By Lakshmi Mittra, VP and Head, Clover Academy
The proliferation of cloud services have enabled businesses to become agile, flexible, and cost-efficient. As per a recent Nasscom report, large-scale adoption of cloud has the potential to contribute $380 billion to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), creating 14 million direct and indirect employment opportunities by 2026. The landscape of the cloud is experiencing a surge in growth, and the demand for talent with cloud skillsets and expertise is rising consistently.
Below mentioned are some of the cloud skills that would be most sought-after in the years to come:
Skillsets in DevSecOps – DevSecOps is a set of practices that combine the speed and agility of DevOps with security controls. It assists enterprises in delivering software faster while ensuring that the applications are secure. The DevSecOps market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 32.2% from the year 2020 till 2028. Since DevSecOps is all about automating the software delivery process and keeping it secure, it requires a deep understanding of latest DevOps tools and technologies, automation and security features. This rising market demand will create a lot of job opportunities for DevSecOps professionals.
Skillsets in Serverless Cloud – In a serverless computing environment, developers do not deal with the servers. They work with the servers, which are managed by the vendors. This allows enterprises to cut down their investments in the infrastructure, and at the same time enables developers to create and expand applications without being constrained by server capacity. This provides a true ‘pay-as-you-go’ service in which the infrastructure increases discreetly as an application’s needs change. In the years to come, serverless computing will play a significant role in generating new user experiences that would make innovation more accessible throughout the digital landscape. Hence, the talent with skillsets in serverless computing will become the most sought-after.
Skillsets in Hybrid Cloud – Many businesses opt for a hybrid cloud environment as it combines the best of two platforms – public and private clouds. This is especially helpful for organizations that deal with sensitive customer data or operate in highly regulated industries such as banking and insurance. A hybrid cloud environment is lucrative as it provides the required level of control while allowing organizations to innovate and scale as they roll out new services for their customers. The global hybrid cloud market is anticipated to be valued at $145 billion in 2026, up from $51 billion in 2020.
Skillsets in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) – The shift to a flexible work culture is leading to employees accessing resources and data remotely. Hence, SASE is gaining traction as it centralizes access in the cloud and streamlines security policy design and enforcement. SASE is a cybersecurity concept that establishes a secure link between applications/solutions, and organizational entities such as people, systems and devices. Organizations that use a SASE architecture benefit from cloud-based network security services such as secure gateways, firewalls, zero-trust network access, and more. This not only defends them against cyber threats but also assists them in blocking undesirable traffic while complying with security standards.
Skillsets in Edge Computing – Edge computing moves the network, storage and computing resources closer to the edge of the network thereby reducing latency, and enhancing security and productivity. This technology is integral to industries that require real-time processing of data and delivering of insights using IoT and connected devices, smart wearables, etc. As IoT takes a leap into the future with Industrial IoT that leverages the power of smart machines and real-time analytics to take advantage of the data generated, the demand for talent with an understanding of how to function in a distributed IT infrastructure such as edge or mobile edge computing has skyrocketed.
As cloud technology is advancing, new trends are expected to keep cropping up. To become employable in such a volatile environment, talent needs to continuously innovate and upgrade their skillsets in latest technologies.
