Top 7 Most In-Demand Tech Skills For 2013

 

 

 1. HTML5 / CSS

Where would the Web be without HTML? Nowhere, really. This simple markup language is literally what the Web is made of, with cascading style sheets (CSS) making everything look nice and JavaScript adding interactive functionality.

It's only natural that the language at the heart of the Web would be in high demand, even as native mobile app development and back-end cloud technologies command bigger ad bigger chunks of IT budgets. In fact, as tablets, smartphones and cloud-hosted services proliferate, the importance of the Web grows along with it. Consumers still need to access their cloud-hosted SaaS services via their Web browser. And studies show that tablet owners still love the Web.

After years of relative stagnation, HTML has made big advances in recent years with HTML5, which is now supported by the latest versions of all major Web browsers. Meanwhile, the design options available via CSS3 and the interactivity provided by JavaScript have pushed the Web even further, blurring the line between Web-based and native apps.

HTML5 makes a 23-year-old markup language is cool again - and back in high demand. Elance and Indeed both rank HTML as one of their most sought-after job skills, while other studies routinely point to it being in strong demand.

2. iOS Development

It comes as no surprise that iOS developers are sought after. Most sources that track job talent demand rank iOS development or related skills like Xcode and Objective-C programming very highly. As Apple's sales in both tablets and smartphones has exploded, so too has the demand for developers who can build apps for the iOS ecosystem.

iPhone and iPad development have been trendy for a few years now, but it's actually accelerated pretty dramatically in the last two years. After years of slow but steady growth, demand for iOS development skyrocketed over the course of 2011 and 2012, according to data from the job aggregator site Indeed. If you've been meaning to try your hand at building apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, now is a good time to get into it.

 

3. PHP / MySQL

It may lack the sexiness of mobile development or newer Web programming technologies, but PHP is still very important. The open source scripting language runs on more than 20 million websites and powers high-profile sites we deal with every day, including Facebook and Wikipedia. Any blog, news site or other website built using Wordpress or Drupal is making use of PHP as well. It's all over the Web, even if you can't see it by clicking "view source."

PHP is currently ranked as the most sought-after skill on Elance, with MySQL and Wordpress also cracking the top ten. There are more than a quarter of a million PHP programming gigs listed on Elance alone.

4. Java / J2EE

Java and the J2EE development platform are popping up more and more on job hiring boards. Indeed, Java/J2EE developers are going to be in high demand throughout 2013, according to a survey from Dice.

Unlike hot new technologies like Android development and HTML5, demand for Java skills has been fairly consistent over time, although it has been on the rise in the last few years

5. JavaScript (And Related Technologies)

On the Web, JavaScript is what makes things interactive, especially now that the rise of tablets and smartphones has bumped Flash from prominence. Whether it's the ever-popular jQuery framework or the JSON data interchange standard, companies need JavaScript-focused talent like never before. In fact, JSON is the most in-demand skill on CyberCoders.

It's worth noting that when people say "HTML5," they're often referring in part to JavaScript. That's because what makes Web apps look and feel so app-like is CSS and JavaScript, not just the plain HTML itself.

If you're looking to learn Web programming, JavaScript is the place you want to end up. If you want to start slow, a framework like jQuery could be the way to go.

 

6. IT Project Management

One of the most sought-after tech job skills isn't all that technical. Slinging code, maintaining infrastructure and designing software are all really important, but their kind of useless without somebody to see the project through to completion. That's why certified project managers can pull in six figure incomes and why 40% of IT executives are looking to hire project managers in 2013.

7. All Things "Cloud"

The cloud computing craze is still going strong, if tech job hiring trends are any indication. Specifically, companies are looking for software developers who specialize in things like virtualization and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) development, with familiarity with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technologies.

According to one survey of IT execs, 25% of companies are planning on hiring people with SaaS and related cloud-computing expertise in 2013. In general, SaaS and virtualization are both buzzwords often cited as being on-the-rise on job search sites.

Of course, SaaS and PaaS (not to mention whatever-else-as-a-service) can utilize any number of specific programming languages and technologies (more on those below). Suffice it to say that if a given skill helps companies utilize cloud infrastructure or virtualize any aspect of their computing needs, it's in high demand.

If you promised yourself you were going to beef up your tech skills in 2013, now is the time to get moving. Based on surveys and data from a variety of sources including John Paul Titlow @ Readwrite & Patrick Crompton @ eSynergy Solutions

 

 

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Microsoft C# named programming language of 2012

eSynergy Solutions had a very successful year in C# and we have found that this is still the market to be in . Bring on 2013 with the latest in C#,ASP.Net MVC,TDD/BDD/DDD, Windows Azure ,HPC,Cloud and agile.

I head up the delivery desk at eSynergy Solutions and I have found that C# has been a very demanding skill for 2012 and the rates have been between £ 300 - £ 500 a day for the perfect skill set.

Although most of our clients from 2012 were very interested in ASP.Net MVC, Pair Programming/Extreme Programming ,TDD/BDD and agile.

We are hoping that this will carry on to 2013 and we looking forward to building a stronger relationship with the Microsoft C# Community.

Microsoft's C# has been crowned the number one programming language of the year by the Popularity of Programming Language (PYPL) index.

Although Java is still the most widely used programming language in the world, C#'s popularity grew by 2.3 percent in 2012 – more than any other programming language during the same period. The growth of C# is thought to come at the expense of C and Visual Basic.

Java had a 28.3 percent developer share in 2012, even though its usage went down 0.3 percent. PHP, whose market share was down 1.6 percent to 15.4 percent, was the second most popular. C# and C++ came in joint third, each with a 10.5 percent share.

C and JavaScript, both dropped down two places, from third to fifth place and fifth to seventh place respectively. Python dropped from fifth to sixth place, despite growing 0.9 percent in popularity and becoming the second most popular language in the US.

The PYPL index is created by analysing how often language tutorials are searched on Google. The more a specific language tutorial is searched, the more popular the language is assumed to be.

According to Nat Friedman, CEO of cross-platform app creation platform Xamarin, the launch of Windows 8 has played an important role in the growth of C# in 2012. C# remains the dominant language of third-party application development on Windows devices.

However, other features such as asynchronous programming, garbage collection, type safety and the ability to execute applications quickly have all contributed to the popularity of C# among mobile developers. The portability of C# is also key, according to Friedman.

“Between Windows, iOS and Android, your C# code can run on over 2.2 billion devices. And beyond mobile, C# is highly portable in a wide range of environments across the spectrum of mobile, embedded, desktop, and server computing,” he said in a blog post.

The results of the PYPL index conflict with those of the better known TIOBE Programming Community Index, which ranks language popularity based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors.

TIOBE is broader in scope, in that it uses Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu to calculate the ratings. However, it uses the word “programming” in the search phrase rather than “tutorial”, which PYPL claims is “misleading”.

According to TIOBE's December 2012 results, Objective-C is the language of the year, rising 4.3 percent in popularity during 2012. C had the greatest developer share (18.7 percent), followed by Java with 17.6 percent and Objective-C with 11.1 percent.

Meanwhile, C# dropped a place to fifth place with a rating of 5.5 percent, and PHP was placed sixth.