ICT Trends – Job Market

Positive Indicators

The NZ ICT job market has continued its upward trend throughout the year with an overall increase in job adverts posted on Seek ICT and Trademe IT since January of 58 and 60 percent respectively, based on the ICT Trend Series.The Ministry of Innovation, Business and Employment (MBIE) jobs online report, published this month, found that the largest increase in skilled job vacancies for August was the IT industry, up 1.8 percent. This was in spite of a 0.4 percent fall in overall skilled job vacancies advertised online. The annual change for August 2013-2014, as listed on the Skilled Vacancies Index by industry group, trend series, recorded a 3.5 percent increase for IT. In comparison the ICT Trend Series recorded an increase of 7 percent; double that of the skilled vacancy index for the same period. IT/ICT employers in New Zealand’s three main centres, according to recent reports by Absolute IT, are planning to recruit additional staff/contractors to deal with new projects and increased customer demand. In Auckland the top skills that employers are planning to recruit for are business analysis, software development, network and infrastructure, and testing. The leading skill that Wellington employers are recruiting for is project management while in Christchurch employers are recruiting for a similar set of skills with the addition of data/database. (Refer Table 1).

ICT Career/Job Prospects

The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) website provides job seekers and students with current education, employment and income information relating to ICT career paths. Figure 1 (mobile app. screenshots) illustrates the occupation outlook for several categories of high growth ICT occupations, together with the projected annual average growth from 2011 to 2021. Table 1 lists the current (September) Seek ICT job adverts for high growth occupations.

Table 1 Seek ICT Job Adverts for High Growth Occupations

*ICT High Growth OccupationsSeek ICT Job

Adverts September 2014

Business and Systems Analysts 322

Database Administrator 31#Systems Administrator 86#ICT Managers 650#Network Professionals 97#Programmers 715

Software Developers 441#Support Professionals 281#Testing 346

*Overlap between occupations may distort advert numbers#All categories

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Fig 1 High Growth STEM Related Occupations 2014 (MBIE Labour Information)

TIOBE Programming Community Index Update

The TIOBE index top five programming languages in descending order for September are; C, Java, Objective-C, C++, and C#. The index headline states that the change in popularity of C++ and Java may be affected by the growing number of specific fields, such as biomedical, statistical and hardware, using their own set of programming languages to write programs.

Java is the only programming language in NZ that aligns in popularity with the TIOBE index at number two, based on the Seek ICT job adverts for September (Table 2).

Table 2 Current NZ Demand for TIOBE Top 5 Programming LanguagesTIOBE Index Order

of PopularityTIOBE Index Top 5

Programming Language*Seek ICT Job Adverts

for September5 C# 3192 Java 3104 C++ 613 Objective-C 251 C 18

*Some programming language adverts overlap/double up; e.g. C/C++

Job Adverts

Seek ICT Job adverts for September are down marginally by 2.7 percent on last month, but are significantly up by 11.8 percent on this time last year (Fig.2).

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Fig.2 Seek ICT Job Adverts Monthly Trends 2010 –2014 (September)

The Trademe IT job adverts for September are 2 percent down on last month’s figure of 1278, but are substantially up by 24 percent on last year’s September adverts (Fig.3). This month’s Trademe IT total represents an overall increase of almost 60 per cent since the beginning the year.

Fig.3 Seek ICT & Trademe IT Job Advert Trends to September 2014

Figure 4 illustrates a slight fall overall in Seek ICT job adverts for this month with Auckland down 7.2 percent. Wellington leads the increase in adverts for the year to September at 92.5 percent, followed by Auckland with 53 percent, and Canterbury with 37 percent. The increase for all NZ for

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the year to September is 57.5 percent (Refer to figure 5 for specific numbers), significantly higher than for the same period last year at 45 percent. Grow Wellington, the regional economic development organisation, is addressing the more than 500 ICT vacancies in the region; 718 listed on Seek ICT this month. The online campaign, backed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, targets ex-pat Kiwis and Australians to fill developer, project manager, business analyst, tester and other IT support roles.

Fig.4 Seek ICT Job Advert Trends Monthly Change for September 2014

Figure 5 provides a detailed record of the Seek ICT job advert trends by region for the year to September 2014.

Fig.5 Seek ICT Job Advert Monthly Trends to September 2014

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ConclusionThe NZ IT/ICT industry continues to maintain an upward trajectory in terms of the rising number of job adverts. In order to deal with new projects and increased customer demand ICT employers in the three main centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are planning to recruit additional staff/contractors. Job seekers and students potentially have access to a wealth of information about the ICT occupations, especially the high growth categories, leading to well paid jobs/careers. The top skills and/or high growth occupations are highlighted in a number of online reports, updated regularly, by organisations such as the government’s MBIE and the recruitment specialists Absolute IT. ICT Industry and professional organisations need to ensure that the message to potential job seekers and students is received, understood and acted upon to help guarantee a continuing supply of professional ICT talent.

News Bytes: A to Z

ITU – GEM-TECH Awards 2014: Gender Equality mainstreamingThis is an annual special achievement award for outstanding performers and role models in Gender Equality and mainstreaming in the area of ICTs applicable for both women and men.NZ – NZ Herald: IT bosses keen to pay upNew Zealand's IT sector has grown by 80 per cent in the past 10 years.NZ – Stuff.co.nz; Business Day: Job outlook strong despite electionOverall employment picture was positive, but hiring activity was becoming centralised in the main cities, particularly Auckland and Christchurch, according to ManpowerGroup Australia and New Zealand managing director Lincoln Crawley.UAE – Gulfnews.com : Women making great progress in the male-dominated IT sectorFemale students recognise that more opportunities are opening up to study and work in IT sector.

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