IT job seekers look to make bigger career moves

LinkedIn recently looked at how IT professionals’ jobs have changed over the past year and how they are climbing the career ladder

Fewer IT professionals changed jobs in 2015 than in previous years, according to the latest LinkedIn UK data

Newsdesk News, Monday 11 April 2016 Jump to Comments(0) 3,565 Views

Reports conducted for Computer Weekly found that 12% of IT professionals moved jobs in 2015, compared with 15% in 2014 and 16% in 2013.

Interesting to note is that those who did move jobs made far bigger career changes than previous years. Looking at the data for 2015, 66% moved to another company, compared with 59% in 2014 and 55% in 2013. Similarly, of the IT professionals on LinkedIn in the UK that moved jobs in 2015, 50% changed industry, compared with 44% in 2014 and 40% in 2013. 26% of IT professionals who moved jobs in 2015 took on a more senior role in their new job.

LinkedIn also noted that recruiters and employers appear to be demanding more ‘soft skills’, such as communication within the IT talent pool. These soft skills are increasingly important in agile projects, where IT people need to work closely with business colleagues on iterative software development. Computer Weekly spoke to a number of IT heads who see soft skills as significant in the effectiveness of an IT team working in the digital age.

The top 10 skills listed on the LinkedIn profiles of IT professionals are:

Management
Project management
Microsoft Office
SQL
Telecommunications
Java
JavaScript
Software development
HTML
Team Leadership

In a recent Computer Weekly article, David Moschella, research fellow at Lead Edge Forum, wrote: “The communication, negotiation and consulting skills that IT professionals need to be successful business relationship managers (BRM) are directly transferable to the digital age.

“Having conducted dozens of BRM training sessions over the years, we have identified proven steps that firms can take to raise the personal power of their IT staff.”

These people skills pay out well and are only to the candidates advantage. One Computer Weekly reader recently stated: “The person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership and to arouse enthusiasm among people – that person is headed for higher earning power.”

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