New Developments

In New Developments, internal auditors will find information about the most recent IT and audit research reports and survey results; new IT, security, and privacy legislation; and other news items of importance to auditors.

Employees With IT Security Skills Are Still Needed

There is a wide gap between the IT security skills organizations want and the skills workers are bringing to the job, according to a new survey from The Center for Strategy Research Inc. Commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), Skills Gaps in the World's IT Workforce (PDF, 606 KB) identifies trends in IT skills and explores issues surrounding the recruitment and hiring of IT employees, the current and potential IT market growth, and existing demands for IT professionals. The study summarizes the responses of 3,578 IT managers in 15 countries, including Australia, China, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States.

While security skills top most IT managers' job competency requirements, only 57 percent of organizations represented in the survey have IT employees who are proficient in overall security skills. This represents a 16 percent gap — 73 percent of IT managers identified security as the IT skill most important to their organizations today, along with firewall and data privacy expertise. The gap is slightly larger — 19 percent — in countries such as China, India, Poland, Russia, and South Africa, where the emergence of a strong IT industry is relatively recent. In these countries, 76 percent of IT managers identified security as the top IT skill, but only 57 percent of current IT staff are knowledgeable in this area.

Furthermore, security, general networking, and operating system skills are expected to decline the most in importance over the next five years. On the other hand, 55 percent of survey respondents say that expertise with radio frequency mobile wireless technology is expected to increase the most in importance over the next five years, although it currently rates as the least important IT skill. Skills expected to decline in importance over the next five years are security, networking, operating systems, hardware skills, application-level skills, and server technology.

Regardless of training or professional growth opportunities, nearly 40 percent of respondents report there are not enough qualified IT candidates in their countries. Positions most likely to remain vacant include programmers, coders, and developers, while quality assurance positions are least likely to remain open. In addition, IT managers report that the fast pace of technological change (52 percent), budget constraints (51 percent), security and compliance (48 percent), and consumer needs (47 percent) are the top factors currently driving change in the IT industry, although 45 percent of respondents believe the aging workforce will impact the IT industry sector over the next five years.

When asked what organizations should be doing to enhance their employees' IT skills, respondents say organizations should be providing external professional training opportunities (42 percent), giving incentives or rewards for acquired skills (41 percent), and enabling employees to earn a certification (36 percent). Finally, improving salaries and benefits is the top recommendation from IT managers on how their organizations could enhance recruitment efforts, followed by more funding or promotion of skills development.

For more information about the survey, visit the CompTIA Web site.