Study exposes IT sector skills mismatch, in the UK and abroad

The IT sector’s skills mismatch between what organisations want and what candidates want has been laid bare, in a new pan-European study into the 25 most popular technology jobs.

In fact, while Brits yearn to learn Python and land Data Analyst jobs, their employers need System Engineers, and their European rivals want them too. Or if not, Software Engineers.

Except not in Germany -- the only EU nation to rank Systems Admins as the most sought-after, and not in Italy or Romania either, where the most desired techies are AI Engineers.

'Software developers, cloud engineers'

Denmark and Luxembourg also defy Europe’s leaning towards System and Software Engineers, preferring Data Engineers instead, found the study by Prolifics Testing.

Similarly, Poland and Russia want Java Developers more so than any other techies, while in Greece and the Ukraine, Software Developers and Cloud Engineers dominate, respectively.

Hinting at a match (of sorts), Profilics pointed out that ‘Software Developer’ is the third most trawled tech job by Brits, ahead of ‘Data Scientist,’ and way ahead of ‘Network Admin.’  

'Data Analyst interest trumps Web Developer interest'

But such candidates will more likely search for ‘Web Developer’ roles, which came in a very distant second to ‘Data Analyst,’ found the firm which assessed Indeed.com data in August.

So Ireland may be the nearest overseas destination closest to the heart of the job-hopeful Brits, as Ireland is in the top-half of the list of six countries prioritising software engineering.

Outflanked by the Netherlands (745 openings) and the Czech Republic (673 openings), Ireland offered 522 openings for ‘Software Engineers,’ over the 14-day assessed period.

'Rife'

That makes Ireland a more fertile environment for software engineers than Austria, Belgium or Norway, despite all three being considered tech-rich, ‘contractor-friendly’ destinations.

But it is system engineering where Prolifics said the demand from European countries, six in particular including the UK (3,759 openings), is significant enough to be described as “rife.”   

In fact, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, France and Turkey all want software engineers the most, competitively (some of the total openings are alike), albeit at a lesser rate than the UK.

'Astonishing'

Among Brits, SQL was the language of choice to pick up behind Python (an “astonishing” 18,400 searches a month), closely followed by those looking to train in Java or JavaScript.

Upskilling is quietest around R (the least-sought course), Prolifics added, CSS, and HTML, despite the latter still piquing the professional development interests of 2,150 searchers.