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ICT Trends – 2015 in Review

Job Prospects

February’s ICT trends article indicated the beginning of a subdued ICT job advert market, a trend that continued throughout the year. The August ICT Trends article featured a paragraph referring to a number of business-focused news headlines at the time, which included "Stalling welfare rolls confirm slowing in NZ economy” and "Chinese economy building to 'crisis point'". These headlines highlighted a slowing of economic growth in NZ, which when combined with a weakening of employer confidence, appeared to be the main reason for the negative impact on ICT job adverts.

A 3 month downward trend from a May peak in ICT job adverts was also reinforced by the MBIE Jobs Online monthly report for July. This report highlighted a continuing fall, at the time, in skilled vacancies in three out of eight industry groups, with the IT industry once again recording the largest decrease, down 3.2 per cent (The ICT Trend series recorded -3.8 per cent for the same month).

This month’s figure of 1900 Seek ICT job adverts, which is 20 per cent below the figure for November last year, is indicative of the sinking trend for ICT job adverts in 2015 on both the Trademe IT jobs and Seek ICT jobs web sites.

The good news for prospective ICT employees is that demand for specialist skills in the ICT industry continues to grow. The May ICT Trends article referred to a MBIE ICT sector report for 2015, which heralded New Zealand’s vibrant, fast-growing ICT sector with an emphasis on the services sector. The report noted that the sector was enjoying strong employment growth with an additional 7,500 jobs added since 2010, 2,800 of these in 2014 alone. It also cited recruitment difficulties in the sector with firms mentioning applicants’ lack of qualifications and experience as being the main reason that vacancies were hard to fill.

Skills in Demand for 2016

According to recruiting and staffing specialist Robert Half Technology in a recent release of its annual guide to U.S. tech salaries in a Networkworld article, IT salaries are on the rise, one sign of a continuingly competitive hiring environment. The top 20 positions, based on US salary gains between 2015 and 2016, are listed in table 3, together with the current number of NZ Seek ICT job adverts and indicative salary range, as revealed by the application of the Seek website active filter.

The demand in New Zealand for software developers and web developers continues to dominate the market.

Rank Top 20 IT Skills for 2016

*Number of Seek ICT Job Adverts (all NZ) as at

23 Nov 2015

^NZ Salary Range

(Approximate)

1 Wireless Network Engineer 22 $80k - $150k

2 Big Data Engineer 25 $80k - $150k

3 Data Scientist 9 $80k - $150k

4 Mobile Apps Developer 48 $40k - $120k

5 Data Security Analyst 6 $60k - $120k

6 Chief Security Officer 17 $60k - $120k

7 Developer/Programmer Analyst 78 $60k - $110k

8 Lead Applications Developer 88 $70k - $110k

9 Network Security Engineer 51 $60k - $120k

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Rank Top 20 IT Skills for 2016

*Number of Seek ICT Job Adverts (all NZ) as at

23 Nov 2015

^NZ Salary Range

(Approximate)

10 Senior Web Developer 153 $55k - $135k

11 Software Engineer 230 $45k - $100k

12 Software Developer 416 $45k - $110k

13 Data Architect 90 $90k - $200k

14 Applications Architect 177 $60k - $140k

15 Web Developer 357 $40k - $90k

16 Network Administrator 33 $35k - $90k

17 Information System Security Manager

54 $60k - $100k

18 Business Intelligence Analyst 24 $60k - $120k

19 Data Modeller 0 $60k - ??

20 Help Desk Tier 3 8 $60k - $90k

Notes:

* Job advert numbers may be distorted due to overlapping categories

^ Derived from Seek ICT, NZHudson.com & PayScale.com

Table 1 Top 20 Skills for 2016

Tertiary ICT Enrolments

On the supply side data derived from the MoE Education Counts website indicated revealed the following enrolment trends, as presented in table 2.

ICT Qualification Student Source EFTS Enrolments Percentage Change Overall 2013 2014

Diploma L5 – L7 Domestic 2265 2170

+3.3% International 1065 1270

Degree Domestic 5335 5470

+2.5% International 1210 1245

Table 2 EFTS (Equivalent Full Time Study) enrolment trends

ICT EFTS enrolments for diplomas and degrees continue to trend upwards from the 2008 low that coincided with the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) that began in that year. A separation of the diploma level 5 to 7 EFTS enrolments by domestic and international cohorts reveals that the number of domestic EFTS is continuing to decline from a 2012 peak figure of 2550.

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Table 3 indicates the completion rates for both ICT diplomas level 5 to 7 and ICT degrees.

Table 3 Completion rates

Given the small overall increase in EFTS enrolments, making sense of the rather large decline in ICT diploma completions, at -17 percent, would require a more detailed analysis of the raw data.

ICT degree completions have continued their upward trend in line with the increase in EFTS enrolments that started in 2010, giving prospective employers of ICT graduates a reason to be cautiously optimistic.

Job Adverts

The number of Seek ICT Job adverts for November has followed the usual downward trend for this time of the year with an 8 per cent decline on last month. The figure of 1900 is a significant 20 per cent below the number of job adverts for November 2014 (Fig.1).

Fig.1 Seek ICT Job Adverts Monthly Trends 2010 –2015 (November)

The number of Trademe IT job adverts for November is 6.5 per cent down on last month’s figure of 2066, and is 24 per cent below last year’s November advert figure (Fig.2).

This month’s Trademe IT job advert total represents an overall decline of 5.3 per cent on January’s figure of 882, a significant difference in comparison to the January to May increase of 27.3 per cent.

ICT Qualification Completion Year

Percentage Change 2013 2014

Diploma L5 – L7 2870 2370 -17.4%

Degree 1330 1420 +6.8%

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Fig.2 Seek ICT & Trademe IT Job Advert Trends to November 2015

Figure 3 illustrates a slight fall overall in Seek ICT job adverts for this month with Canterbury leading the trend, down 9 per cent, closely followed by Auckland and Wellington. Wellington leads the increase in adverts for the year to November at 18.3 per cent, followed by Auckland with 8.1 per cent and Canterbury with just 0.5 per cent.

The increase for all NZ for the year to November is 8.1 per cent (Refer to figure 4 for specific numbers). This is a 38 per cent decline on the January to November period last year.

Fig.3 Seek ICT Job Advert Trends Monthly Change for November 2015

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Figure 4 provides a detailed record of the Seek ICT job advert trends by region for the year to

November 2014.

Fig.4 Seek ICT Job Advert Monthly Trends to November 2015

Conclusion

In spite of what appears to be a subdued ICT job market, based on the Seek ICT and Trademe IT job advert trends for 2015, the demand for specialist skills by employers in the broad-based ICT industry sector continues to grow. This continuing demand is perhaps best summarised in an extract from a recent Potentia IT salary report, listing their findings of the key trends for 2015, namely;

Soft skills are still highly sought after, especially the ability to communicate with the wider business or clients and, for senior roles, effectively to present to boards

An increasing demand for Software Developers, other than the traditional .Net and Java Developers

A heightened awareness of the requirements for quality assurance, generally across all aspects of the IT landscape, pushing up demand for Testers, in particular Automation Testers

An increasing requirement for potential employees to have specific industry and hands-on experience

The creation of a number of senior management roles including those of Chief Digital and Chief Data Office roles, due to the execution of digital transformation strategies

Attracting/inducing top talent with attractive employment packages in a candidate-driven market

Finding the highly skilled IT professionals needed to fill the rising number of specialist vacancies in the tech sector is a challenge, both here in New Zealand and worldwide. Organisations will need to ensure that they publicise opportunities for professional development and training and continue to provide attractive working conditions if they want to entice and retain top talent.

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News Bytes: A to Z

NZ – NZ Herald Technology: Smart thinking driving rapid pace of change.

Recent PwC findings concluded that nearly half of all current jobs in Australia are at risk of disappearing over the next two decades and that 75 per cent of the fastest growing occupations require STEM skills.

NZ – Slideshare: Big data is big news

A MIT Technology Review article reinforces the view that no area of human endeavour or industrial sector will be immune from the incredible shakeup that’s about to occur as big data ploughs through society, politics, and business.

NZ – Stuff.co.nz/Businessday: Tech sector grows strongly creating 2410 new jobs over year.

The TIN100 report, which tracks the country's 100 largest high-tech businesses and the 100 fastest-growing high-tech firms – 200 firms in total, employed 37,000 staff, up 2410 on the year. The bulk of the new jobs, 1408, were created in Auckland, with 600 in Wellington and 298 in the South Island.

NZ – Stuff.co.nz/Businessday: NZ jobs at risk from automation and digital technologies, accounting body warns.

It’s estimated about 46 per cent of Kiwi jobs are at risk from automation within 20 years………time to start teaching skills such as "data analytics" in primary schools.

NZ – Stuff.co.nz/Technology: Artificial intelligence; the future of robots.

Technology is leading towards a rarefication of leading-edge employment.

SA – IT Online: Software Engineering skills shortage needs action now.

South Africa specifically needs senior software engineering skills.

USA – CIO: Disruption, innovation, and reinventing business: How my fridge can disrupt your bank.

IoT is an overarching trend that includes nine smaller, albeit still multitrillion-dollar trends like connected home, connected vehicles and connected cities.

USA – ComputerWorld: Comments about new STEM rule flood federal inbox.

There are more than 100,000 foreign students working on STEM extensions.

USA – ComputerWorld: How big data is changing the database landscape for good.

The "3 V's" underlying big data; volume, velocity and variety, driving proliferation of alternative databases.

USA – U.S.News & World Report: Infographic; the best jobs of 2015

Inaugural ranking of best STEM jobs featuring the top five professions.

USA – ComputerWorld: Think your IT project is a disaster? These'll make you feel better.

Tales of frustration are plentiful in the tech industry, of course, but the past week or two have been particularly fruitful.