LPI-UK News
07-09-2009
Linux Pros polish up skills
Firebrand Training sees demand up as UK businesses learn to cope with changing IT landscape
Well, 2009’s not all been doom and gloom. The first 3 months of the year saw 60 IT skills falling in demand. However, importantly, 47 also went up. In the recent survey from Foote Partners’, Linux skills rate as the 2nd most in demand IT skill behind Java, and also the fastest growing.
Interestingly the UK jobs monitor ITJobsWatch reports the amount of operations jobs which ask for Linux skills to have gone up by around 30% in the last year alone, and now represent over a third of all jobs in the sector.
So why the continued interest in Linux certification?
Well, for hiring managers, certification provides a common, industry-recognised framework to evaluate candidates. According to the IDC, 55 percent of hiring managers think certification is a criterion for hiring, while 46 percent see certification as a criterion for promotion.
In the current climate companies will look to pick off the cream of candidates available. This will lead to the hiring managers seeking proof of knowledge and returning to the core skill sets required to working in business IT.
Once businesses have overcome the gloom of the recession, they’ll realise they still have projects which need to be completed, and systems which need maintaining. At Firebrand, for example, we have trained more Linux professionals in the first half of 2009 as we did all of last year.
