The fastest growing IT jobs

[51CTO.com Quick Translation] The number of IT practitioners has continued to expand over the past year, but some of these positions are indeed more worthy of serious consideration.

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The number of IT practitioners in each specific position and at the industry level saw a year-on-year increase last year. The only industry that cut its IT scale was the oil and gas industry.

Due to the decline in oil prices over the past year, the number of employees in this industry has dropped by 4%, to 13,200. However, other industries, including retail, healthcare, finance and manufacturing, have seen positive growth in the number of IT personnel, which has given IT practitioners a more stable employment environment.

The number of IT jobs as a whole grew 3.1 percent to 152,000 in 2015, according to an analysis of government data by industry analyst group CompTIA, which was released Friday.

Although all IT positions have seen a significant increase in number, the following positions are still showing a trend of better development in the overall environment:

1. Cybersecurity analysts: The total number of positions was 85,200, a year-on-year increase of 4.8%.

2. Web developers, with a total of 243,800 positions, up 4.2% year-over-year.

3. Application software developers, with a total of 775,000 positions, a year-on-year increase of 4%.

4. System software developers, with a total of 428,000 positions, up 3.8% year-on-year.

5. System analysts: The total number of positions was 647,000, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%.

6. Computer user support specialists, with a total of 685,000 positions, increased by 3.3% year-on-year.

7. The total number of IT managers and CIO positions was 371,000, a year-on-year increase of 3.1%.

The oil and gas industry accounts for only a small percentage of total IT jobs, but it is one of the largest users of IT resources. According to the latest statistics released by IDC, the industry spent $700 million on high-performance computing in 2014. By comparison, defense agencies spent $968 million on IT that year.

Oil and gas "is one of the industries that is very dependent on IT solutions," said Chris Niven, research director of IDC's Energy Insights division, mainly because of the need for analytics to assess underground resource reserves.

However, IT spending in the oil and gas industry is likely to decline 3 percent this year as the industry is actively using cloud services and outsourcing resources to achieve cost-cutting results, Niven said.

Looking across industries, CompTIA said that last year IT job growth reached its highest point in the past decade. However, whether this momentum can continue in 2016 remains unknown.

Janco Associates, an IT human resources analysis company, believes that the IT talent market will be relatively weak this year, and the recent stock price decline indirectly proves this.

Seth Robinson, senior director of technology analysis at CompTIA, said a bright spot in the current hiring data is the strong demand for IT support specialists, a field that will continue to grow and is often a stepping stone for people to enter the IT industry.

Original title: These are the fastest growing IT jobs

[Translated by 51CTO. Please indicate the original translator and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]