That's Right--Networking's HotThat's Right--Networking's Hot

Via the WSJ blog, here's an interesting and very welcome bit of news for those of us who have been hearing about the decline/commoditization/de-emphasis of networking: The hottest job category in IT is, according to CIOs surveyed:

Via the WSJ blog, here's an interesting and very welcome bit of news for those of us who have been hearing about the decline/commoditization/de-emphasis of networking: The hottest job category in IT is, according to CIOs surveyed:Networking.

(Weird linkage happening; go to the homepage and click on the December 4 press release.)

For those of us who have been hearing about the commoditization of networking and its attendant skills, it's a nice holiday present. The CIOs that Robert Half surveyed ranked networking as the category experiencing the most growth, and 70 percent of respondents called networking the most sought-after skill, just behind Windows Administration at 74 percent (they could give multiple answers).

Here's a key point in the release:

"Twenty-seven percent of CIOs polled said business growth is the leading reason for expanding their IT departments. Increased need for customer and/or end-user support (20 percent), and the management of systems upgrades (19 percent ) were also cited as leading factors."

To me, that says a couple of things. One, things could reverse for networking folks if the economy takes a dive in 08. On the plus side, the conditions they're describing are particularly favorable for people who have become or are becoming convergence experts. That "increased need for customer and/or end-user support" sounds a lot like something I hear regularly when I talk to people about the merger of voice and data staffs as part of the convergence effort. Namely, one of the key skills that telecom people have always needed, that datacom people didn't necessarily need (not to say they all lacked it) is the ability to deal with the end user.

Finally, management of system upgrades may not be exclusively about upgrades to the voice network, but that's something that is going to be happening in lots of enterprises over the coming years.

The Robert Half release also puts a strong emphasis on wireless and network security as major areas driving the growth in demand for networking people.

However, there's a major cautionary note in this otherwise festive picture. Quantity of jobs doesn't necessarily equal quality. In a recent column from BCR, Tom Nolle talks about the evolution--maybe devolution is a better word--in the status of the networking teams at large enterprises. There may be more work for networking folks to do, but it may still be accorded a lower status than that of IT folks higher up the OSI stack.