Businesses are battling with IoT drought

Data scientist shortage also affects the internet of things

More than two-thirds of businesses say that they are ‘struggling' to recruit internet of things (IoT) experts, according to a new report from Canonical, the makers of the IoT OS Ubuntu Core.

68 per cent of the 360 IoT professionals, developers and vendors who responded to the survey said that it is difficult to find employees with the skills and experience necessary to make the IoT a success.

The short supply of data scientists in the IT trade has been acknowledged as a problem, and Canonical found that this extends into the IoT. Employees with expertise of big data and analytics were agreed to be the most valuable, with 75 per cent of respondents saying that this was a necessity for any IoT professional. They were also agreed to be the most difficult to hire, with 35 per cent of respondents saying so.

After big data, embedded software development (71 per cent); IT security (68 per cent); and embedded electronics (64 per cent) were listed as the most important skillsets to source. They were also among the most difficult, at 33 per cent, 31 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively.

The least-required skills were listed as robotics (21 per cent), AI (40 per cent) and cloud management (44 per cent).

Mike Bell, EVP, of IoT and devices at Canonical, said of the findings, "When it comes to the internet of things, the business community is still overcoming a significant skills gap. Many businesses are concerned by their own lack of knowledge and skills within the IoT market and many business leaders are finding themselves running head first into a set of technology and business challenges that they do not yet fully understand.

"Businesses need to realise that working in IoT should not require such an extensive variety of skills. What is needed, instead, is a simplification of the technologies behind IoT.

"Above all, businesses must be agile when it comes to deciding on the ‘right' people, skills and team to take them forward. What is decided upon today, is unlikely to remain the same in even one or two years, so constantly evaluating what change is needed and being able to execute this quickly is a must."