Employment for technology professionals continues to thrive, yet this rising tide of job opportunities for tech pros has not lifted the prospects for all skill sets equally. So which technology skills have ridden the wave to the biggest increases over the past year? Let’s dive into the nearly 80,000 jobs posted on Dice on any given day to find the Top 10 big movers year-over-year, skills-wise, based on mentions in job postings:

• Puppet – The open source IT automation tool of the moment is anything but child’s play. It has gained a foothold with some of tech’s biggest players and Puppet Labs completed a $40 million round of investment funding in mid-June. We expect tech professionals with automation and orchestration experience to continue to be on hiring managers’ wish lists into the future.
• Cybersecurity – It’s no surprise that two of the top 10 skills on the list (#9 Information Security) address keeping data secure. As an increasing number of data breaches make headlines and consumer anxiety concerning personal information abounds, organizations’ and retailers’ need for bench strength when it comes to IT security needs little explanation. Expect demand for this skill to continue to grow as companies look for tech professionals who can both proactively and reactively attend to security gaps.
• Big Data – Big Data continues to be an ever-bigger deal across industries ranging from pharma to health care, defense systems to video games. The tech professional who can extract intelligence from data at this scale best stands to collect most in the future.
• NoSQL – As mobile apps multiply and Big Data and the cloud gain even greater acceptance, NoSQL databases are picking up speed in the marketplace. Professionals who know when to use (and when not to use) these new approaches will bring much-needed flexibility, efficiency and agility to their companies’ operations.
• Hadoop – As more and more businesses seek to analyze and interpret massive amounts of stored information, this open source Apache framework will continue to gain traction. Hiring managers use Dice’s Open Web to find Hadoop professionals who also have NoSQL (#4) and Big Data (#3) experience.
• Cloud – A recent survey by Intuit predicts that 78 percent of U.S. small businesses will have fully adopted the cloud by 2020, as compared to 37 percent today. As cloud computing grows, job opportunities should soar as well.

Shravan Goli, President, Dice Image: Dice