What does it take to be a competitive IT professional?
In IT, the cutbacks of the last year have been more of a reallocation. On the one hand, the demand for graduates from "quick-track" courses in a narrow field of knowledge has declined, as simple, routine tasks are now being taken over by artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the demand for IT specialists who have acquired a comprehensive knowledge of the basics, interrelationships and various systems, who can see and understand problems and processes, and who can find optimal solutions, is growing even more. According to new corporate trends, in the IT field, only a solid broad knowledge and up-to-date professional skills guarantee a successful career and high salary.
At the beginning of last year, we said that 15,000 IT professionals could enter the Hungarian labour market immediately, but the situation has changed fundamentally in just one year.In 2023, there were several waves of IT layoffs in the US, and these spilled over to Western Europe and Hungary, with fewer IT vacancies and companies preferring to fill the shortage with project contracts.
Employees have also become more cautious and cautious about changing jobs. However, the transformation is also structural, with a qualitative shift behind the quantitative changes. The demand for IT professionals with a wide range of knowledge and practical experience remains high. However, in the hope of good pay and a secure livelihood, IT professionals who have retrained quickly and only have a limited IT knowledge and depth of knowledge in a narrow IT field have been hit hard by redundancies in recent years, and several bootcamps offering IT training have now closed.
"The recent economic challenges have also had a negative impact on IT, amplified by the explosion of ChatGPT and similar applications, where artificial intelligence is already excellent at even simple programming. On the other hand, with the rise of AI, the opportunities for university graduates are expanding, as there is a growing demand for computer science graduates with more comprehensive and complex knowledge who are professionally prepared to respond to change" said Dr. Ferenc Dietz, President of Gábor Dénes University and Head of the Artificial Intelligence Coalition's Education and Knowledge Working Group.
Payments
Workers in the IT field continue to dictate labour market conditions, with wages significantly higher than the market average and even higher than those in other technical fields. Junior programmers start from a gross salary of 600-950 thousand HUF. Those with 3-5 years of experience can go above a million HUF, with senior software architects or IT designers earning on average 1.3 million HUF gross per month. IT managers can typically earn 1 million HUF per month, while team leaders can typically earn between 1.6 and 2.5 million HUF per month, and security engineers and cybersecurity consultants up to 2.5 million HUF.
Security engineers and cybersecurity consultants can earn up to 1.5 million HUF per month.
"Employees with practical knowledge of new trends can choose from a range of jobs today. Because of the heightened demand, pro-engineers, testers, cybersecurity professionals who are aware of language models and use them at a skill level are almost dictating their own salaries," said the head of the Artificial Intelligence Coalition's Education and Knowledge Working Group.
To succeed in the IT world, it takes a greater openness and continuous innovation than other professions to stay afloat. An excellent degree and a promising career path can mean being out on the street in a few years without the knowledge and skills to use new technologies and programmes. That's why the EU promotes lifelong learning, so that everyone has the knowledge, skills and competences they need to thrive in society, in the labour market and in their personal lives. All this can be acquired through flexible, targeted, short-term training that builds on existing basic skills, with micro-certificates to prove the learning outcomes achieved.
Aiming for an IT career can be worth it in the long term
In our country, many universities offer a wide range of IT courses with different focuses, so you are free to choose the field and depth of knowledge you want to acquire, as IT skills are needed everywhere from finance to creative industries. In addition to the area of interest within IT and the choice of university, the practical proximity and the full-time or distance learning system, as well as the digital accessibility of the knowledge material, are also important.
Examining economic and labour market trends from different perspectives, IT, business and HR professionals, assessing recent changes, agree that the IT sector continues to offer huge untapped potential for development, validation and career advancement. According to forecaststechnology spending is expected to grow by 50% between 2015 and 2030, creating up to 50 million jobs worldwide.