According to the Harvey Nash Technology Survey 2017, 45% of technology professionals across the world believe a significant part of their job will be automated within ten years, rendering their current skills redundant.

The study shows that the change in technology is so rapid that 94% believe their career would be severely limited if they didn’t teach themselves new technical skills.

The chance of automation varies greatly with job role, with Testers and IT Operations professionals most likely to expect their job role to be significantly affected in the next decade (67% and 63% respectively), and Chief Information Officers/VP IT and Programme Management least affected (31% and 30% respectively).

"Through automation, it is possible that ten years from now the Technology team will be unrecognisable in today's terms,” David Savage, associate director, Harvey Nash UK, said. “Even for those roles relatively unaffected directly by automation, there is a major indirect effect - anything up to half of their work colleagues may be machines by 2027."

In response to automation technology professionals are prioritising learning over any other career development tactics. Self-learning is significantly more important to them than formal training or qualifications; 12% indicate "more training" as a key thing they want in their job and 27% saw gaining qualifications as a top priority for their career.

Despite the increase in automation the survey reveals that technology professionals remain in high demand, with participants receiving at least seven headhunt calls in the last year. Software Engineers and Developers were most in demand, followed by Analytics / Big Data roles. Respondents expect the most important technologies in the next five years to be Artificial Intelligence, Augmented / Virtual Reality and Robotics, as well as Big Data, Cloud and the Internet of Things and unsurprisingly these are also the key areas cited in what are the 'hot skills to learn'.

"Technology careers are in a state of flux,” Simon Hindle, director, Harvey Nash Switzerland, said. “On one side technology is 'eating itself', with job roles increasingly being commoditised and automated, on the other side new opportunities are being created, especially around Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Automation. In this rapidly changing world the winners will be the technology professionals who take responsibility for their own skills development, and continually ask: 'where am I adding value that no other person - or machine - can add?'”

The survey showed that the biggest technology growth area is expected to be Artificial Intelligence as 89% of respondents expect it to be important to their company in 5 years' time, almost four times the current figure of 24%.

Meanwhile the technology sector is overwhelmingly in favour of immigration; 73% believe it is critical to their country’s competitiveness. 33% of respondents to the Technology Survey were born outside the country they are currently working. Almost four in ten tech immigrants in the UK are from Europe, equating to one in ten of the entire tech working population in the UK. Moreover, UK workers make up at least a fifth the tech immigrant workforce of Ireland and Germany.

Meanwhile, this year's report reveals that 16% of respondents are women, compared to the 13% who responded in 2013.

The Harvey Nash Technology Survey 2017 represents the views of more than 3,200 technology professionals from 84 countries.