IT professionals in Australia must be trying ahead to an enormous yr in 2024, as ongoing transformation continues to redefine their roles inside their firms. Those that have certifications and capabilities in areas resembling safety, information evaluation and enterprise evaluation will likely be extremely sought out and valued by employers. Coupled with an ongoing abilities scarcity, these professionals who spend the trouble to develop their skillsets in line with present developments will do nicely, whatever the broader financial situations.
Budgets are there for the suitable options
Based on Gartner, IT spending in Australia is anticipated to exceed $133 billion in 2024, which is a considerable improve of seven.8% on the earlier yr (Determine A). This will likely be pushed most importantly by demand in software program, together with cloud companies, which can improve by 12.8%.
Moreover, highlighting the influence of the abilities scarcity, demand for IT companies, together with managed companies, will see spending improve by 8.2%. Organisations, which can need to embrace innovation, will discover themselves turning to 3rd events if they’ll’t useful resource the options internally.
What this implies for IT professionals
Upskilling goes to be central to profession growth for IT professionals this yr. These that target gaining certifications in areas of scorching demand — particularly cloud applied sciences and synthetic intelligence — will likely be extremely valued by organisations.
SEE: Australian IT professionals with the suitable certifications and expertise will discover some massive new alternatives open to them.
Moreover, it is a good yr for IT professionals to contemplate transferring into managed companies and creating an understanding of how organisations throughout a spread of sectors function.
Digital companies will dominate company mindsets
Australian organisations used the disruption attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic to make investments closely in digital innovation. These investments at the moment are beginning to bear fruit; as throughout cyber safety, cloud platforms, information and analytics and utility modernisation, there’s now maturity that’s resulting in superior know-how options and new income streams.
Areas resembling e-commerce, on-line marketplaces, FinTech and HealthTech are all now assembly the wants of shoppers who’re digital natives and like to eat companies that method. In e-commerce, for instance, Australia is the Twelfth-largest market, and ranks forward of markets with a lot bigger populations, resembling Brazil.
What this implies for IT professionals
With maturity, organisations and authorities our bodies alike wish to begin rolling out new digital companies. For instance, in 2024, the Australian authorities will launch Digital IDs after a number of years of laying out the groundwork.
IT professionals will must be ready to work in extremely agile environments the place the main target will likely be firmly on leveraging digital know-how to launch new merchandise and deepen the client expertise.
Cyber safety will likely be a mad scramble for compliance
In late 2023, the Australian authorities unveiled its 2023-2030 Cyber Safety Technique, an bold, far-reaching and transformative strategy to nationwide cyber safety that goals to take Australia from being susceptible to information breaches and loss to being a worldwide chief.
SEE: Cyber safety developments to look at in Australia in 2024.
This technique will lead to new insurance policies and areas for compliance, in addition to enhanced penalties for non-compliance, that means that cyber safety will likely be an space of enhanced threat for organisations. Among the areas for motion over the subsequent seven years that may begin to see motion in 2024 embody:
- Efforts to boost public-private collaboration and mechanisms for cyber risk sharing and blocking.
- Renewed efforts to handle the abilities disaster by bettering Australia’s cyber safety workforce and abilities pipeline.
- New nationwide frameworks to reply to main cyber incidents.
- Funding in group consciousness and sufferer help.
- Additional funding within the nationwide cyber safety ecosystem.
- Higher efforts to design and implement safety in new applied sciences.
Whereas that is aimed toward bettering cyber safety outcomes throughout the nation, organisations, and notably small and midsize companies, are going to battle to maintain up with the speedy motion that the federal government is making on this space.
What this implies for IT professionals
Each IT skilled in each space ought to take the time to develop some degree of cyber safety competency. Organisations are going to look to their IT groups for management on this, and the speed of change signifies that all IT professionals ought to guarantee their cyber safety abilities and certifications are stored present and up-to-date.
The place IT professionals ought to focus abilities growth
There may be an ongoing want for IT professionals to behave as a bridge between IT groups and the broader enterprise. As organisations rely extra closely on IT to ship merchandise and income streams, IT professionals that higher perceive the broader function of IT throughout the enterprise will likely be extremely valued.
SEE: Australian organisations wish to expertise as a service to fill abilities gaps.
Based on Hays, the highest 5 abilities for IT professionals to give attention to in 2024 are:
- Cyber safety: Organisations might want to grapple each with the proliferation of threats and the shifting regulatory setting.
- Full-stack growth: The demand for utility modernisation, apps and digital software program will gasoline the necessity for full stack builders.
- Information evaluation: In 2024, information evaluation abilities are going to be much more essential for making data-driven choices and improvements.
- Enterprise evaluation: Enterprise evaluation abilities are vital for guaranteeing the alignment and success of IT initiatives and initiatives.
- Cloud platforms: Cloud platform abilities are in demand for managing and optimising cloud companies and assets to enhance efficiencies as required capability scales.
IT professionals are well-placed to climate the financial storm
Although the general financial system will seemingly proceed to face challenges this yr — Australia nonetheless has points with the price of dwelling, inflation and world macroeconomic situations — the IT sector, which may leverage know-how to mitigate a few of these challenges, ought to see a robust yr. For IT professionals, there’s a lot to look ahead to.