Multiple surveys continue to support a rise in IT spending for 2011.  Another recent report is the Capgemini 2010-2011 World Quality Report.  We’re already seeing the effects with large and medium employers filling up job seeker sites with thousands of new open positions.  The following three skill sets emerged as clear targets of IT spending priority in the future.

Mobile developers.  It seems like the drumbeat of a new era.  If people aren’t buying new smartphones and tablets they are developing apps for them.  The only people left seem to be those figuring out how to get in on the action.  Face it, the emergence of the mobile device as an integrated part of our work and home lifestyle is an industry with lasting staying power.  Investing in skills for this environment has tons of long-term potential in terms of career and employability.  Of particular note are training opportunities like GogoTraining’s Android Development Training Program.  iOS was the first fashionable one to show up, with emerging players being HP’s new version of webOS due in the summer of 2011 and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 already at market.

Cloud computing.  What does that mean anyway, in terms of skills?  So far we’ve determined two important areas.  First is hardware and network management.  Hosting providers are finding they have to ramp up on this sort of thing since things like virtualization, serving power, redundancy and storage are going to continue a robust growth curve with the emergence of the cloud.  Next is IT service management, specifically those best practices one can acquire through ITIL certification training.  In-house IT staff at corporations of all sizes are going to have to beef up their IT service management abilities in order to understand how to better serve the greater business and also because they will increasingly be working with vendors providing cloud services.

QA and Test.  Of particular note, 72% of IT professionals indicated in the HP/Capgemini survey that QA/test people with a development background perform better than those without.  This only makes sense; nobody know better how to break something than someone who knows how to build it in the first place.  For software developers looking for a transition point, QA/test is the name of the game.  If you are a developer, getting training in Software QA and Test would be a good direction.

For training on these and other business-critical technologies, check out the GogoTraining IT training course catalog.