It's essential to learn technical skills that are relevant to your role and industry, and ensure you ... [+]
Technology is accelerating at a rapid pace—and so are technical skills. While soft skills are the most essential skill set one can possess in their career toolkit, technical skills still have vital importance and play a critical role in shaping one's career success and effectiveness in their role, especially if you already work in, or are hoping to work within, technology.
Soft skills, also known as power skills, open doors to new opportunities and enable you to develop and cultivate a growth mindset, which in turn enables you to supercharge your career by being agile, adapting your technical skills to the times and industry trends.
Although AI (artificial intelligence) has been stealing the limelight for the past year, let's not forget or underestimate the importance of other technical skills, which will help you build your career and eventually develop as a leader.
Contingent workforce management company Magnit identified five core technical skills which are in high demand and are the fastest growing outside of AI related skills. These include:
1. Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is essentially a cloud computing platform that has the capability for organizations to access a wide range of services, such as data storage, building, running, and managing applications, hosting network servers to run your applications, and databases. Because it's hosted on the "cloud," you don't need to own or maintain physical hardware, which allows your company to scale IT infrastructure quickly and be more cost-effective.
Where To Learn It
Microsoft provides a learning path called Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, which you can study at your own pace. Microsoft Learn also has a function that allows you to search for training providers.
2. Analytical Skills
Possessing strong analytical skills is an important function of high-performing professionals who have a growth mindset, because to grow, make sense of lessons learned, and evaluate mistakes, you need to be able to analyze the data and surrounding circumstances.
Analytical skills refers to the ability to collect, analyze, and interpret data—sometimes very complex data sets, for the purpose of applying it to decision-making and creating complex solutions.
Where To Learn It
General Assembly offers a range of helpful bootcamps and courses, including in data analytics. LinkedIn Learning is another useful resource, and some universities may also have short courses or certifications to help you build your problem-solving and analytical skills.
3. AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is another cloud-based computing platform, very similar to Azure, but has some differences in terms of its pricing model, flexibility, and user capabilities.
Where To Learn It
Amazon has a platform called AWS Skill Builder, that helps you learn in-demand cloud skills for AWS through an interactive and engaging learning platform. In AWS Skill Builder, you can practice your skills in a gamified environment, apply your learning to your specific role and industry, and prep effectively for your certification exam.
4. Jira
Jira is one of the most popular tools typically used for collaboration, tracking, and visibility of workflows, particularly within software project/product management. You can use it to manage and track software development projects using agile methodologies Scrum and Kanban, and you can customize dashboards in addition to integrating with other software development tools.
Where To Learn It
Atlassian, the developer behind Jira, Confluence, and other tools, has a feature on their website called Atlassian University. This learning platform allows you to gain the skills you need for using their software, and obtain recognizable certificates that attest your skills to your employer or prospective employers.
5. Cybersecurity
Last but not least, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important, especially as more organizations and employees are working and collaborating from home. This leaves them more susceptible and vulnerable to potential cyber attacks and threats. Magnit is not alone in pointing out the growing need for cybersecurity skills.
These skills rank in the top 10 skills for 2024, with almost 3.4 million jobs in this field available worldwide, according to Coursera's Job Skills Of 2024 report. And this can be further explained by the fact that cybersecurity breaches can be deadly for businesses, leading to business losses of $4.35 million on average.
Flexible learning platforms and resources online makes it easier to acquire skills to progress your ... [+]
Where To Learn It
You can easily learn the foundations of cybersecurity skills through Google's Cybersecurity Professional Certificate, which is available for enrolment on Coursera. Codeacademy also provides cybersecurity courses and learning paths for newbies and those more advanced.
