CONVERGENCE OF TMT SECTORS DRIVING HUGE DEMAND FOR NEW TECH SKILLS

CONVERGENCE OF TMT SECTORS DRIVING HUGE DEMAND FOR NEW TECH SKILLS IN AN INCREASINGLY DIGITAL ECONOMY

Data analysis and management is nothing new but the move towards on line business models is driving a huge spike in demand for data analysis skills around business analytics. That’s according to Oliver Gibbons, Director of Twenty Technology who believes that the TMT sector is driving ‘blue sky thinking’ among sectors such as financial services, energy, and retail all of which rely on large customer databases.

 “While obviously data management isn’t new, social media and the gathering of consumer behaviour through text based data rather than purely numeric information is the future. You only have to look at the way the technology industry is responding to see the evidence of this - IBM for example has just launched the  SPSS Modeler data mining and text analytics workbench, which according to press reports, will use  natural language processing (NLP) to analyse everything from product names and industry jargon to slang and emoticons. Then there is the telecoms sector where smartphone apps themselves collect huge amounts of data from their users. This convergence of technology, media and telecoms means a whole new set of hiring problems for sectors that historically had no real cross pollination of skills.”

Gibbons says that while companies across many sectors are investing heavily in analytics technology, there just aren’t enough people available with the skills needed to analyse the data.  “We’re not just talking about numeracy and computer science – today’s and tomorrow’s analysts will need other skills to be able to really extract key insights from the data they have.  What this means in reality is that we have multiple sectors competing for one set of skills – and that could mean rich pickings for those who have the right experience!”