Survey respondents held a wide variety of job titles. With the advice of the HR Committee members, we were able to group more than 180 New York State Civil Service titles into seven job specialties. The resulting definitions and distribution of job specialties is shown in Table 2. These categories are a useful way to look at the workforce, but they do have some limitations due to the nature of Civil Service titles. While most titles pertain directly to the jobs performed, some are more broadly defined than others and may include a wider range of capabilities. In addition, individuals holding a variety of non-technical titles who are performing some aspect of an agency’s IT function were also included in the survey population. Most of these titles were grouped in the Business Specialist category. Consequently, these groupings do not fully represent the work that people are actually doing, although they do approximate the broad job specialties in state government. Much of our subsequent analysis makes use of these job specialty categories in order to understand better how people doing different types of work perceive their proficiency and skill development needs.

Table 2. Definitions of job specialties

Job Specialty	N*	Percent	Description
Programmer	1400	51	Titles within this group perform computer systems analysis, design, and programming activities for agency programs and may include web page development.
Other technical specialist	357	13	Generally entry and journey level positions in an IT organization, typically working in help desk, LAN administration, and user support or installation services functions. Resolve user problems by communicating with end-users and by translating technical problems from end-users to technical support staff. Install hardware, software and peripherals; runs diagnostic software; and utilize mainframe or client server software to provide system security access.
Technology manager	271	10	Titles within this group are responsible for planning/directing/ coordinating/supervising a combination of IT specialties for an agency including data base, data communications, operations and systems programming.
Business specialist	242	9	Titles within this group serve as technical specialists with technical knowledge and expertise related to their program(s)’ specific automated system. They may work closely with IT staff in evaluating, reviewing, and analyzing business needs and supporting technology-related solutions within their assigned program areas.
Data communication/ telecommunications specialist	177	7	Titles within this group are responsible for voice and data communications network design, analysis, capacity planning, installation, monitoring, performance evaluation, and maintenance. Install and maintain data and voice communications network hardware/software. Maintain and update local and statewide communications networks and systems.
Database administrator/ analyst	119	4	Titles within this group are responsible for all activities associated with the design, development, installation, and performance of agency databases. May include advanced database programming, implementation, monitoring, and management of database environments.
Systems specialist	107	4	Titles within this group are responsible for systems programming and for implementing, maintaining, and managing an agency’s systems software environment or major component. May be responsible for advanced systems programming, architecting, implementing and maintaining/managing an agency’s advanced systems software environment or major component.
Operations specialist	64	3	Titles within this group are responsible for planning/directing/ coordinating the computer operations activities of large computer systems including all data processing hardware and peripheral equipment. Supervise computer operators engaged in carrying out computer operations activities.

* Excludes a total of 96 cases with missing job titles, total may not equal 100% due to rounding.

The demographic patterns among the job specialties are quite similar to each other with a few exceptions. Levels of education and types of degrees earned, years of work experience, and retirement eligibility and plans of respondents vary by job specialty. (See Table E1 in Appendix E for the complete profiles by job specialty.) About one-fifth of the operations specialists and one-third of other technical specialists have baccalaureate or higher level degrees compared to two-thirds of employees in the remaining specialties. In addition, 30 percent or more of the employees in most specialties hold degrees in technical disciplines, while this is true for 19 percent of business specialists and only 11 percent of operations specialists. Further, more technology managers, operations specialists, and business specialists are eligible to retire (36 percent, 37 percent, and 32 percent respectively) and more of them plan to retire in the next three years (22 percent, 23 percent, and 18 percent respectively) than do programmers and systems, database, telecommunications, and other technical specialists.