In its 2012-2022 Employment Projections report, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecast a 10.8 percent, or 15.6 million, increase in total employment. Comparatively, employment in IT occupations is projected to grow 17.6 percent, or by 702,000 during that same period. In other words, between 2012 and 2022, IT occupations are projected to grow 1.63 times faster than overall employment.
Of the 818 detailed occupations listed in the bureau’s report, we list 14 in the table below that we think closely tie to IT jobs.
Click on table to enlarge.
Generally, IT jobs are projected to outpace overall employment through 2022. Much of that is due to the five fastest-growing IT occupations in the figure below, which account for 70 percent of the projected 17.6 percent growth in IT occupations.
Click on figure to enlarge.
Growth drivers of IT employment
One driver of growth for IT occupations is cybersecurity. Perhaps this is why information security analysts and software developers show especially high growth in the above graph. According to Burning Glass Technologies, a labor market data aggregator, cybersecurity job postings increased 74 percent between 2007 and 2013, more than two times faster than all IT jobs. The industry sectors with greatest demand for cybersecurity professionals include: professional services, manufacturing and defense, finance and insurance, information and healthcare.
In addition to cybersecurity, the proliferation of smart phones/mobile devices and the “app economy” is another contributor to this outpaced growth in IT occupations. According to CTIA — The Wireless Association, in the U.S., smartphone penetration increased to 52.1 percent from 25.4 percent between 2011 and 2013. Between 2013 and 2017, Juniper Research forecasts the number of mobile app downloads worldwide to double from 80 billion to 160 billion. Demand for mobile applications and increasing penetration of smart phone users are significant contributors to the growing demand for IT professionals with software development skills and experience.
Another likely growth driver for IT employment is increased adoption of cloud-based services. According to IHS Technology, an information company, between 2012 and 2017, cloud-based storage services alone are projected to increase from 500 million subscriptions to 1.3 billion subscriptions worldwide. According to Burning Glass, from 2012 to 2013, there was a 25 percent (67,743 to 84,423) increase in U.S. job postings listing cloud computing among their required skills.
What does this mean for IT staffing?
This outpaced growth in IT employment also translates to outpaced growth in temporary IT staffing. Staffing Industry Analysts projects total temporary staffing in the U.S. to grow from $99 billion to $155.8 billion, or 4.6 percent CAGR, between 2012 and 2022. For IT staffing specifically, SIA projects growth from $22.7 billion to $39 billion, or 5.6 percent CAGR, during the same period. Not surprisingly, IT jobs are outpacing the pack in the temporary staffing industry as well.
