Tech vacancies are showing no signs of slowing down.
For many looking to start in the tech industry, or those looking to change roles, there is a sense of optimism about the industry from an employee perspective.
Tech jobs, after all, are perceived as having high job security, generous salaries, and a multitude of benefits that have often been ahead of the curve in comparison to the general workforce (as with remote working, for example).
But a tech role hardly comes without requirements – whether it’s in-demand coding skills or the ability to manage a team, tech roles require a multitude of soft and technical skills to meet demands.
But which soft and technical skills are currently in high demand in tech, and why?
Let’s take a look.
Many of us would assume that tech skills would be top of the list from an employee and manager perspective for a tech role.
Soft skills are considered by both current tech employees and managers to have a higher importance than tech skills (though a balance of both is preferred from a hiring perspective).
Soft skills include:
42% of tech employees considered soft skills to be very important, compared to only 29% for technical skills.
Similarly, 39% of managers considered soft skills to be high value, compared to 27.8% for technical skills.
However, it was noted by over half of tech hiring managers (52%) that an even mix of soft and technical skills was important.
89% of managers considered critical thinking to be very or extremely important in their hires.
The tech industry can change quickly, meaning that tech employees often have to evolve their understanding alongside their job.
Rather than having to retrain employees every time there is a new technology challenge, hiring those with critical thinking skills instead offers a better solution.
Being able to think critically about problems and identify potential solutions is an extremely beneficial skill, as it means a tech employee can build on their foundational knowledge.
Continual testing and reviewing are also an essential part of tech roles and the development of more technical skills, which makes critical thinking a great soft skill counterpart to the traditional hard skills associated with a role.
Roles in cybersecurity and software engineering in particular will be ideal for those with strong critical thinking skills, as they require up-to-date knowledge and awareness of risks and associated risk factors, and the strengths and weaknesses of software.
Data is integral to tech companies from an insights perspective, so unsurprisingly, analytics skills are in high demand.
The data analytics market is predicted to surpass $132.9bn by 2026, and this will drive even higher demand for tech candidates that have analytics skills to make sense of large datasets.
Analytical skills are the technical skill counterpart to problem-solving skills, as those with analytics skills generally need to understand data to create rational, creative solutions.
From a hard/technical skills perspective, tech businesses are looking for areas of analytics such as:
This brings us to the next skill, which is also a key component to analytics.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a job role that didn’t, to some degree, require strong communication skills.
In tech roles, however, strong communication is essential from an individual and team perspective.
Take analytics skills (as outlined above) as an example.
For an employee to convey complex analytical data into digestible takeaways for a team, they need to be able to explain their findings in a way that people unfamiliar with data analysis can understand.
Most of the technical skills that tech businesses are looking for require communication skills, because tech employees are rarely working in silos – no matter the role you have in a tech company, the odds are that you’ll be communicating regularly with a variety of other employees.
Communication was ranked 2nd in importance (behind critical thinking) by managers when ranking soft skills, with 49% saying communication skills were extremely important.
As we’ve touched on already, these skills don’t exist in isolation.
Tech hiring managers are starting to recognise the overlap in soft and technical skills that truly make a difference in the value that a candidate can bring to a company.
Rather than prioritising hard skills over soft skills, or vice versa, hiring managers are instead looking for a balance of the two.
After all, critical thinking skills can enhance an employee’s ability to develop technical skills over time.
Similarly, strong communication skills make an employee a valuable asset to a team for the purposes of internal communications, and also from the perspective of conveying technical, often complex, information.
Previously an industry associated primarily with technical skills, the tech industry is redefining the way it views and values talent.
The core technical skills for tech roles will always be necessary, yet soft skills now act as a key differentiator to hiring managers.
If you’re looking for a role in tech, a balance of soft and hard skills will place you in a highly advantageous position for this shift.
After all, well-rounded candidates are hard to come by during skills shortages!
You want a role that matches your skills, experience, and ambitions.
Remit’s tech recruitment experts take the time to understand exactly what you’re looking for, from your ideal working environment to any skill areas you’re looking to develop, to find you your perfect role in tech.
Take a look at our vacancies or get in touch to find out more about how we can help.