Demand Grows and More than Half of U.S. Companies Will Hire Tech Jobs in 2015, Says Harvey Nash Inc. Survey

On Nov 18, 2014

Fifty-one percent of U.S. companies will hire technology professionals in 2015, and for the third year in a row the proportion of tech professionals employed on a full-time, permanent basis has risen, this year to 70 percent, according to the third annual “Harvey Nash Technology Survey: Disruptors & Disrupted – the New Tech Flux.”  The report shares findings from 3,189 technology professionals from 49 countries, and reveals that despite the undisputed acceleration of technology investments, innovation remains an ever-changing and unclear goal. Technologists around the globe ranked the U.S. as the most innovative country, receiving twice as many votes as the next nearest country, Japan. But the U.S. is least optimistic about its own innovative future, with only 45 percent considering their own country innovative. The U.S. chose Japan, China and South Korea as leaders in this category.

With demand for skills and tech investments up, more than half (52 percent) of U.S. companies are still experiencing a technology skills shortage. Technology professionals are more comfortable with the health of the U.S. technology economy: almost half (48 percent) changed jobs this past year, 20 percent more than in 2013. Almost 8 in 10 people (78 percent) chose work-life balance as the number one reason for leaving their job for another. Salary ranks fourth on the list.

“The pace and evolution of disruptive technology is quickening, and innovation means something different today than it did 12 months ago,” said Harvey Nash USAPAC President and CEO Bob Miano. “As technologists we are all connected globally, and international borders are almost non-existent now. Yet our 2015 Technology Survey reveals different and unique perspectives from each country. The world voted the U.S. as the most innovative country by far, yet the U.S. has doubts about its own innovative ability. The definition of innovation continues to change as we move closer to technologies we’ve never before been able to create, like gene therapy and self-driving cars. The companies that most successfully intersect the humanities with technology will continue to disrupt and dominate.”

Other key findings of the Harvey Nash 2015 Technology Survey include:

Borderless Technology

• Globally, 30 percent of technology professionals do not work in the countries where they were born.
• More than one in five U.S. tech professionals (21 percent) does not work in the country where he/she was born.
• India-born technology professionals dominate the foreign-born U.S. technology workforce at 51 percent.

The Next Big Thing

Technologies most likely to make a big impact in the next five years are big data analytics, cloud, eHealth, mobile and wearable technologies.

Technologists called out Uber, Oculus, Twitter, airbnb and Tesla among the startups that will make it big.
18 of the 20 companies ranked in the Next Big Thing are U.S.-based; yet the U.S. doesn’t believe itself to be innovative.

Google Dominates

• 61 percent of U.S. tech professionals say Google is the world’s most influential technology company.
• The second place position goes to Microsoft at only 12 percent, 49 percentage points behind Google.
• Google also ranks #1 in companies named “good for the world,” with 96 percent of all respondents agreeing. More than half listed Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Samsung as companies also providing value to humanity.

Investment

• Mobile and cloud remain the top two technologies for investing time and budget (76 and 72 percent, respectively), followed by big data analytics at 63 percent.
• Cyber security is a distant fourth at 54 percent, despite the many recent and ongoing data breaches.
• Four in 10 will invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning, virtualization and eHealth in the next five years.
• IT Security
• More than half (55 percent) of U.S. technology professionals have been personally hacked in the past year.
• 53 percent of U.S. organizations have been hacked during the past 12 months.

Geek Is Chic

• 65 percent of U.S. technology professionals describe themselves as a “geek.”
• 89 percent of them take pride in their “geekiness.”

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