With just about a month to go before the end of 2019, we outline five tech skills that are becoming increasingly important, and can help you to remain marketable in an increasingly competitive and digital, workplace.

 

Lifelong learning is essential in the 21st century. It therefore means that we all need to continue to upgrade and broaden our skills over the course of our working lives, to ensure that we remain relevant to the job market.

In anticipation of the New Year, and resolutions and plans you might already be in the process of making, below are five skills that are in great demand in the ICT/tech industry and in the general workplace.

1.  Coding and software development

Coding and software development continue to be important skills that will make you more marketable into the future. Furthermore, it can be inexpensive to get started, as there are numerous free resources available online, especially if you enjoy self-study. However, online courses are also readily available, and many are quite inexpensive, as the online training platforms frequently run promotions where they deeply discount the courses they offer.

The actual difficulty is perhaps deciding what programming language(s) you might wish to learn. If that is the case, consider what areas of your current job could benefit from you having better coding skills. For example, although many people use Microsoft Excel, they possess just basic skills; but Excel is a powerful application that can perform very complex computations. Also, although many small businesses, in particular, have websites, frequently, the updating of their content is not done in-house. With some training, basic skills can be learned, thus allowing website content updates and other minor tasks to be performed in-house and in a more timely fashion than if they had to be outsourced.

Alternatively, if you might be considering changing jobs, or aspiring for a promotion, you may be able to identify programming languages or other software development skills that it could be beneficial to learn to better position you for the future.

2.  Foreign Languages

Although English might be considered the language of the Internet, globalisation, the porousness of virtual borders and the emergence of the global marketplace, means that there is considerable strategic benefits to be gained if you can engage prospective customers and business partners in their own language.

For the English-speaking Caribbean, which in total has a population of around 5 million, but is surrounded by Spanish-speaking territories, with a combined population of over 400 million, we are not taking advantage of the huge market right on our doorstep. Learning Spanish could allow you (or your organisation) to expand your (or its) reach into Latin America. However, in the region, we also have French and Dutch-speaking territories, so it could be an advantage to also learn how to better communicate in those languages as well.

Having said this, it is also important to highlight that China and other Asian countries becoming powerhouses the Caribbean region. Hence, it could be argued that it could a strategic advantage to learn Mandarin Chinese, or even Japanese, in order to be in a better position to ferret out opportunities in, or emerging from, those countries.

3.  Blockchain, and cryptocurrencies

In our most recent podcast interview with Gabriel Abed, of the Barbados-based financial technology firm, Bitt, he stressed the importance of self-education with regard to blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

These two areas have become highly popular over the last few years, with many organisations trying to figure how to capitalise on the benefits that could be realised from integrating blockchain technology in their operations. With regard to cryptocurrency, the interest tends to be of a more personal nature, as cryptocurrencies seem to be valuable commodities to possess and trade.

However, both blockchain technology and cryptocurrency have only recently become mainstream, but there already have well-developed and well-established systems. Consequently, they do require concerted study in order to understand the nuances involved, and how best you, as an individual, or your organisation, might be able to leverage the opportunities they afford.

4.  Security, governance and compliance

Information security, governance and compliance continue to be essential in this digital age, and it will become even more important to organisations that job candidates, at the very least have some knowledge in those areas, regardless of where their main expertise lie. Similar to learning a foreign language, there are several online resources that are freely available to help you get started, along with structured, paid courses, some of which could be recognised towards certification.

Here are two podcast episodes in which the importance of information security and cybersecurity are discussed:

5.  Business intelligence/analytics

In both the private and public sectors, organisation leaders tend to prefer having matters submitted for their approval to be supported by data. Hence, in addition to having the requisite systems in place to generate and collect the data, it is crucial that the data can be properly processed and analysed.

Individuals knowledgeable in business intelligence and/or business analytics will be able help organisations to begin to identify the types of data that could be useful to them and ways in which it can be collected. Thereafter, they would be able to support the processing and analytics stages, which should lead useful outputs and more informed decision-making.

 

 

Image credit:  geralt (Pixabay)