Industry experts predict that European companies will need more tech workers – Copyright CanvaUpdated: 22/12/2022
By Susan Armstrong
While “pivot,” “new normal” and “unprecedented” may have been some of the most annoying buzzwords to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no denying that the ability to change, move, and especially upskill, is now critical in today’s job market.
Jobs are changing more quickly than people can meet business needs. With such rapid movement in tech, the World Economic Forum (WEF) projects that half of all jobs in the world will require a change in skill sets by 2027.
That means a lot of new tech job openings will be coming up.
Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn’s chief economist, says that in the next five years the company expects almost 150 million new tech jobs. And, according to management consulting firm Korn Ferry, there will be a global shortage of more than 85 million tech workers by 2030 – roughly equivalent to the population of Germany.
Left unchecked, this could result in $8.5 trillion (€8 trillion) in lost annual revenue.
More demand for tech skills
The rise in demand for tech talent is not exclusive to Europe – it’s a global concern. The economies expected to be hardest hit include Japan, Brazil, and Indonesia, which could face shortages of up to 18 million workers each, with China facing a deficit of 12 million, and the US and Russia expected to be short six million workers apiece.
Of course, the tech skills shortage is nothing new, but as an increasing number of non-tech companies continue to develop a technology infrastructure, demand for tech skills will continue to rise, despite the reset the tech industry is currently going through.
These roles include systems managers, analysts, and administrators, data scientists and researchers, programmers and developers, as well as customer-facing technical roles.
So, whether you want to change jobs completely, or show your current boss that you’re ready for new challenges, it’s essential you start upskilling to ensure you’ll be able to adapt to business needs.
In fact, without continuously growing your skills, you could become obsolete quicker than you realise.
