Demand for technology skills tends to support

A recent survey of CIO's shows that, for all of the talk of changing technology and aggressive innovation, demand for people who keep the lights on still leads the way. The survey, conducted by Robert Half Associates late in the summer, Network Administration indicates that about 70% of respondents list support functions - Desktop, Windows and Network - as their most sought-after skillset. The types of skills that equate to innovation are still in the top ten, but demand is not nearly as strong. About a third of the CIO's are looking for people who can handle virtualization and BI initiatives. Demand is a little more firm for application developers - reflected in the Web & .NET Development responses.

As a side note, the article where these results were published noted that Gartner has reported a 13% increase in demand for Business Intelligence software. It's not clear whether that increase is measure in dollars spent or in licensed seats. Interest in CRM, while light compared to the support functions, is still better than I had expected, with 1 in 5 respondents indicating that they are looking for CRM expertise.

What surprises me most about this report is that virtualization didn't rank higher than telecomm support. Of course, the phone is one of the most mission-critical pieces of technology in the enterprise. But, other than moves-adds-changes, aren't telecomm systems also among the most reliable? Or are they mixing WAN issues in with telecomm, since the providers are the same companies? The report doesn't specify, but it raises interesting questions.

The report, as published by CIO Insight: The 10 IT Skills most in demand