16 of the Hottest IT Skills for 2015

What skills should IT professionals add to their toolbox to increase their compensation in 2015? To find out, CIO.com worked with David Foote, chief analyst and research officer with Foote Partners, to comb through the firm’s quarterly data to uncover what skills will lead to higher pay in the short term and help them navigate the tech industry for next career move in the long term.

Foote Partners uses a proprietary methodology to track and validate compensation data for tech workers. It collects data on 734 individual certified and noncertified IT skills. Of those skills, 384 are of the noncertified variety and the focus on this report.

Foote points out that as organizational complexity is increasing, businesses are becoming more aware of the value of a great architect and these roles are showing up with more frequency among his clients. The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) skills, in particular, are the most highly paid noncertified IT skill and a regular on the hot skills lists.

“We know a lot of companies are getting into architecture in a bigger way. They’re hiring more architects; they’re restructuring their enterprise architect departments. Their starting to see a lot of value and no one is really debating that you can never have too many talented architects in your business. This is not something you can ignore. Everyone is thinking that no matter what we do today, we have to always be thinking down the road — three years, five years or more. The people that do that for a living are architects,” says Foote.

Applications development is undoubtedly a hot skills area. Demand for both mobile and desktop developers continues to increase and this trend will continue well into 2015. However, Foote Partners data suggests that the three skills listed here are poised for significant growth in the coming year. It’s worth noting that JavaFX and user interface/experience design skills also made Foote Partners list of highest paying noncertified IT skills.

Organizations are more regularly refining their digital customer experience, making user interface and experience design crucial skills in the coming year.

JavaFX is coming on strong as it replaces Swing in the marketplace.

Agile programming is new to the noncertified IT skills list, but Foote predicts pay premium for this area to grow into 2015.

Project and program management are new to the list, but Foote Partners predict this area to be in high demand in 2015.

Foote emphasizes that fluctuations in pay premiums don’t tell the whole story. They also apply what they have learned from the data provided from the 2,648 employers that they work with. That’s why you may have noticed that some skills covered appear flat. Some of these make the list of hot skills because Foote Partners has uncovered some data or trend that will likely drive up pay in these areas in 2015.

“There is more than recent pay premium track record considered in our forecast list. We talk to a lot of people in the field making decisions about skills acquisition at their companies. We look at tech evolution and where we think skills consumption is heading and so forth,” says Foote.