The St. Mary's Blog

It’s a good time to be a tech worker, provided you have the right skill set.

Tech teams will continue to grow in the second half of the year, but finding the right talent won't be easy, according to Robert Half Technology's State of U.S. Tech Hiring research.

Of the IT hiring decision makers polled, 67% plan to expand their teams by adding full-time employees, up four points from the first half of the year. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed most recently said it's difficult for their company to find skilled IT professionals.

Respondents cited the following skills as immediately needed for their organizations:

• Cybersecurity
• Cloud security
• Cloud computing
• Cloud architecture
• Business intelligence and reporting services
• Database management
• Virtualization, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation, DevOps*

*Denotes a tie.

Almost all respondents (95%) said they will bring on project professionals to support their teams. Of those, 59% say consultants are a part of their overall hiring strategy and 56% say they'll bring project professionals on when there's a sudden vacancy on their team.

"Employers around the country and across all industries are challenged when it comes to growing their teams because of a limited pool of available talent," said John Reed, executive vice president of Robert Half. "In a skills shortage, IT leaders are seeing the benefits of enhancing their teams with project support professionals."

Reed continued, "Whether addressing the sudden departure of a team member, facing growing project requests or filling a skills void on your team, contract professionals can help increase productivity and keep burnout at bay."

Additional research findings:

• Nearly all IT leaders (97%) noted they are confident in their company's prospects for growth in the second half of 2019.
• Besides recruitment, top priorities for tech managers in the next six months include maintaining security, investing in new technologies, innovation and cloud projects.
• Industries planning to expand IT teams by adding new positions through the end of the year ranked as follows: construction; business services; banking and financial services; energy, utilities, oil and gas; finance; retail; and healthcare.

Hiring plans remain robust across the map.

Find out more at roberthalf.com.