Given the year we have all had and the changes in working patterns we have had to adopt, IT professionals could be forgiven for being unsettled in their work. For many though, 2020 has been a year of growth and acceleration. As we have seen in our analysis of compensation and job opportunities, it’s a really good time to work in tech. The rapid adoption of cloud, the increase in application development, the focus on collaboration tools and communication, and the growth of ecommerce, data science and business analytics has meant there has been plenty of demand for IT skills and services.
As one McKinsey survey found, as a result of COVID-19, “companies have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years and the share of digital or digitally enabled products in their portfolios has accelerated by a shocking seven years.”
Technology change, it seems, is for the long haul but it’s easy to suggest that IT professionals should be grateful, while other industries suffer and job losses mount. The reality is that now technology is more business critical than ever before and IT professionals are on the frontline, not just keeping the lights on across a wide range of industries but also managing expectations of change and increasing demands for automation. So, are IT professionals happy in their work?
The 2021 IDG Insider Pro and Computerworld IT Salary Survey of 1,172 IT professionals asked ‘how satisfied are you today with your total compensation package given your base salary, bonuses and benefits in relation to your job responsibilities?’
Over half of respondents were either very satisfied (16 percent) or satisfied (42 percent), which when compared with our 2020 survey showed little change. Clearly the current climate has done little to alter how people feel about their work, although we did find that the percent of job changes due to layoffs doubled in the 2021 survey.
With 20 percent neither satisfied or dissatisfied and 20 percent either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, there remains a significant number of IT professionals that are not content in their current roles, or within their current working environments. In some instances, there is proportionately more dissatisfaction within certain roles, such as help desk and enterprise application integration, two areas that would no doubt have been affected considerably by the pandemic.
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<p>But while youthful optimism blunts the realities of economic pressures, this age group did see issues ahead with a mismatch between required skills and training (35 percent). Only the 35-44 age group was more concerned at 36 percent. Senior IT leaders, by contrast, cited IT talent shortages (43 percent) and alignment of IT with the business (48 percent) as major challenges for 2021.</p>
<p>As one India-based data center manager put it, “I’m looking for opportunities that offer more learning and more challenges in the job where I can grow professionally.” That pretty much sums it up for most respondents. Throw-in increased compensation and you have a full house. For most IT pros, the prospects are good but in a time of continued skills shortages and increased demands for IT, employers need to be more aware of what it takes to keep most, if not all of their IT staff happy.</p>
<p><em><strong>[ Still to come this week</strong>: detailed analysis of technology certifications, and – how to get your hands on the full Salary Survey 2021 data set.<strong> ]</strong></em></p>
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