Tackling the tech skills gap through training

Upskilling is much cheaper than hiring, says Pluralsight's Sean Farrington

Cloud has featured strongly in the IT plans of most organisations, and will continue to do so, according to Sean Farrington EVP EMEA Pluralsight, who presented the training company's latest global research at last week's Deskflix: The Future of DevOps event, organised by Computing.

The focus now is not simply being 'on the cloud', but instead it's about maturity, Farrington said. In the context of the IT skills gap - and it being very much a seller's market - this means investing more in improving skills and training.

Pluralsight has witnessed an astonishing 1,185% year-on-year increase in the number of cloud labs courses taken on its Pluralsight Skills platform over the last year.

"Learning in the cloud is fundamentally different from traditional upskilling and frequently requires developing more specialised expertise," said Farrington, by way of explanation, adding that remote and home working, which shows no signs of going away, is another major factor.

In the face of the IT skills shortage, retaining good people is a strategic priority. Farrington pointed to figures showing that reskilling and upskilling an existing employee in the US costs on average $1,200, whereas hiring mid-level expertise comes in at $60,000; plus, it takes around six months for them to become fully productive.

You can view Farrington's full 15-minute presentation on the skills gap, the 'great resignation' and industry trends below.