A lot of commentators (including me) jump the gun on giving their review of the year to come, the year before or even right at the outset. But for a number of reasons, I thought this year it was worth looking at after we ‘primed the pump’ so to speak.
2022 is going to be an interesting year in technology for NZ.
As always, the driving force will be the never-ending battle that seems to be technology talent. However, a big difference this year seems to be the confidence some players have breaking the rules. Will we see some change? Some strategic moves to finally adopt progressive talent acquisition strategies? Well, if the direction the US, Australia and Japan are heading in is anything to go by, Aotearoa has nothing to lose in doing so.
Ok, time for broad statements!
Important things to be aware of:
- Salaries aren’t really moving in tech in NZ. Not at the high-level view
- Other locations globally ARE paying more
- The Dev market is extremely stable, but it’s made up of some new tech
- AWS and Microsoft never had a bar fight over NZ and have levelled the playing field over a nice game of chess. This is accelerating cloud and ERP growth significantly drawing away from local/customised options.
- We will lose talent this year to Australia, but some recruitment agencies will bring new talent back home or on their first professional journey to NZ – the time to ask for this is right NOW.
- Our technology market is harming a lot of hard work being put in to support women (especially senior professionals) in technology.
- The gap between those retiring in NZ and new technology talent returning is widening, only 22% of 16-17 yr olds in NZ are looking at a career in tech.
- More and more purpose, pre-built product being used, especially across government
- Because of this, it's not easy to find that unicorn to customise that weird part of your system that’s 25 years old.
- Java has started its decline in use – slowly, but it's happening
- PHP has jumped on that same decline, except has used the hyper-speed function
- MATLAB is one to watch
- Python skills and Perl remain steady (automation will have more to do with this)
- C and its sisters are all strong languages – if you’re new to the world of work and reading this, this is where you live for now.
- Government in NZ has hired away from the growth of automation and modernisation skillsets at the senior level, which is causing a delay in securing “hard to find” talent
- Transformation will be replaced by Automation and Modern Architecture as a focus in 2022
- Hyper-automation will take a front seat with the growth of the AIOps sector
- NZ will be the home of some exciting IoT projects to help with Tourism and Govt growth in 2022, but this talent will be extremely hard to find. Well, on Seek anyway. But some of these projects will be spoken of globally.
- CyberSec Transformation will be given a refresh because of the scaling up of IoT and the AIOps sector.
- Agile is boss – sorry if you don’t agree, but don’t be the Kodak of Agile.
- Huge increases in funding in 2022 for tech will see the rise of another year of growth across data, as it connects itself to everything above.
- Data Democratization will be a huge focus for large enterprise in NZ this year. Any business with a focus on CX in 2022 will start to battle with how they manage open data.
- Customer’s drivers will become the lifeblood of business. Adapt or die has never been more brutal than it will be in 2022.
?What do you need to do to win the war of tech talent in 2022?
- Pay for what you’re investing in. This doesn’t mean paying through the nose unnecessarily but work with your candidate or recruiter to individualise the skills you’re hiring. A good recruiter can do this with you.
- Don’t put focus on age, gender or previous workplace. THIS DOESN’T MATTER. And yes, there are plenty of people still doing this.
- Focus on what the talent is asking for in a workplace. Invest in good technology, invest in coaching and realise the power of great leadership over mediocre operational management.
- Measure strength in a candidate’s understanding of how humans work and engage. This is the basis of all technology now. So, your next BA, Dev, Cloud Architect, CIO should all have a clear understanding of people and how they operate. Even more than product knowledge at times.
- Use a technology recruitment firm for tech roles and STOP using exec firms for senior technology hires. Senior tech hires in 2022 need to be vetted by the tech market. You’re not paying for this with large exec firms and you’re not getting an accurate measure of the available senior technology talent available to you.
- Question where you’re putting your tech investment and talk about how this will impact your ability to hire great people. Don’t buy the hype of something so great that it doesn’t exist yet.
BUT! The best thing you can do to win the tech talent gap this year is #choosetochallenge the gender gap. Those that do will win in 2022. Because 2022 isn’t just another domestic year. It’s not even the year of the “great resignation”. It’s the year of the global reconnect.
?Max Cullen is the General Manager NZ of Randstad Technologies, a global technology company in service delivery, recruitment, and strategic technology advisory across 38 countries.?
