoft, Siebel, eBusiness Suite, Salesforce.com, and related terms.

Three months ago, this was the category with the strongest recovery versus a year ago. Demand is still strong for applications skills, with the category growing by 4.5% over the past three months, and up 47.4% versus a year ago. The fastest growth in this category is clearly for SAP-related skills. Job posts mentioning SAP are up 8.3% vs three months ago and up 59% over the past year; ABAP and BASIS also had very strong growth, with job posts up around 70% for each skill over the past year. Salesforce.com job posts went up compared with last year (+37%), but were down over the past three months (-3.8%). Oracle's application suites (not including Fusion, for which I have no data) show much more modest growth or shrinkage, with Peoplesoft the lone bright spot (+54% over the past year). Microsoft Dynamics has also shown growth over the past year (+31%), but has declined vs three months ago (-2.9%).

The weakest demand in this category is for Oracle eBusiness Suite, for which demand has declined by 36% over the past three months.

The skills to know in this category, if you want to be employable, are SAP and Microsoft Dynamics, but the latter covers many different applications - SAP is where the job security lies. Of course, job security and overall compensation are not always aligned, but given the rapid growth in the SAP category we can expect very strong salaries there.

Skill	Jobs	Growth over 3 months	Growth over 12 months
SAP	7475	8.3%	58.6%
Dynamics	6653	-2.9%	31.3%
BASIS	3858	18.3%	67.3%
Peoplesoft	2475	6.7%	54.4%
Siebel	1305	-5.0%	13.2%
ABAP	815	1.5%	70.1%
Salesforce.com	714	-3.8%	37.0%
eBusiness	48	-36.0%	New comparison

Languages

The skills included in this category include Java, JavaScript, HTML, XML, C#, C++, Perl, AJAX, PHP, Python, Ruby, COBOL, Flash, Silverlight, HTML5, Assembler, PowerBuilder, and Fortran.

Demand for programming language skills surged, growing 58.5% vs a year ago and 7.4% over the past three months.

In particular, HTML5 demand really took off, growing 45.2% over the past three months and well over 1000% over the past year (from a very small base). There was such strong demand growth for all skills, that it is more useful in this category to speak about the area of weakest growth - Adobe Flash. Demand for Adobe Flash skills has grown by only 7% vs a year ago. Comparable skills - HTML5 and Microsoft Silverlight - have grown much faster.

Given the large number of jobs requiring Java skills, the growth in demand for Java by more than 33% over the past year is encouraging, and should indicate a recovery in compensation as well.

Skill	Jobs	Growth over 3 months	Growth over 12 months
Java	16152	5.5%	33.4%
HTML	9736	7.3%	57.1%
XML	9651	9.0%	27.0%
JavaScript	9618	5.4%	New comparison
C#	7940	9.7%	37.5%
C++	5987	4.0%	21.3%
Perl	4948	4.0%	25.5%
AJAX	4440	7.1%	36.9%
PHP	3022	10.6%	44.9%
Python	2601	15.8%	59.7%
Ruby	1540	15.8%	95.9%
Silverlight	982	12.6%	New comparison
COBOL	735	6.1%	36.9%
Flash	646	2.2%	7.0%
HTML5	540	45.2%	1488.2%
Assembler	212	12.2%	11.0%
PowerBuilder	155	26.0%	39.6%
FORTRAN	68	1.5%	30.8%

Platforms

Platform skills analyzed in this category include Windows, Unix, Linux, IBM, VMware, Open Source (new), Embedded, Mainframe, Android, Blackberry, Palm, iPhone, iOS, iPad, Azure, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Twitter, Facebook, Mac, and Widget. I had an error in the way I was querying Mac jobs, so that has influenced some of the results.

Platform skills are also in great demand, with job posts up 5.8% vs three months ago and up 43.5% over last year. Again, there was very strong growth in demand across nearly all platform skills, with the fastest growth in iPad (-3.7% vs three months ago but up more than 3000% over the past year), Amazon (+12.8% over the past three months and +332% over the past year), and Android (+19.8% vs three months ago, and +270% vs last year).

Over the past year, demand has declined for only one skill (Widgets, -14%), but demand has softened over the past three months for Embedded Systems (-4.6%), iPad (surprisingly -3.5%), Palm (-6.9%), Widgets (-14.9%), and eBay (-3.3%).

Although all platforms are doing well, the top three (Windows, Unix, and Linux) are all showing strong demand and growth; it appears that Linux demand may surpass Unix demand very soon.

Skill	Jobs	Growth over 3 months	Growth over 12 months
Windows	12641	2.3%	28%
Unix	10692	3.9%	21%
Linux	10185	2.1%	32%
IBM	5850	7.4%	77%
VMWare	2609	2.8%	47%
Open Source	1955	New comparison	New comparison
Mainframe	1776	5.8%	32%
Embedded	1652	-4.6%	13%
Android	1170	19.8%	270%
Google	1132	27.0%	35%
Blackberry	1027	7.7%	77%
Amazon	1019	12.8%	332%
iPhone	1013	7.1%	162%
Mac	856	New comparison	New comparison
iOS	832	24.9%	New comparison
Twitter	683	7.4%	141%
Facebook	582	17.6%	135%
iPad	413	-3.5%	3077%
Yahoo	192	14.3%	16%
Palm	162	-6.9%	22%
Widget	149	-14.9%	-14%
Azure	103	80.7%	94%
eBay	88	-3.3%	42%

Surprising Findings

• Big declines in demand for Oracle eBusiness Suite and Oracle Siebel skills.
• Huge increases in demand for Microsoft Azure, SAP Sybase PowerBuilder, and SAP BASIS skills.
• Demand for Microsoft Silverlight developers surpasses demand for Adobe Flash developers!

If you have any skills you'd like to see tracked in these posts, please post a comment and I'll see about including them next time. Thanks!

IT Jobs Recovery

Every so often, I check in on the IT jobs market to see what skills are in demand. Job posts are a leading indicator of long term market shifts - gains and losses.

Last summer, the hot job skills were Java, SAP, Oracle, SQL, and C#/C++. Big jumps (from small bases) were posted in demand for Android, Google, Facebook, iPhone, Salesforce.com, and AJAX. As a category, big gains were primarily in job posts for programming languages and applications. What's changed since last summer?

Summary:

• Across all IT job skill categories, there was significant growth in jobs posted, with 30% more jobs posted since last summer across all tracked categories.
  
• The "Applications" category experienced the fastest growth, with an increase in job posts in that category of over 40%. "Platform" job posts are up about 34%; "Language" posts are up about 28%; and "Database" posts are up about 27%.
• The largest category is still "Language," with almost 65,000 jobs posted. The "Database" category is next with almost 58,000 jobs, followed by "Platform" with around 51,000 jobs, and "Applications" with around 22,000 jobs.
  
• The hottest IT job skills, based on the number of open jobs on Dice.com, are SQL, Oracle, Java, Windows, Unix, and Linux. See the table below a more complete list.
  
• The fastest growth (across all skills in last summer's analysis) is in demand for iPad, HTML5, Amazon, Android, Twitter, and Facebook. See the second table below a more complete list.
  
• New skills being tracked include Hadoop, NoSQL, Oracle eBusiness Suite, JavaScript, and Apple iOS.

Top 20 skills in demand:

Skill	Overall Rank
SQL	1
Oracle	2
Java	3
Windows	4
Unix	5
Linux	6
SQL Server	7
JavaScript	8
HTML	9
XML	10
C#	11
SAP	12
Dynamics	13
C++	14
IBM	15
Perl	16
AJAX	17
PL/SQL	18
BASIS	19
MySQL	20

Top 20 growth categories:

Skill	Growth Rank
iPad	1
HTML5	2
Amazon	3
Android	4
iPhone	5
Twitter	6
Facebook	7
Ruby	8
ABAP	9
IBM	10
Blackberry	11
eBay	12
SAP	13
HTML	14
Peoplesoft	15
VMWare	16
Salesforce.com	17
BASIS	18
MySQL	19
Python	20

Additional findings:

• Database: More jobs are open for the Oracle DBMS than all the other major databases combined (Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle MySQL, IBM DB2, and Sybase SQL Server). Oracle MySQL jobs are growing faster than any other major database, and Microsoft SQL Server shows a slight share increase in relative job posts compared to Oracle, but Oracle is still by far the category leader in the database space. Hadoop and NoSQL jobs are being tracked for the first time, and both have respectable showings, with hundreds of jobs posted for these skills.
• Applications: SAP has taken the lead in this category. Surprisingly, Microsoft Dynamics was the category leader last summer, with about 7% more job posts than SAP despite SAP's significant lead in the market. However, since then, SAP jobs have grown by a whopping 46%, while Dynamics jobs have grown a respectable 35%. As a result, SAP jobs now exceed Dynamics jobs by a slim margin of less than 1%. Across the major Oracle application lines (Peoplesoft, Siebel, e-Business Suite), Peoplesoft shows rapid growth, but there is far more demand for SAP and Microsoft jobs than there is for Oracle applications. Salesforce.com also shows rapid growth, but from a much smaller base.
• Languages: Java is still the language king, dominating the languages category with over 15,000 jobs and strong growth of 27% versus last summer. JavaScript (not previously tracked) and HTML are next most in demand, with over 9,000 jobs each; HTML skills grew in demand by nearly 50%! HTML5, incidentally, grew by almost 1,000%, though from a small base. Ruby demand also grew sharply, up by nearly 70%, with over 1,300 jobs posted. In fact, all programming languages showed growth except assembly language, which showed a minor decline. Adobe Flex/Flash seems to be losing momentum, with just 5% growth since last summer.
  
• Platforms: The biggest shifts in the industry can be seen in the changes in the platform jobs picture. Microsoft Windows still dominates the platform category, with healthy growth of 25% to over 12,300 jobs. I was surprised to note that Unix was second, with over 10,200 jobs, but its growth is slowing showing an increase of 16% since the last review. Linux was third, with nearly 10,000 jobs and growth of 29%. The biggest growth was seen in areas that probably won't come as a surprise: iPad jobs grew over 30 times (from a small base), and Android jobs tripled to nearly 1,000 jobs available. Other platforms showed huge growth as well: Amazon, iPhone, Twitter, and Facebook all showed huge growth (>= 100% growth); iOS is being tracked for the first time in this survey. Mainframe job growth is healthy, with nearly 1,700 jobs and 25% growth. Surprisingly, Microsoft Azure seems to be stalling out as a platform, with just 57 jobs and just 8% growth rate! Mac/MacOS showed a significant decline (-42%), also a big surprise!
• Skills showing surprising growth: SAP, ABAP, Peoplesoft, Ruby, COBOL (29%!), Fortran (29%!), Unix, IBM (65%), VMware (43%), Mainframe, Blackberry (64%), Palm (31%), Twitter, Facebook, and eBay (47%).
• Skills showing surprising loss of momentum: Sybase (-6%), Siebel (19%), XML (17%), C++ (17%, compared to C# at 25%), Flash/Flex (5%), Assembler, Embedded Systems (18%), Google (6%), Mac, Widget/Gadget, Yahoo, and Azure.
• Overall, IT job posts on Dice.com have increased significantly from last year, up about 30% across all tracked categories.

If you have any skills you'd like to see tracked in these posts, please post a comment and I'll see about including them next time. Thanks!

What can we learn from software development job posts? (Java, SAP, Oracle, SQL, and C#/C++ will get you a job!)

Several months ago, I posted some analysis of IT-related jobs listed on Dice and Monster. At the time, the hot job skills were SQL, Java, and XML. Things haven't changed much since April - although some specific skills have moved down or up on the list.

In summary, here are some conclusions we can draw from this data:

• In almost all job skills, there are more jobs posted now than there were in April or last year in June.
• The most popular skills are Java, SAP, Oracle, SQL, and C#/C++.
• Job posts mentioning specific programming languages and popular applications have experienced the largest increase in jobs posted over this period.
• The biggest jumps (by percentage, sometimes from a small base) were in job posts mentioning Android, Google, Facebook, iPhone, Salesforce.com, and AJAX.
• The biggest drops (by percentage) were in job posts mentioning Fortran, PowerBuilder, and Informix.

Here are the top 20 skills listed in job titles on Dice.com and Monster.com:

Rank	Skill	Total Jobs	Previous rank
1	Java	6316	3
2	SAP	4357	13
3	Oracle	3561	2
4	SQL	2461	1
5	C#	1778	10
6	C++	1319	12
7	Unix	1189	5
8	Linux	1092	6
9	Peoplesoft	955	-
10	Windows	947	4
11	SQL Server	817	8
12	PHP	657	19
13	Embedded	489	-
14	Siebel	405	-
15	PL/SQL	367	17
16	JavaScript	337	-
17	Mainframe	306	-
18	Perl	265	14
19	Salesforce.com	253	-
20	Ruby	240	-

The methodology in the analysis continues to evolve, so the results aren't perfectly comparable.

Some additional findings:

• Language skills showed the largest increase in demand as a category, up 78%. Applicatoins grew 45%, platforms grew 36%, and databases grew 33%.
  
• Database: Given the large base, there was a surprisingly large jump in posts for Oracle jobs (up 34%). SQL Server and MySQL also had large jumps, but from substantially lower bases. If you're going to invest in learning a database, at this point, Oracle is the clear leading choice.
• Applications: Salesforce.com had the largest jump by percentage (up 113%), but from a relatively small base (118). SAP (and related skills of ABAP and BASIS) had a large jump from a large base (up 50%). Siebel also had a big jump in mentions (up 36%).
• Languages: There was a huge increase in job posts for Java skills (up 92% from a large base). Other languages that showed large increases from large bases include C# (up 47%), PHP (up 57%), and C++ (up 28%).
• Platforms: Only in the platforms category was there a lot of change other than just growth. Unix was still the largest platform skill by mention, but Linux passed Windows with 34% growth. There was substantial growth in mentions for Google, Android, iPhone, and AJAX. There was healthy growth for most platforms, with the notable exception of Blackberry-related jobs.
• Skills that are not in high demand or growing: Informix, Sybase, PowerBuilder, Fortran, Blackberry, Palm WebOS, Yahoo, Widgets/Gadgets.
  
• Skills that are surprisingly low in demand: HTML5, Azure, Facebook.
• Overall, there was an increase of 50% in job posts on these two sites.
  

If you have any skills you'd like to see tracked in these posts, please post a comment and I'll see about including them next time. Thanks!

What can we learn from software development job posts? (SQL, Java, and XML will get you a job!)

About a year ago, I posted some analysis of what we can learn from job posts. Since then, the job outlook for at least the American economy has substantially declined, but there are still opportunities available if you have - or can develop - the skills in demand. A year ago, according to job posts on Dice.com, the hot job skills were Java, SAP, and Oracle. How about today?

Well, with a slight change to methodology, things look pretty much the same, but the changes are interesting. Last year, I only looked at terms that appeared in job post titles; this time around, I searched on terms that occurred anywhere in the job post. I can't say I used a totally comprehensive set of terms, or that the queries don't produce some false positives and negatives, but without further disclaimers, here are my findings.

The top 20 IT skills in demand on Dice.com:

1. SQL
2. Oracle
3. Java
4. Windows
5. Unix
6. Linux
7. XML
8. SQL Server
9. HTML
10. C#
11. Dynamics
12. C++
13. SAP
14. Perl
15. IBM
16. AJAX
17. PL/SQL
18. BASIS
19. PHP
20. MySQL

(For the rest of the list in the analysis, see the end of this post.)

A little surprising that Dynamics came in above SAP on this list, and perhaps there were some "false positives" putting BASIS above PHP, but probably nothing really shocking there. There was strong demand for many skills, but very little demand (relatively) for iPad (just 13 jobs!), HTML5 (34 jobs), Fortran, Azure, and eBay -- all under 100 job posts mentioning these skills.

Overall, your best bet is to learn Oracle, SQL Server, Java, and XML on your choice of platforms, and you've got job security 'til the end of time (or at least for the next few quarters).

Some additional findings:

• SQL is a great skill to have. Oracle and SQL Server are the best databases to learn in terms of job openings [NOTE: no analysis was done on salaries, so your mileage may vary if you care about earning potential. There was one job on Dice for a TPF programmer, and I bet that pays pretty well!]. DB2 and Sybase also had strong demand.
  
• Java, C#, and C++ are all continuing in strong demand. Perl, PHP, Ruby, and Python also have strong demand. There is some, but significantly less, demand for Flash, COBOL, and ABAP development skill.
  
• XML skills are greatly in demand. There is significant demand for AJAX skills as well.
• Dynamics came in very strong on the Applications front, with SAP also very strong. There is some continued demand for Peoplesoft and Siebel skills. Salesforce.com is significantly less, but there is still substantial demand for Salesforce.com skills.
• There is not a lot of demand for Mac, iPhone, or iPad developers, with none of those platforms cracking the 500 job posts mark. Blackberry was the only mobile phone platform above that mark, with some significant demand. Android is in slightly less demand than iPhone, but growing much faster.
• Amazon and Azure, two leading cloud platforms, had very little demand for candidates.
  

Overall results:

Skill Sought SQL	# of Posts Mentioning 17525
Oracle	12533
Java	12104
Windows	9877
Unix	8872
Linux	7703
XML	7600
SQL Server	7196
HTML	6198
C#	5773
Dynamics	5066
C++	4937
SAP	4713
Perl	3943
IBM	3306
AJAX	3244
PL/SQL	2656
BASIS	2306
PHP	2085
MySQL	2061
DB2	1996
VMWare	1776
Python	1629
Peoplesoft	1603
Embedded	1466
Sybase	1379
Mainframe	1342
Siebel	1153
Google	837
Ruby	786
Flash	604
Blackberry	580
COBOL	537
Salesforce.com	521
ABAP	479
iPhone	387
Mac	372
Android	316
Twitter	283
Facebook	248
Amazon	236
Assembler	191
Widget	174
Yahoo	165
Informix	153
Palm	133
PowerBuilder	111
eBay	62
Azure	53
FORTRAN	52
HTML5	34
iPad	13

What can we learn from software development job posts?

What can we learn from software development job posts? A lot!

• No one is building apps for the Palm Pre, and not too much for Android
  
• More Blackberry development than iPhone
  
• No more Web 2.0 jobs (AJAX, widgets, etc.)
• Still plenty of demand for legacy/niche products (e.g. mainframe, assembly language programming, PowerBuilder, COBOL, Informix, Peoplesoft, Siebel)
• Unix is still a force, but not much demand for Mac development
  
• Dynamics is falling further behind
• Skills in popular platforms like Oracle, SAP, Java, C++/C#, and Unix/Linux are still in high demand, even in this weak economy
  

I'll post every once in a while on this topic, so please let me know if there are other skills I should track. Obviously, this is not likely to be a statistically valid sampling with a confidence level of +/-5%, and this should be a leading indicator (hiring) rather than a trailing or current indicator (number currently employed or employed in the past), but it is still illuminating data.

Here are some skills/terms, and the number of occurences of those terms (including alternative spellings) in job posts to Dice.com.

DATABASE
SQL	1159
Oracle	1774
SQL Server	415
DB2	127
MySQL	128
Sybase	79
Informix	15
PL/SQL	153
PowerBuilder	34
Applications
SAP	1942
Peoplesoft	575
Siebel	210
Salesforce.com	63
Dynamics	57
BASIS	140
ABAP	77
Languages
Java	2192
C#	829
C++	728
Perl	109
PHP	295
Python	65
Ruby	134
COBOL	91
FORTRAN	7
Assembler	20
Platforms
Windows	487
Linux	531
Unix	686
VMWare	95
Mac	32
Blackberry	45
iPhone	31
Palm	3
Android	25
Facebook	1
AJAX	59
Google	7
Yahoo	0
Widget	2
IBM	84
Mainframe	157
Embedded	240
Azure	0