Which IT Skills are Hot? What Job Skills Are in Demand? Is Java Dead?

Getting a Great Java Job

A good friend of mine is interesting in changing careers, and getting a good, solid job in the Information Technology (IT) industry. Being a technical trainer myself, my buddy Kev and I are going to work together to help him develop all of the key technical skills that he needs to land a great job in the Java programming and development industry.

Should I Learn Java or C++ or .NET or C#...

Of course, sitting over a Tim Hortons cup of coffee, Kev asked if he should be learning C++ (pronounce C plus plus), or if learning Java was a better path to take. He also mentioned C# (pronounced C Sharp) and he's also got friends that program in .Net (pronounce 'dot net'). Of course, Kev doesn't want to waste any time learning skills that aren't in demand, and I think that's a good strategy.

Anyways, the discussion reminded me of a post I made on the Big Moose Saloon at the JavaRanch. You see, there's a great website that allows you to query various skills that are requested in job postings - everything from garbage picker to WebSphere Admin (which some might actually argue is the same thing), and you can get a kewl graph of what the demand is, and how the demand is changing. The graph for plotting job skills demand over time is at www.indeed.com.

.Net vs. J2EE: Sun vs. Microsoft

An interesting statistic is that .Net has a much higher demand for jobs than J2EE, with .Net sorta being the equivalent of J2EE for Microsoft.

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J2EE, .Net Job Trends

J2EE jobs - .Net jobs

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Job Demand for C vs. Java vs. C++ vs C# Skills

Of course, what my buddy asked was really about C programming skills demand vs. Java programming skills demand. Here's the graph:

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C, C++, C#, Java Job Trends

C jobs - C++ jobs - C# jobs - Java jobs

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Interestingly, demand for C skills remains high, even growing in Sept. 2006, so there's clearly alot of C code hanging around, which really doesn't surprise me at all. But the demand for Java skills is steady, and almost looks like Java skills is equal to C++ and C# skills combined.

I could just play with this required job skills graphing program all day. Here's a neat graph I created comparing various Java development technologies:


JSF vs. Hibernate vs. EJB vs. Struts vs. Seam vs. GWT Job Skills Demand

JSF, Hibernate, EJB, Struts, Seam, GWT Job Trends

JSF jobs - Hibernate jobs - EJB jobs - Struts jobs - Seam jobs - GWT jobs

I'm really actually surprised to see the demand for Struts to be so high, and JSF so much lower, but I guess it's similar to the C programming scenario - Strtus, like C, has been out there for a long time, and as we can see, even if more people are chosing Java, there will always be lots of C, C++ and Fortran or Cobol code that needs to be maintained and updated.