According to a study conducted in the United Kingdom in 2024, artificial intelligence experience is now in the most demand among IT managers, surpassing strategic thinking and the ability to deal with business-level issues.
Red Hat, an open-source software company, polled 609 world IT administrators from companies with over 500 employees in August, including at least 100 from the United Kingdom, to find out which technological areas they were finding the most challenging to use for.
AI, including information technology, large language concepts, and conceptual AI, was the most in-demand in the country, cited by 81 %. This is a 9 % increase over the previous survey‘s 9 % when it was conducted in October 2023.
However, a separate document from June found that U. K. based hiring managers will give 45 % more on average for those with observable skills in areas such as natural language processing, AI content development, and robot growth.
Conversely, the demand for strategic thinking among U. K. IT managers has dropped from 73 % to 68 % in the last 10 months.
SEE: UK Trails Behind Europe in Technical Skills Proficiency
AI is also the most in-demand skill worldwide
Sam Marland, a senior manager of Solution Architecture at Red Hat, said that the need for AI skills has grown because managers are seeing the power of consumer-grade chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, and want to harness it for their own businesses.
He stated via email to TechRepublic that” we can draw a parallel back to the beginning of mobile computing when it was unclear exactly how the iPhone and other technologies would combine. Looking back, we now see changes that were not anticipated in the high street and the retail and banking experience.
Companies looking to understand AI are also looking for leadership in the areas of how regulations may change, how to best use their data, and how to best implement these new customer experiences.
This implies that businesses are switching from what they are doing with analytics, data science, and statistical modeling to something completely new. We are seeing a lot of interest in AI demonstrations and tests, but we do n’t really know where the key value will come from yet.
AI is also the most in-demand skill worldwide, with 71 % of all survey respondents flagging a skills gap.
The demand for cyber security skills is also rising.
Demand for cyber security skills in the U. K. has also increased from 69 % to 75 % in the last 10 months, likely related to the swathes of high-profile cyber attacks. Marland put this down to global tensions, with more nation-state actors working on vulnerabilities, and GenAI lowering the barrier to entry for cyber attacks.
He told TechRepublic,” Generative AI is simplifying attacks for people with little to no skill and helping people with a lot of skills form more sophisticated attacks.”
SEE: Report Reveals the Impact of AI on Cyber Security Landscape
He added that businesses are taking an “increasingly holistic” approach towards tech skills. Instead of focusing narrowly on specific technical skills, they are emphasising the broader impact of technology, such as in sustainability.
Marland told TechRepublic:” With the need to address sustainability concerns, organisations seek the ability to monitor and optimise workloads—especially but not just AI workloads—build sustainability strategies, and be strong on AI ethics”.
At the same time, managers are pursuing technical solutions to fill in skills gaps in AI and cyber due to tighter budgets. According to senior vice president of Red Hat EMEA, Hans Roth, the shortages “underscore the need for ongoing investment in workforce development and smart partnering beyond the organization’s walls.”
Marland continued,” Infrastructure and operations groups have been developing self-service capabilities for the developer, focusing on internal services, which enable faster time-to-market through more cloud-native development and scalability.
It becomes crucial to add automated control and compliance to scale as AI is added to a wide range of systems and management tooling. To achieve efficiency and maintain control and compliance, policy as code is a requirement.
In a panel discussion moderated by the ISC2, find out more about how to close the security skills gap, or examine some of the top AI programs for 2024.
