According to a recent Gartner report, 81% of large company CIOs anticipate growing their IT staff in 2023.
Because of business acceptance lags, implementation times, and learning curves, Jose Ramirez, senior principal analyst at Gartner, said in a news release that even with AI advancements, the worldwide job impact will remain neutral over the next few years.
Why CIOs want to hire more IT staff
According to Gartner, companies undergoing digital transformation rely on full-time IT staff to complete the task. 56% of this work is done by full-time IT personnel. The remaining 21% is completed by IT contractors or part-time employees, followed by 9% by IT consultants and 4% by IT gig workers.
Large projects are often requested of IT directors, yet there are frequently insufficient resources to complete them. In order to support their company’s total digital transformation, 67% of the CIOs questioned said they intend to grow their IT staff by at least 10%.
Over the past two years, businesses have launched a variety of digital projects, with operational excellence and customer or citizen experience being the most popular, according to Ramirez in the news release. However, these programmes frequently fall short of meeting business needs in a timely manner.
However, a few large businesses encountered issues: 41% indicated that hiring for IT roles has slowed, 35% reported that their overall IT budget has fallen, and 29% noted that their organisation has a hiring freeze for IT.
AI’s impact on job market
In contrast to statements made by the University of Pennsylvania and OpenAI that AI will displace 20% of human labour, Gartner’s estimate that AI technology will have a “neutral” effect on jobs worldwide. Only 4% of the large company CIOs questioned claimed to use “AI-augmented workers” at the moment.
A few specifics have not yet been established in the realm of AI in the IT profession because it is still under development.
There are worries about the potential legal challenges that may develop from generative AI, such as copyright infringement and sensitive information breaches, even as investments in AI technology and the need for AI capabilities are anticipated to grow dramatically, Ramirez continued in an email.
Just over 9% of the work completed today that falls under the purview of IT is automated or enhanced by AI, according to the CIOs.
While doing so, 46% of CIOs intend to automate part or all of their workflow to save up ITÂ time.
What CIOs look for in candidates for IT roles
The CIOs questioned strive to employ from a larger geographic area or to waive some hiring standards, such “hiring early-career technologists,” according to Ramirez in the press release.
According to CIOs at large companies, the following IT skills are in high demand:
- Cybersecurity.
- Cloud platforms.
- Customer or user experience.
Technical expertise, soft skills like communication and relationship management, and a good fit with the company culture are the factors that matter most in determining if a person is suited for the IT team.
Reskilling and fusion teams are two more trends in hiring
In order to retrain and upskill IT employees, nearly half (47%) of the surveyed CIOs intend to spend in training initiatives. They aim to make sure that the teams have the roles, soft skills, and capacity that the company needs to achieve its business goals.
46% of the polled CIOs intend to create fusion teams. Technical and commercial professionals are stakeholders in fusion teams, which concentrate on interdisciplinary business success.
In the news release, Ramirez said that a team made up of both technical and business stakeholders can “ensure that IT has relevant roles, skills, and capacity to meet enterprise objectives.”
