Areas of IT Job Growth over the Next Decade – Part 3

Welcome to the final installment of the IT job growth article, the final job sector that we have identified as a growing market is Financial technology, because the banks need all the help they can get!

Part 3 - Financial Technology

In the wake of the Credit Crunch, financial institutions across the board (be they investment banks, wealth/private banks or asset managers) are facing a tougher legislative and competitive environment.

Governments are keen to not only moderate and restrict trading (MiFID and the pending MiFID II regulations) and liabilities (Basel III), but also to shore up their tax base by identifying the ‘hidden’ and tax-optimised accounts of its citizens (FATCA).

 FATCA: http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Foreign_Accounting_Tax_Compliance_Act_EN/$FILE/FATCA_March_2011_en.pdf

Not so good for banks, but brilliant for the raft of technologists and change management professionals needed to implement necessary systems.  Areas of strength here will be Business Analysts and Project Managers with Operations experience (knowledge of Anti Money Laundering processes, Client On-Boarding procedures and general Compliance/Regulatory change) and those with a solid understanding of financial instruments and financial accounting.

 Competitive pressures will also drive strategic transformation within Finance.  Large banks (think Deutsche, Citi, JP Morgan etc.) are moving towards a high volume, low margin model within their trading arms.  These so called ‘Flow Monsters’ are pushing trades into automated exchanges, called Straight Through Processing (STP) in the industry.  Expect a major influx of financial instrument experts (especially OTC Derivatives) and Data Warehousing/Analytics roles.

Areas of IT Job Growth over the Next Decade – Part 2

Welcome to part two of the IT job growth article, if would like any more information from one of our knowledgeable consultants leave a comment and we will get back to you as quick as we can.

Part 2 - Cloud Computing & SaaS

The uptick of Internet infrastructure and adoption is not only exponentially increasing our data consumption, but is also transforming the way we look at software within business.   As datacenters grow, it becomes more economically feasible to remove dedicated internal servers and infrastructure.  Not only is it more reliable but completely scalable: smaller fixed costs of outsourcing infrastructure, whilst having the flexibility of growing as and when your business needs, will mean a new wave of IT growth for SMEs.

IT Jobs Watch even reports an almost double Year-on-Year increase in Cloud Computing as a percentage of vacancies, and IBM wants its offering to generate over $7Billion in revenue by 2015.Developers, Architects and Business Analysts with solid transferrable experience of networking, infrastructure and web delivery and software development are set to take best advantage of the coming rise in Cloud Computing vacancies.

IT Jobs watch: http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/cloud%20computing.do

IBM: http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Cloud-Computing/IBM-Cloud-Computing-to-Contribute-$7-Billion-in-Revenue-By-2015.html

Areas of IT Job Growth over the Next Decade by Jonathon Beacher

At Quantica Technology we’re excited by the technological innovation that surrounds us, connects us and changes the way we live.  In an environment as dynamic as Technology, the snoozers loose.  Keeping your finger on the pulse ultimately means looking ahead to anticipate future developments.  Over the next few weeks I’m going to detail three trends within technology that will drive industry growth over the next decade.

Part 1 - Big Data

Technological innovation up until now has largely had the affect of enabling us to create, connect and store data.  The other side of the equation hasn’t particularly kept up: data analytics and business intelligence.  From Social Media to Supermarket shopping, businesses are (and will be) scrambling to map this onto their profit potential.

One player in the industry, the International Data Corporation, is expecting global data use to grow to some 35.2 zettabytes (where 1 ZB is equivalent to a billion terrabytes!), while Cisco estimates the upsurge in data creation and consumption as a result of the global proliferation of the Internet and Mobile.

http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3257599/2011-to-see-rise-in-big-data/

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/VNI_Hyperconnectivity_WP.html

The winning firms of 2020 will be those who have successfully built and maintained a culture of rapid, deep and actionable Data Analytics and Business Intelligence.  Managing, sifting through and then understanding all the data a firm collects is a massive, labour-intensive task.

The ‘Big Data’ job market will be incredibly buoyant as a result. Data Modelers and Warehousers, Architects, Technology and Change professionals will be most in demand initially.  Its ‘green-field’ nature will also lead roles to be contract heavy and Consultancy driven to begin with.  Longer term, those that are able to bridge the data/business divide will be heavily in demand: Business Analysts

IT and Climate change.

 Sea levels are predicted to rise anywhere from 500 cm to 1 metre over this century according to recent reports. With 13 of the world’s largest cities including New York City and Ho Chi Minh situated on the coast, these projected sea level rises could have a catastrophic effect on both their populations and on the world’ssea trade.
The recent news is that the arctic ice caps are melting faster than previously thoughtso obviously these predicted levels are now wrong. Since satellites monitoring began in 1979, scientists are reporting that this year’s ice cover is 463,000 square miles less than the 1979-2000 average of 6.12 million square miles.
Much of the new data has come from GRACE – NASA’s weather satellite – which was launched in 2002 and uses satellite altimetry. Data is also collected using coastal tide gauges. Climate data from satellite altimetry is proving much more accurate than traditional methods and in recent days the French space agency, CNES, has announced that the Franco-American Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite is scheduled for launch in 2019 after a grant of 170 million euros.
With these new huge leaps in collecting accurate data on our world’s eco system, we can only hope that computer modeling can keep pace with these. Traditionally climate modeling has been done using super computers but over the years this has now meant that climate change models can take months to run and require climatologists to keep accurate records of exactly what version of the code was used for each experiment.
Even now in the USA a RENCI supercomputer is being employed to investigate the effects of rising sea levels on the California coast, running around 2,000 individual storm simulations in six different climate set ups. Such future predictions are essential in helping to analyse future coastal risks in planning housing and future community needs.
A century-long climate simulation can still take months to run limiting climatologists to running models on the next 2 decades which can take a few weeks only to run.New research is now focused on Earth System Sciencewhich considers the complex interactions between all the Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, ice sheets and the biosphere.
This will prove a challenge to the world of software research. With recent criticisms of how such software should be open sourced and accountable, for example Professor Mann’s report on global warming which took over 5 years for him to release the code used, the code used in environmental modeling is set to become big business and will need to be less messy if it’s to be made available alongside any findings.
The new challenge to IT, which at present makes up only 2% of global greenhouse gases, is to embrace a greener world by using the tools at its disposal to analyse our planet’s future climate as well as applying clever IT solutions to existing human activities.

QR Codes: Quirky black and white boxes are slowly taking over the world.

Look carefully and you’ll begin to notice the world being taken over by strange looking black and white squares that look a bit like an out of focus crossword puzzle. Quick Response codes have been popular in Japan for years, having been originally designed by Japanese firm Denso Wave back in the nineties to help them keep tabs on vehicle parts being used by Toyota.  Now it seems like the rest of the world is catching up and these quirky squares are starting to pop up everywhere from the side of a drinks can to the outside of buildings.

A QR code is basically a unique code that can be scanned using free to download readers that are increasingly coming as standard on smart phones.  You simply use your mobile to scan the image and you’re instantly directed to a dedicated web page, online coupon, enhanced product info or video ad.

Smart phones are big news for companies needing to push their products.  Usage is up 70% and the global mobile marketing space is forecast to grow by 41% yearly from now until 2015.  Sites such as Groupon have helped customers get to grips with using their phones to shop and now businesses are catching on fast.

Creating your own QR code is easy, simply visit a site such as qurify, type in your website address or message and you’ll instantly have your own code to download and use wherever you want.  Newspapers such as Metro have been using QR codes to nudge readers towards their web articles for some time now and at Christmas Waitrose got in on the act with a QR code campaign that appeared everywhere from newspaper ads to in store stands and even, ultimately, their TV ad too.  Everyone clicking on the code went straight to a specially created interactive site offering recipe ideas, Christmas countdown planners and present suggestions.

Creating specific content for those who click through from a code seems to be one of the keys to success.  After all, these are mobile savvy consumers who expect no, demand, mobile friendly content.

Marketing gurus also warn of the need to educated customers the first few times you use a QR Code by including a simple explanation next to the code explaining how to scan the box, or download a free reader if need be.  Yes, it’s true that some simple instructions might be required to get customers scanning but if you think the effort of learning a new technique will put people off, think again.  This report from Mobio shows that QR code reading increased by a whopping 1,200% throughout the second half of 2010.
Even financial giant AXA has caught the bug, building one of the biggest QR codes on Earth using a whole host of paint containers fixed to the side of a building.  With both businesses and consumers catching on, it seems like we’re reaching the tipping point and QR codes are here to stay, like it or not.

Gonna Send You to (just technically inside) Space

When looking for inspiration in Technology, specifically technology within transport, @RichardBranson is always a good place to start. To be honest, he’s a good place to start with most things.  Richard Branson’s ‘Virgin Group’ founded the Virgin Galactic brand in 2004 and the seven years since have simply added to the excitement of the project. With sporadic announcements, rumours and now, tweets, the project seems to be coming together nicely.  The idea is that Virgin Galactic will run ‘commercial’ flights into Space for a rather reasonable price of $200,000. Now, though it isn’t exactly a few weeks wages, there are plenty of people that will be willing to part with that sort of money to not only experience something that would inevitably be life-defining, but also be one of the first people to do so. It is not unimaginable that within certain circles of society, engaging in this sort of frivolity would be seen as a badge of honour, a sign of inclusion.  SpaceShipTwo, unveiled in December 2009, was required to undertake an 18 month monitoring program before being allowed to charge commercial passengers. That probation period is nearly over and the online anticipation (admittedly by many unlikely to be a passenger in the near future) is reaching fever pitch. This has not been abated by Branson’s twit pic updates recently which you can find at here

But, as you’ve found this article on a Technology blog (a very good one too), let’s get technological and look at the details shall we?  The journey itself begins with a carrier aircraft, known as the WhiteKnightII, which will take the SpaceShipTwo up 52,000ft. When the two separate the SST will continue to over 100km where it will reach the Karman line, known as being where ‘space’ begins. The whole journey, there and back again, will last 3hrs 30 minutes and only 6 of those minutes will allow the passengers (initially 6 within the SST) to unbuckle and float around the cabin.  The speeds involved in this project are phenomenal. Though not necessarily able to sustain this speed consistently, the SST will achieve Mach 3 (around 1000 m/s) which is faster than any aircraft that currently operates within our atmosphere. On return to said atmosphere, the SST will fold its wings (just how cool is that) before levelling out, re-establishing a normal wing shape and landing on a runway. Find out more about the workings, the goings on and the price structures at http://www.virgingalactic.com/. Also, if you do plan on booking a trip up there, will you send us a picture?

Employees in IT are looking to move abroad by Liam Stafford

As with many recruitment agencies, here at Quantica Technology we are inundated with magazines, both on-line and on-our-desks. Some of these we ask for, some just get sent anyway. They range from Computer Weekly (who we update our website with daily) to give us our technology fix, to ‘Recruiter’ where we keep up with, surprisingly, the recruitment industry goings on. It is an online article this week (20 April) of the latter that caught my eye, and has caused quite a debate in the office. The headline read; ‘Two in Three workers seek roles abroad’.

The crux of the article is a claim by the IT Job Board that 68% of IT workers are considering, or have already applied for, international based IT-related jobs.

Though the article somewhat descends into a rallying cry from Alex Farrell (managing director of the IT Job Board) for better salaries and quality of roles within the UK, it is the idea of why moving internationally appeals to these employees that got our office chatting.

The 68% that made the claim was broken down further, with 7/10 citing the quality of jobs internationally, 68% identified the higher earning potential and 69% wanted to experience a new culture. What these statistics tell us, is that a high proportion of those saying yes to the idea of a job abroad gave multiple reasons for doing so, all with similar percentages. So what is the real reason? Is it that the qualities of jobs here at home are not up to scratch? That the salaries in the UK are lagging behind our international cousins? Or is it that the idea of doing the same job, but on the beach under a Palm tree, is something that people are beginning to consider a logical career choice (okay maybe not the palm tree, save that for weekends).

This claim by the IT Job Board seems to pose more questions than answers. Are there certain areas abroad that appeal more than others? Have these professionals considered language barriers, let alone cultural differences? Or is this fundamentally what prevents them from moving?

It’s also worth noting that this inclination to travel while working in IT works inversely to this article, as our newest recruit Liesbeth Williams can prove. Liesbeth has come to us from Belgium and so I thought it appropriate to ask her why she decided to move internationally? Originally she said that she moved toLondon‘because it is an amazing place. It is a culturally diverse, vibrant and dynamic city. It is fast-paced, exciting and is Europe’s biggest city!’ With a bit more pressing it turned out it wasn’t just for work or forLondon’s culture, but for a blossoming relationship too. So maybe, using this theory, two thirds of IT workers are looking abroad because they are looking for love. In my opinion, it is probably the higher salary.