Digital niche and super niche skills see growing demand in IT: Quess

Data from Quess, leading business solutions provider and India’s largest private sector employer, reveals that the demand for talent with digital skills such as Full Stack, React JS, Android, Angular JS, and Cloud Infrastructure Technologies, Cyber Security, among others, has seen a surge since last quarter, as technology transformations have become a key priority for organizations industry-wide. Some areas have witnessed over a 300% increase in requirements.

There has been an overall increase in the interest in upskilling from both the organisational and the individual perspectives. While companies transition their legacy systems and build next-gen platforms and processes, talent demand for technology skills is booming. New-age HR solutions such as Hire-Train-Deploy help bridge this demand-supply gap through focused, skill-based resource hiring.

Top 5 Digital Skills in Demand

The Top 5 digital skills in demand are Cloud Infrastructure Technology Developer, Full Stack Developer, React JS Developer, Android Developer and Angular JS Developer. In Mar-Aug 2021, the role of Full Stack Developer has seen a ↑388% increase in the total number of open positions, as compared to Oct-March 2020-2021. Similarly, the roles of React JS Developer (↑364%), Android Developer (↑247%), Cloud Infra Technology Developer (↑184%), and Angular JS Developer (↑160%) have witnessed an uptick in openings during this time. Further, Gaming (Unity Developers), DevOps (Bamboo, Jira) and Platforms (Salesforce, SAP HANA) have witnessed an increase in skill demand.

City-wise demand for Digital Skills

Analysing the overall demand for the top 5 skills among Tier 1 cities, Bengaluru witnessed the highest demand (40%), followed by Hyderabad (18%) and Pune (18%), and lastly Chennai (11%) and Mumbai (8%) with lower demands. A skill-wise break-up showcases that Bangalore indicates high demand for Cloud Tech Developers (41%), React JS Developers (44%), and Android Developers (81%). For Full Stack Developers, nearly equal demand was witnessed across Bangalore (42%) and Hyderabad (37%). Demand for Angular JS Developers was evenly distributed across Hyderabad (25%), Bangalore (21%), Gurgaon (21%), Chennai (16%) and Pune (13%).

Factors leading to demand creation

Growth in the digital economy, fuelled by the BFSI industry, is the primary contributor to the surge in demand for digital skills this quarter. Furthermore, the larger industrial migration to platform based solutions has boosted demand for AI, ML, IoT experts as well as data scientists and DevOps engineers. Further, as protecting digital assets is a top priority for all CTOs, the demand for cyber security and data encryption services has also risen. Additionally, with cloud migration being a staple requirement across programs, it becoming key to organisational transformations, pushing up the demand for skilled talent even further.

Full Stack and React JS developers are nearly always at the top of hiring pipelines, as they are the key instrument in developing and maintaining frontend and backend functionalities for websites and applications. Every tech company is vying to source the best talent to help manage their end-to-end web requirements. Similarly, Angular JS Developers are in-demand as the platform is a popular choice due to its speed, performance, and easy integration capabilities. Further, as Android is one the world’s most preferred and used tech platforms, demand for experts currently outweighs its supply.

Overall, as industries continually renew and chart their digital priorities and implement technology transformations, the demand for digital skills will ascend.

Vijay Sivaram, CEO, Quess IT Staffing, said, “Today, many factors are at play as they amalgamate to define the next steps of the industry. Experts are calling this period ‘The Great Resignation’, as the unceasing talent surge has disrupted the demand-supply equilibrium, driving organizations to focus on both, talent attraction as well as talent retention.

These developments are most visible in the changing landscape of India Inc., where we are witnessing the addition of more Global Capability Centers across India, as well as an expansion of existing firms into Tier 2 and 3 cities. However, with the growing need for remote talent, companies are stepping beyond Indian borders to explore hiring in other APAC countries such as Philippines, Vietnam & Sri Lanka.

While these macro factors give wind to the industry’s sails, an important shift can also be observed at the micro level, in most Board rooms, where ‘workforce skilling’, ‘resource management’ and ‘automated talent acquisition processes’ are the new buzz words, driving change and steering new business agendas.”