The IT skills that will beat the downturn

UK unemployment is rising towards the two million mark but IT pros with the right skills could still be sitting pretty in 2009.

Alex Farrell, managing director of The IT Job Board, believes certain IT specialisms will buck the downward trend during 2009. Farrell predicts software as a service (SaaS) will be an attractive area as companies consider ways to cut costs by turning to SaaS and SOA (service oriented architecture) services.

SaaS-experienced software architects and developers, as well as project managers, will benefit, with a potential trickle-down effect to testers, administrators and support staff who are up to speed on SOA, she said.

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Another area tipped to do well is SAP as companies invest in maintenance and development of existing systems.

With the continuing rise of mobile broadband and consumer smartphones such as the iPhone, Farrell believes there is also growth potential in the mobile arena - especially for mobile developers and architects.

"J2ME developers and architects could have a strong year in 2009, as an increasing number of IT professionals look to gain an advantage from the accessibility provided by the iPhone and BlackBerry," she said in a statement.

The popularity of location-based services will also increase the demand for mobile application developers, Farrell predicts.

Companies making strategic investments in online technologies could see "enormous benefits during a downturn", Farrell claimed. If businesses take such a route through the economic gloom she said IT pros with web 2.0 skills such as XML/ XSL and RSS, along with Java/J2EE, C#, .Net, AJAX and PHP, could see an increased demand for their services.

Security specialists are also set to be the flavour of the month following any increase in online development.

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