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ICT Trends – Positive Outlook Contrasts with Fewer Jobs

IT Sector – Regional Needs

AbsoluteIT’s April headline ‘Auckland tech centre innovation driving IT job growth’ contrasts Auckland’s niche as a Pacific IT innovation hub with Wellington’s label as the High Tech Capital of New Zealand. According to the report Auckland’s IT sector has grown 80% in the last decade with more than 6,700 companies employing nearly 31,000 people and contributing 55% of New Zealand’s GDP for the sector.

With Auckland home to a number of international IT companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Dell, HP, and Cisco, together with several local emerging companies including Mako Networks, Konnect Net, Vend, Wynyard Group, and Endace, IT skills are in hot demand. According to figures from AbsoluteIT’s recent Tech Employer Insight survey Auckland’s top skills in demand are software development, business analysis, project management and data / database.

Table 1 compares the current Seek ICT job adverts for these ‘top skills in demand’ for Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury. Forty-four percent of the total job adverts for the top skills in demand are based in Auckland. The demand for Project Management comes in at number 2, unseating Business Analysis in the process.

No. *Top Skills in Demand Auckland Wellington Canterbury

1 Software Developer 294 84 33

2 Business Analyst 188 102 36

3 Project Manager 217 109 26

4 Data/Database 47 23 7

Table 1 Top Skills in Demand *Based on AbsoluteIT survey results for Auckland

Programming Languages in Vogue

The TIOBE (Programming Community) Index for April 2015 has Java at number one on the index once again and attributes the language’s recent resurgence to the increasing demand for Java Android programming (Fig.1).

Table 2 illustrates the current demand by region for the top five languages listed on the TIOBE index for this month. C# is a clear winner in the top five as the language most in demand in Auckland and Canterbury, based on the number of Seek ICT job adverts for April.

No. TIOBE Index (April 2015)

*Top Five Languages

Auckland Wellington Canterbury

1 Java 140 74 8

2 C 40 10 5

3 C++ 32 3 2

4 Objective-C 5 6 0

5 C# 163 28 30

Table 2 Seek ICT Job Ads by TIOBE Index Top 5 Languages *Adverts may contain multiple languages.

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Table 3 extends the search for selected languages, based on the TIOBE Index top 20, most in demand in these regional centres as advertised on the Seek ICT website. JavaScript is the number one language in demand in all three NZ regional centres, according to these results.

No. TIOBE Index (April 2015)

*Selected Languages

Auckland Wellington Canterbury

6 JavaScript 197 66 39

7 PHP 40 14 16

8 Python 22 7 3

| | | | |

18 Ruby/Ruby on Rails 27 35 2

Table 3 Seek ICT Job Adverts by Language Based on TIOBE Index Top 20 Listings

*Adverts may contain multiple languages.

Fig.1 TIOBE Programming Community Index for April 2015

Seek ICT Job Adverts

Seek ICT job adverts for all NZ for April are down by 5.7 percent on March numbers and are significantly down by 17.5 percent for all NZ on the same time last year (Fig.2).

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Fig.2 Seek ICT Job Adverts Monthly Trends 2010 –2015 (April)

The number of IT job adverts on Trademe has fallen by 14.4 percent on last month’s figure with similar drop of 15 percent on the April 2014 numbers (Fig.3).

Fig.3 Seek ICT & Trademe IT Job Advert Trends to April 2015

Seek ICT job adverts for the three major regions of Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury lag behind

the 2014 figures for the same month, down 13.5 percent, 21 percent and 20 percent respectively.

The monthly declines for both Wellington (5.6 percent) and Canterbury (15 percent) (Fig.4) are in

contrast to last month’s increases of 12 percent and 8 percent respectively (Refer to Fig.5 for specific

monthly job advert numbers).

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Fig.4 Seek ICT Job Advert Trends Monthly Change for April 2015

Figure 5 provides a detailed record of the Seek ICT job advert trends by region to April 2015.

Fig.5 Seek ICT Job Advert Monthly Trends to April 2015

Conclusion

Auckland is least affected by the fall in Seek ICT job adverts for this month, as evidenced across all three main regional centres, dropping just 2.7 percent. A comparison between the regional centres of ICT job adverts for the top skills in demand somewhat reinforces Auckland’s reputation as a Pacific IT innovation hub driving IT job growth in New Zealand.

While the TIOBE Index has Java in top spot for the language globally most in demand JavaScript is the clear winner, just ahead of C#, in the top language stakes for New Zealand, as based on the number of Seek ICT job adverts for this month.

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News Bytes: A to Z

NZ – AbsoluteIT: Auckland tech sector innovation driving IT job growth

75% of Auckland IT employers are planning to recruit additional staff / contractors in the coming year, with the majority of the hiring taking place to support new projects and increased customer demand.

NZ – AbsoluteIT: Why New Zealand is awesome and a great place to find your dream IT job

Tech professionals in New Zealand are some of the happiest in the world, according to our latest Job Seeker Insight report, with 85% believing their current workplace is a good place to be and 91% considering their work / life balance to be either average or above.

NZ – Computerworld: N4L reaches 500,000 school users on Managed Network

Today more than 470,000 students and 33,000 teachers from 1460+ schools (nearly 60% of all schools) are using the internet services, which includes uncapped data, web filtering and network security.

NZ – NZ Herald Business News: Recruitment drive for IT sector

Software developers are the most sought-after staff in the IT profession in Auckland.

NZ – NZ Herald Business News: Youngster’s chance to learn coding

According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, workers in the tech sector are paid up to 40 per cent more than the national average wage.

UK – Misco News: Europe ICT Skills Crisis Could Hamper Big Data Benefits

New IT trends such as big data and cloud computing are creating a wealth of social and economic opportunities - but the European Commission's Digital Single Market chief claims Europe is at risk of missing out, due to a lack of technical workers.

UK – Public Technology: Five tips for choosing your cloud backup provider

Cloud backup has been around for more than a decade. It’s one of the most mature applications of cloud technology and has become a common feature of the business landscape due to its reliability, efficiency and automation capabilities.

USA – Computerworld: 2015 reality check: IT hiring, spending are up -- for now

How is 2015 shaping up for the IT industry? Spending is on the rise and hiring is increasing, but competition for employees with in-demand skills may slow innovation.

USA – Java World: Java regains spot as most popular language in developer index

After a year-and-a-half in second place, behind the C language, Java surged back into first place in this month's TIOBE language popularity index. Topping the TIOBE Index again is being attributed to Java's usage in Android application development.