TechEd 2013: Microsoft sheds light on cloud skills shortages

Nearly two million cloud-related jobs went unfilled last year, because IT pros lacked the experience and skills needed to do them.

That's according to a recent study by IDC and Microsoft into the impact cloud computing is having on the global employment market, which featured responses from 600 HR managers from across the globe.

The report's findings suggest cloud is going to be responsible for driving "almost all" of the growth within the IT jobs market over the next three years, as adoption of the technology continues to take-off.

However, it is feared increasing numbers of these jobs could go unfilled, unless IT pros make more of an effort to get trained up and gain experience in cloud technologies.

Speaking at the Microsoft TechEd conference in New Orleans, the software giant's director of learning, Ken Rosen, explained: "In that study we asked how many of [the HR manager's] open roles [in the cloud] remained unfilled...and IDC concluded there are 1.7m jobs that have been posted and gone unfilled over the past year."

When asked what skills were in shortest supply, the study's respondents said they were struggling to find people who could assess the risk associated with moving to the cloud, and the impact this would have on IT service management.

They also cited difficulties in finding candidates that could create cloud migration plans.

"What's the common theme among all these? They are not low-level implementation skills," said Rosen.

"They are not installation, configuration-type things. These are sophisticated skills that are very difficult to tease out during an interview process."

HR managers may need to rethink the recruitment criteria they use when it comes to hiring cloud professionals, suggested Rosen, to ensure more of these vacancies get filled in future.

"There are not a lot of people out there today that have experience and proof of experience [in cloud technologies]," he said.

"So what we're seeing now is a resurgence of interest in training and certification in the IT field, particularly around cloud-related skills."