TechRepublic member dannyHK, a support tech from Hong Kong, recently posted:

“I am having my job outsourced to India. Is there such a thing as a career in IT anymore or is it a cheap, value-less, commodity now? Should I look at another area? Seems like Management or Sales are the only safe options these days.”

In response, tplumley, a support tech from Great Britain, wrote:

“Agree with you totally… I’ve already thought about a change of career and I’m already 99% sure I’ll have to do it before too long.”

However, elrico-fantastica, a network admin from Great Britain, mentioned that “these things tend to go in cycles” and said:

“Look at the call center trends that followed the outsourcing surge. At first companies saw the cost savings as the best deal so outsourced all their call center needs to India and the surrounding countries… Now if you watch the TV you will see adverts for insurance companies and banks taking the time to mention their call centers are now local to the country they are covering. It seems with everyone outsourcing to India the companies offering English speaking staff are becoming more popular…”

While it’s true that there has been plenty of backlash against offshoring and even some companies that have closed oversees units and brought jobs back to the home country, there’s no doubt that offshoring is still having a major impact on IT, as revealed in Info-Tech Research Group’s recent study on IT spending. That study showed that many enterprise IT organizations are saving operational money with offshoring and then reinvesting that money in new technologies. That trend could potentially create some new, higher-level IT jobs in the process.

Hot IT specialties

I think that there are still a lot of opportunities in the tech field and so I would recommend that dannyHK consider sticking with it. Here are some IT career paths where I see a lot of opportunities at the moment and into the foreseeable future:

  • VoIP integrator
  • Database administrator
  • Database developer
  • Project manager
  • IT architect
  • Embedded/mobile developer
  • Small business IT consultant
  • Digital home integrator

Your take?

What advice would you give dannyHK? What IT specialties do you see as being hot right now? Join the discussion.