9 ways cloud will impact IT employment

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Joe McKendrick.

There’s a lot of concern, much of justified, about the fate of IT jobs as cloud computing gains traction.At one extreme, some analysts predict much of IT will move outside the organization.

But maybe cloud means more opportunities than it takes away.

Evolven’s Syed Raza and Martin Perlin did a great job pulling together the top ways cloud computing is changing IT employment opportunities. Pulling information and analysis from various sites (including some from yours truly), Raza and Perlin paint of picture of great opportunity — not decline — for IT as clouds become the de facto form of enterprise computing…

Here are 9 of the top impacts on IT employment from cloud. (They actually listed 10, but I consolidated two points):

• New categories of jobs arising from cloud computing. "Skills now in demand include private cloud developers and administrators, departmental liaisons, integration specialists, cloud architects, and compliance specialists."
• Cloud is still a fraction of enterprise IT spending.
• The small pool of experienced cloud talent will pose a challenge to employers and opportunity to IT pros
• Surveys show few companies adopting cloud for the purpose of reducing IT headcount.
• Cloud is a growing sector of the economy, creating jobs along with it.
• As cloud providers grow and grow and grow, they’re going to need lots of IT staff to maintain all those servers.
• Cloud or no cloud, the number of job postings in the cloud computing industry is growing so rapidly that there aren’t enough qualified workers available.
• Businesses that embrace the cloud will save big.
• Cloud specialists, up 67% from last summer.