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Digital Transformation Developer Skills Gap Assessment

Most savvy CEOs already know it requires accomplished talent to lead a digital transformation agenda. The execution of the key strategies often results in the development of software capabilities. That said, finding and retaining the qualified technical talent is likely to be one of the big challenges facing business leaders.

We're in the early stages of a software developer skills shortage, according the the latest Cloud Foundry global perception study. The majority of their survey respondents say there's a looming shortage of skilled developers. Most already feel the impact. They're having difficulty hiring and retaining technical staff.


Key Findings from the study include:

  • The majority (64%) of IT professionals and business executives agree that the developer shortage is a real threat to progress.
  • Most respondents (57%) state that this shortage has already impacted their ability to hire skilled people. The developer shortage is most acutely felt by companies just beginning to take advantage of the cloud or starting digital transformation -- the "early majority" or "pragmatists" (51%).
  • Those companies further along the journey -- the “early adopters” or “visionaries” who are out front on cloud technology adoption -- are less likely to feel the impact of the developer shortage (32%).
  • Companies are prioritizing specialized skills. Mobile app development, coding in specific languages, and deploying on specific platforms are the most in demand.
  • Fundamental cloud DevOps skills, such as continuous delivery, continuous integration, test-driven development and 12-factor application architecture, are currently in lesser demand.
  • As companies move further along their cloud journey, however, their demand for these fundamental DevOps related skills increases.
  • Companies are predominantly choosing to train their existing staff over hiring or outsourcing.
  • Leveraging a broad array of techniques, companies use training to ensure their workforce is able to keep up-to-date on ever-changing technologies.

This research highlights that today the developer skills shortage is very real, and will be more acute in the coming months and years. With the near-term focus on immediate problems -- such as mobile application development -- many organizations can't easily take advantage of the benefits from cloud technologies.

Meanwhile, the evolving demand for DevOps practices has created an opportunity for IT vendors that are capable of offering cloud computing training and associated professional services, to assist client organizations in filling their assessed skills gap.

The study, conducted in the third quarter of 2016, investigated whether there is a shortage of developers with cloud skills; which specific skills are lacking in the modern enterprise; and how companies are addressing this gap. The resulting Cloud Foundry report details the current state of cloud skills availability worldwide.

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