Bayt.com survey reveals 74 percent of IT professionals see Internet of Things, mobile, virtual and augmented reality as jobs of the future

Sun, 25 Mar, 2018

A regional survey conducted by Bayt.com, the official recruitment portal for the One Million Arab Coders Initiative; an initiative under Dubai Future Foundation, and in collaboration with the Hussain Sajwani-DAMAC Foundation, the strategic partner of the initiative, revealed that 74 percent of IT professionals in the Middle East agree that demand for software engineers, developers and programmers (coders) has significantly increased in the last 10 years.

Nearly two thousand IT professionals of various nationalities took part in the survey by answering a set of questions that helped define current dynamics and future trends of the sector and the region.

Additionally, 77 percent of respondents believe demand will grow dramatically over the next decade.  When asked about specific areas of coding and development that will grow the most over the coming decade, 41 percent chose ‘Internet of Things’, 26 percent opted for mobile development, and 14.5 percent chose virtual and augmented reality. At present, enterprise IT and e-commerce ranked as the sectors recruiting the highest number of coders today. Telecommunications, marketing automation and web/digital development were second highest.

“The survey was developed to provide additional insights on some of the pressing IT education needs of the region which could serve the goals of the One Million Arab Coders initiative,” said Hussain Sajwani of the foundation. “The survey shed light on some interesting trends about the current job market, and highlighted the broad agreement by 60 percent of the respondents who are IT professionals that anyone can learn software development and become a coder in very little time.”

The survey also highlighted important insights on the compensation in the IT Industry, with 65 percent of respondents agreeing that compensation has increased in the past 10 years, while 71 percent predicted further pay increases over the next 10 years due to a growing gap between skills demand and available talent. 

“We designed the survey to bring out key insights on current and future job market opportunities for IT professionals in the Middle East,” said Suhail Masri, Vice President of Employer Solutions at Bayt.com. “While the One Million Arab Coders Initiative is on a path to create an Arab population that is ready for the jobs of the future, we wanted to find out what today’s coders and IT professionals think about the industry, and where they see the future heading. We are thrilled to learn about their preferences and that many more career opportunities may come to life soon. As we continue to work with over 31 million job seekers across the region, we will double our efforts to make more jobs available on Bayt.com every day, and to make the region’s job seekers more prepared to get hired.”

The survey also revealed that JAVA was considered the most important programming language followed by PHP, but other non-coding skills were also rated highly among respondents, including analytical thinking, team work, attention to detail, communication and project management.  Most of the respondents agreed that the most exciting developments in the IT industry which will drive future demand are artificial intelligence (AI), followed by IoT, virtual and augmented reality, robotics, cryptocurrency and blockchain.

The One Million Arab Coders Initiative will run over two years, where students from across the Arab world will receive essential skills required for employment in future jobs through a series of online courses offered across four tracks that include: Front End Web Developer, Data Analyst, Android Developer and Full Stack Web Developer. The initiative is mid-way through its first cohort with 100,000 students starting their learning journey, and is well on its way to develop its target of one million Arab coders in the next two years.

To register or find out more about the initiative, please visit www.arabcoders.ae.