5 skills to stay up to date as an IT professional

The IT landscape has been constantly evolving. Old systems and processes are being ramped up, revised or even removed to make way for highly efficient technologies to keep up with the ever-dynamic business objectives. The pace at which companies are now carrying out their digital transformation initiatives, there is and will be a huge demand for people with relevant and up to date skillsets to bring these projects to fruition. It is imperative to stay ahead of the game and learn the skills needed to work with these technologies.

Which is why, upskilling has become a need of the hour. Learning new skills or even going a level up in the skills you already have will not only future proof your career path but will also increase your confidence and productivity. Being able to bring the relevant skills at work, you will be able collaborate better, work more efficiently and enable you to become a valuable spoke in the organizational wheel.

Looking at the current tech landscape and the talent companies are seeking today, we have listed out five skills that you, as an IT professional can add to your repertoire to help fine tune your expertise and take a leap in your career.

1. Cyber security

In today’s day & age we are hearing about Cyber Security more than ever. As businesses are increasingly going digital, more and more information is being stored on cloud, safeguarding such invaluable data has become of prime importance. Resultantly, the demand for skilled professionals in Cyber Security has gone up.

Skills that are in demand today include Application Development Security which involves working closely with DevOps and Software engineers and other business units outside of security control as well. Another important skill to have is cloud security, which is a growing field and requires monitoring and identifying tell-tale signs when things are about to go wrong.

2. Cloud Computing

The adoption of cloud technology by businesses far and wide has only seen an uptick in the last decade. It has now become a preferred way of accessing software applications, data storage and other services over the internet. For the same, there is an increased demand for cloud skills across several verticals.

It will be helpful to familiarize oneself with the big cloud computing platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Knowledge of mainstream programming languages and the ability to build, deploy and manage applications with the help of coding is essential as well. The most commonly used programming languages being Java, JavaScript and Python.

3. Python

Python has been accredited to be a multipurpose, high-level programming language which has its applicability everywhere where there is use of data, lines of coding or mathematical computing. Be it small tasks like powering moderator bots or executing complex codes for analysing huge amounts of financial data, Python can help with it all.

Apart from basic web development, it can also help with data sciences, machine learning and even data mining. It’s so widely used, that anyone who has used Facebook, Google, Instagram, Spotify or YouTube has encountered Python code. Widely used by C++ and Java programmers, Python is known for its ease of use and readability as its base is in English syntax making it one of the easier and straightforward coding languages to learn.

4. Dev Ops

DevOps – Development (Dev) and IT Operations (Ops) focuses on combining cultural philosophies, practices and tools to automate and integrate applications and services at an accelerated pace. It is a methodology where development and operations teams work together to help automate processes that have been historically manual and slow which bring about speed, rapid pace of delivery, reliability, scale and security.

To add on DevOps to your skill set, you should have good command over automation, including CI/CD cycles, app performance monitoring and infrastructure & configurations. Coding and scripting with the help of programming languages are also important skills you can learn.

5. Agile Scrum

Agile and Scrum are two project management systems which can be used separately but when combined, enables teams to deliver projects and value with greater quality, speed, predictability and greater aptitude to respond to change. The benefits of adopting the same can be seen by customers, vendors, development teams, project managers – basically all stakeholders as it positively affects system processes for efficiency.

To learn more about Agile and Scrum, you can enrol yourself in a course to garner basic conceptual knowledge and learn how to implement it in your team. Stakeholder management and communication skills are also discussed, all with the aim of making processes more efficient and effective. You can also become a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or certified scrum product owner (CSPO) by completing a course and passing an exam to exactly know how to adopt and use the Agile method for work systems.

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If you want to continue to develop your skills as an IT professional or if you are looking to plan your next career steps, reach out to us for a chat.