THE

CLOUD
COMPUTING
JOB MARKET

Cloud Academy.com | 2015

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TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Introduction
2. Market Shift toward Cloud Computing
3. Job Market
4. Types of Jobs
5. Cloud Computing Job Skills
6. Geographical Distribution
7. Top Employers
8. Certifications

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1. INTRODUCTION

Since the inception of cloud computing, there has

always been concern about the impact it might have
on the job market. After all, part of the goal of cloud
computing is to consolidate infrastructure, platforms
and even software into the domain of expert cloud
providers. This would spare enterprises the task of
taking care of their own IT needs, allowing them to
concentrate on their business.
Additionally, cloud computing is supposed to be
automated, allowing consumers to provision computing
capabilities themselves, on demand, without requiring
human intervention.
To many, this sounds like the death knell of the
traditional IT department, as companies turn more and
more to cloud providers to take care of their needs,
while cloud providers themselves should require only a
reduced workforce due to the efficiencies of scale and
automation. The job prospects for the IT professionals
working on physical data center infrastructure appear
grim.
However, there is another side of the coin as well.
Skilled IT professionals are necessary for designing

clouds and migrating to them, maintaining them, and

adapting them as business needs change and new
technology emerges. Companies working with public
cloud providers will likely still need IT pros to work and
coordinate with the providers. Companies who choose
to use private clouds will need IT staff to run them, just
as they were needed for the previous data center. And
of course, cloud providers, both big and small, require
a plethora of skilled employees to serve in many
different capacities, as will be described below.
In fact, a 2012 study by IT service provider CSC found
the much touted statistic that 14% of companies
reduced their IT staff headcount after deploying a
cloud strategy; however they also found that 20%
actually increased staff.
Also in 2012, John Gantz, an IDC researcher
who studies technology economics, observed to
NetworkWorld.com that in the short term, cloud
deployments increase the need for IT staff to
manage the transition, and monitor the new cloud
system and vendors. Over time, the cloud generally
creates efficiencies and reduces IT staffing jobs in an
enterprise.
In addition, as cloud technologies continue to develop,
the launch-maintain-fix cycles become shorter as
companies repeatedly move to adopt new innovations

and redesign their cloud computing structures. This

produces less of the interim period where automation
and efficiencies reduce the need for IT professionals,
and more of the active state where there is a need for
staff to manage transitions.
Another possibility is that the nature of IT jobs
will change. Experts say there will be a need
for different types of IT workers. Instead of
managing infrastructure, tending the help desk and
commissioning server instances to be created, IT
workers of tomorrow are more likely to be managing
vendor relationships, working across departments and
helping clients and employees integrate into the cloud.
Any way you look at it, it seems that jobs in traditional
IT roles will decrease (or at least change significantly),
and be replaced to some extent by cloud computing
related jobs. Therefore, to remain relevant and
employable, it is in the interest of IT professionals to
acquire and maintain cloud computing knowledge and
skills.

2. MARKET SHIFT TOWARD CLOUD

COMPUTING
Cloud computing is exploding in the IT world.
CompTIA, an IT Industry Trade Association, has been
studying the cloud phenomenon. According to their
5th Annual Trends in Cloud Computing survey, 90
percent of all companies in the United States make use
of cloud computing. Of those, 60 percent reported that
cloud computing accounts for at least a third of their
total IT.

With the way the market is going, it is clear that the

demand for competent cloud computing professionals
is on the rise. A case in point: IBM spent about $2
billion on layoffs in 2013 and 2014, with an additional
$600 million, or around 10,000 jobs cut, planned for
2015. At the same time, IBMs director of corporate
communications, Doug Shelton, told WRAL Techwire
that they are looking to hire about 15,000 people
with new skills such as cloud computing, big data and
security. This, as they expand their hybrid cloud
offerings by opening seven more SoftLayer cloud
centers in locations all over the world. (http://www03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/46160.wss)

At the 2014 Cloud Business summit in NYC, Bill

McNee, CEO of Saugatuck Technology, a subscription
research and strategy consulting company, predicted
that by 2018, more than 60% of enterprises will have
at least half of their infrastructure on cloud-based
platform.
International Data Corporation (IDC, an American
market research, analysis and advisory firm, specializing
in information technology, telecommunications, and
consumer technology) predicts that by 2016, there will
be an 11% shift of IT budget away from traditional
in-house IT, toward various versions of cloud computing.
By 2017, 35% of new applications will use
cloud-enabled, continuous delivery.

The majority of these jobs are located in China, with

the next largest concentrations being in the US and
India. The 384,478 cloud computing IT jobs had a
median salary of $90,950, or $116,950 for positions
that pay over $100,000.

CLOUD COMPUTING

0.3

(source: Indeed.com)

0.2

According to WANTED analytics, a leader in the field of

business intelligence of the talent marketplace, at the
end of 2014, there were 3.9 million cloud computingrelated jobs open in the US, of which 384,478 were IT
jobs. Globally, the number of open cloud computing IT
jobs was 1,533,742.

Jobs Trends

0.1

The shift towards cloud computing has affected the

job market in all sorts of ways, and not only in the IT
sector. Shifting IT to the cloud allows senior-level
executives to spend more time on business strategy
and innovation. It creates a demand for managers that
are more focused on business development, rather
than application development. Non-IT cloud related
jobs include jobs in sales and marketing, product
management, customer service. There are also jobs in
all sorts of fields requiring potential employees to have
familiarity with cloud-computing concepts.

In 2012, Dice.com data described on

www.networkworld.com showed that cloud
computing professionals in the United States would
earn on average, $11,500 more than the median tech
salary. In addition, Robert Half Technology research,
showed that cloud-computing related salaries were
continuing to rise between 8% to 10% annually,
compared with 3% to 4% growth in the average IT
salary. The graph below shows that the number of jobs
including the term Cloud-computing, listed on
Indeed.com, was at a low point at the end of 2014, but
was picking up into 2015.

PERCENTAGE OF MATCHING JOB POSTINGS

3. JOB MARKET

JAN JAN
2006 2007

JAN JAN JAN JAN JAN JAN JAN JAN

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

At the time of writing, a search on technojobs.co.uk for

job descriptions including the word cloud returned
741 open jobs in the UK, while the same search on
dice.com returned 1780 open jobs in California alone.
So even if job availability is not at its historical peak, it
is still a very strong job market.

= 100

UK

California (US)

(source: technojobs.co.uk)

(source: dice.org)

741
CLOUD OPEN JOBS

1780
CLOUD OPEN JOBS

4. TYPES OF JOBS

There are all sorts of Cloud-related IT jobs out there.

These include titles like Enterprise Architect, Cloud
Service Manager, Cloud Capacity Planner, Business
Architect, Cloud Alliance Manager, Cloud Specialist,
Cloud Computing Systems Engineer, Cloud
Computing Architect and Cloud Computing Systems
Engineer.

Companies also often require training professionals

or training providers like cloudacademy.comto help
bring current employees up to speed on the adoption
of cloud technologies, or even when transitioning from
one solution to another.

These jobs can include planning, implementing and

maintaining cloud infrastructures, either for a cloud
service provider, or for enterprise. They can include
managing relationships between service providers and
businesses.
Additionally, developers hired by companies utilizing
cloud technologies often need to be familiar with cloud
concepts in order to effectively develop applications
which will run on the cloud platform. These companies
may require specific cloud computing or development
skills and are typically committed to a specific cloud
provider such as Amazon Web Services (AWS),
Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform. Developers
are also needed to create automation tools and processes
for the platforms being used, and to help transition
companies services to cloud computing environments.

5. CLOUD COMPUTING JOB SKILLS

Traditionally, IT professionals with different areas of

expertise were hired to perform different types of
jobs. The areas of responsibility were distinct, often
to the point of creating a silo mentality with limited
sharing of information, goals and priorities between
different departments within the same organization.
This commonly occurs between Development and
Operations within an IT shop. As cloud computing
gains prominence, this paradigm is shifting. Employers
are increasingly seeking employees whose skills can
bridge the gap between Development and Operations
(to the point where one of AWSs basic certifications
is for a role called DevOps, a hybrid role). According
to Rackspaces director of recruiting, Tim James, a
DevOps is a hybrid of an operations engineer who
also does scripting. In other words, they are systems
engineers who work in a development environment.
Whereas in the past people tended to stay centered
in a particular specialty like application development,
server management, network engineering or data
storage, today many employers are looking to hire
people who have trained across several disciplines.
Particularly, candidates need to have a firm knowledge
of the cloud networking structure and security

issues, understand how virtualization is involved,

and be able to build applications which are optimized
to work in a cloud setting. Again, instead of having
handoffs between different silos in IT, staff needs to be
able to manage different layers of cloud infrastructure,
and understand how the apps being built map to the
cloud infrastructure on which they run.
Cloud providers who are hiring are seeking employees
whose skills combine infrastructure/data center
architecture and operations, with application
architecture and operations.
Recruiters are not looking for developers who are
overly loyal to a particular language or platform. To
be considered, they need to be well-rounded with
exposure to different components of a converged
infrastructure.
For example, according to Ken Stephens, a senior
vice president at Xerox, he needs engineers who can
go beyond coding and grasp enterprise service bus
development. He also wants to find people who are
familiar with the agile development methodology
which Xerox and many other companies now use.
Having discussed the need for a broad range of
knowledge and experience, there are also particular
skills which are more in demand than others in

the cloud computing space. The top five most indemand skills for IT cloud computing professionals, as
determined by Wanted Analytics in their 2014 study
are: Structured Query Language (SQL), Java, overall
software development skills, Linux, JavaScript and
experience with software quality assurance. See the
graphic below for more in-demand skills.

Structured Query Language

Java
Software Developement
Linux
Javascript
Quality Assurance
UNIX
Systems Dev. Lifecycle
Microsoft SQL Server
Application Developement

Adobe LifeCycle ES
Technical Support
Web Services
Hypertext markup Language
Microsoft .NET Framework
Extensible markup language
C-Sharp
Rel. Database Management System
Cascading Style Sheet
Python

Most In-Demand Skills Mentioned In Cloud

Computing Job Advertisements
(source: WANTED Analytics; Dec 12, 2014)
350,000

331,470

300,000

250,000

200,000

249,056

241,421

194,235
160,726

150,000

154,724

147,367 145,779
140,062
126,639 124,457 123,104
121,904 119,467

100,000

112,737 108,116
105,684 102,324

95,685
83,649

50,000

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Some job descriptions also require specific

certifications. As depicted in the graphic below,
the certifications which are most in demand are
Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information,
Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified
Information Systems Security professional, and Cisco
Certified Network Associate.

Certified Information Systems Auditor

Business Process Management Programming Languages
System Administrator
Cisco Certified Network Professional
Project Management Institute
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Cisco Certified Network Associate
Certified Information Systems Security Professional
Project Management Professional
Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information

Most In-Demand Cloud Computing Certifications

(source: WANTED Analytics; Dec 12, 2014)

100,000
91,584
90,000
80,000
70,000
60,000
47,788

50,000
40,368

40,000
30,000

27,009
23,433

20,000

18,099
14,282

18,361

19,666

14,520

10,000
0

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In addition to the general IT skills which are in demand

in the cloud computing space, many roles also require
specific cloud skills. According to Indeed.com, a leading
worldwide job site, job postings seeking AWS skills lead
by a large margin, followed by those requiring Google
and Microsoft expertise. The graph below shows an
increase in job postings for AWS talent, peaking in
2013 (and mirroring the overall cloud computing
job posting trend). These jobs include configuration,
development and operations positions, with salaries
ranging from $110,000 to $220,000 annually,
depending on location.

Indeed.com also says that in the last year, Google Cloud

Platform and Microsoft Azure have shown stronger
growth rates, exceeding that of AWS in some respects,
as enterprises use a mix of public cloud providers. IBM,
HP, Verizon and CenturyLink also have their own cloud
platforms which are also, to a lesser degree, in demand.
At the time of this writing, a dice.com search for AWS in
California alone turned up 564 jobs.

Jobs Trends
(source: Indeed.com)

AMAZON WEB SERVICES

10,000

PERCENTAGE GROWTH

9,000

7,000

5,000

3,000

1,000

JAN 2006

JAN 2007

JAN 2008

JAN 2009

JAN 2010

JAN 2011

JAN 2012

JAN 2013

JAN 2014

JAN 2015

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6. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

CHINA
40.8%

U.S.A.
21.7%

According to Forbes, quoting Wanted Analytics, of the

18,239,258 cloud computing jobs open worldwide,
40.8% were in China, 21.7% were in the US and 12.2%
were in India.

They did not provide a global breakdown of the

1,533,742 IT jobs open, but within the US, the top 3
markets for IT jobs were:
1) WashingtonArlingtonAlexandria DC
2) New YorkNorthern New JerseyLong Island NY
3) San FranciscoOaklandFremont CA.

INDIA
12.2%

2)
3)

1)

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7. TOP EMPLOYERS

IBM
Oracle Corporation
Amazon
WellPoint, Inc.
Accenture
Lockheed Martin
General Dynamics
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Army National Guard
DELL
Computer Sciences Corporation
Wells Fargo
Deloitte
Northrop Grumman
Unitedhealth Group

At the time of Wanteds study, IBM, Oracle and

Amazon had the most open job positions. The graph
below shows the top 15 cloud computing employers
ordered by the number of open positions being
advertised in December 2014.
Top 15 Cloud Computing Employers
Number of Open Positions in Employers & Partner
Companies
(source: WANTED Analytics; December 2014)

50,000
45,000

43,706

40,000
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000

14,675

13,661

13,456

12,043
9,040

8,865

8,247

8,172

7,900

7,743

7,492

7,168

6,554

6,468

5,000
0

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8. CERTIFICATIONS

As a jobseeker or employee, a way of quantifying ones

skills is to become certified in one or more areas of
expertise. Today there are more than 50 cloud-related
certifications available from over a dozen vendors.
These include vendor-neutral certifications, such as
CompTIA Cloud Essentials or the two security-related
certifications offered by the Cloud Security Alliance.
There are also certifications available for specific
vendor tools.

be provided by the certifying body, or by enterprise

quality third party organizations like
CloudAcademy.com, which focus on training
candidates for certification. They provide on-line
text, video, practice tests, and sometimes labs and
walkthroughs. Cloud Academy is a particularly
comprehensive site which offers all these modalities.

Achieving a certification significantly increases a

candidates marketability and appeal to recruiters.
In addition, the process of becoming certified helps
candidates to expand their expertise by familiarizing
themselves with aspects of cloud computing they have
not had the opportunity to encounter at work. This
could be services they havent used, or even techniques
and tips for working with the services they use
regularly.
Though many certifications, such as AWS, are intended
only for professionals who have already had significant
experience in the field, it is still useful to prepare
for the exam by reviewing materials. These could

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How Cloud Academy can help you

We help both companies and individual users
learn everything about cloud computing,
providing the best content and training in
the industry. The content available at Cloud
Academy cannot be found anywhere else online.
Cloud Academy is a diverse, curated, centralized

database and learning platform that can quickly

get you off the ground in your cloud computing
journey.
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