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New York State Information Technology Workforce Skills Assessment Statewide Survey Results

Abstract

Executive Summary

Introduction

New York State IT Workforce and Leadership Profiles

Skill Proficiency Ratings

Training Demand

IT Competency Framework

Three-year IT Skills Forecast

Gap Analysis

Workforce Development Considerations

Conclusions and Future Considerations

Appendix A: Methodology

Appendix B: Project Sponsors and Participants

Appendix C: Skill Definitions

Appendix D: Employee Survey Questions

Appendix E: Data Tables
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Three-year IT Skills Forecast

Forecast patterns

One way to look at the data is to assess the number and kind of skills that fall into each forecast type. Viewed in this way, the following rough patterns emerge:
  • In use and growing forecast – applied predominantly to skills associated with networks, security, the web, and information analysis and management.
  • Steady state forecast – applied predominantly to foundational skills in both technical and management areas
  • Possible adoption forecast – applied predominantly to emerging technologies associated with modern infrastructures and analytical tools
  • In use, but declining forecast – applied predominantly to legacy technologies and specific types of web computing tools
  • None forecast – applied predominantly to legacy technologies
Table 12 below illustrates how the forecasts are distributed across competency areas for forecasts other than growth. It shows the top five skills selected by CIOs for each forecast as measured by the number of CIOs who selected a particular forecast for a particular skill.

Table 12. Top five forecasts (other than growth) by competency area

Competency Area
 
Steady state
(percent of CIOs choosing forecast)
 
Possible adoption
(percent of CIOs choosing forecast)
 
In use, but declining
(percent of CIOs choosing forecast)
 
None expected
(percent of CIOs choosing forecast)
 
Management
 
  • Internal controls (57%)
  • Managing agency staff (55%)
 		   
Infrastructure
 
  • Hardware maintenance & support (71%)
  • Principles of operating systems (63%)
 
  • Voice over IP (56%)
  • Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) (53%)
  • Biometrics (61%)
  • Video imaging (38%)
  • Linux operating systems (38%)
 		 
  • Mac OS/ OS X operating systems (85%)
 
Web computing
 		  
  • Microsoft Access (35%)
  • Visual Basic (22%)
 
  • Borland JBuilder (80%)
 
Systems and databases
 		    
Technical support services
 
  • Support for desktop applications (64%)
 		   
Management and use of information as an asset
 		    
Legacy technologies
 		  
  • COBOL (39%)
  • Mainframe operations (26%)
  • PowerBuilder (22%)
 
  • Fortran (95%)
  • Unisys mainframe (80%)
  • IBM mainframe (64%)
 

To further illustrate these patterns, Tables E7 – E11 in Appendix E show the top ten skills in each forecast type and highlight the competency area associated with each skill.

This study is particularly concerned with gathering information that prepares New York for the future; therefore CIO growth forecasts for skills are especially relevant. Table 13 lists the skills in each competency area where at least 50 percent of the CIOs chose the growth forecast. The table shows that substantial growth is expected in five of the seven competency areas, with the greatest number of technical skills needed over the next three years falling in the infrastructure and web computing competencies.

Table 13. Skills with growth forecast by competency area
Competency Area
 
In use and growing
(percent of CIOs choosing forecast)
 
Management
 
  • Project management (66%)
  • Change management (53%)
  • Business continuity planning (50%)
 
Infrastructure
 
  • System security applications (82%)
  • Identity management & directory services (70%)
  • Encryption (68%)
  • Disaster recovery & planning (67%)
  • Web/IP (66%)
  • Intrusion detection (63%)
  • Mobile computing (60%)
  • Network architecture & design principles (54%)
  • Windows operating system (52%)
  • Wireless technologies (51%)
  • Firewalls (51%)
 
Web computing
 
  • Website design & development (82%)
  • Website management (72%)
  • DHTML/ HTML/ XHTML (63%)
  • JavaScript (61%)
  • Java (61%)
  • XML/XSL (57%)
  • Website accessibility (54%)
  • Web servers (54%)
  • Website search & administration (53%)
 
Systems and databases
 
  • Systems architecture (56%)
  • Systems integration (56%)
  • Oracle (53%)
  • Testing & evaluation (50%)
 
Technical support services
 		 
Management and use of information as an asset
 
  • Records management (56%)
  • Workflow management (55%)
  • Content management (51%)
  • Data warehousing (51%)
 
Legacy technologies