Despite the pandemic, locating IT workers with open-source skills remains difficult with 93% of hiring managers saying finding such workers is a challenge, according to a report by The Linux Foundation and edX, a provider of online courses.

And while hiring is down, 37% of hiring managers say they will be hiring more skilled IT professionals in the next six months.

DevOps has become the top role hiring managers are looking to fill with 65% saying that is the case. In second place is developers, cited by 59%.

The report also found that 74% of employers now offer to pay for employee certifications, up from 55% in 2018 and 47% in 2017. This report was last issued in 2018.

Cloud technology is also hot with hiring managers being 70% more likely to hire an IT pro with these skills, up from 66% in 2018.

The report is based on data from more than 175 hiring managers at corporations, small and midsize businesses, government organizations and staffing firms across the globe. The report also included responses from more than 900 open-source professionals.

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit focused on open source.

Open source refers to software for which the original source code was made available for free with users allowed to redistribute and modify it.