Information technology continues to shape, change, and improve the way we live, enjoy life, and work. Moreover, it’s needless to say that IT is one of the fastest-growing and most in-demand career fields in this day and age.
That said, the IT job market keeps its dominance due to these factors:
- The rapid growth of the Internet and ecommerce
- Lower prices of digital equipment that allow more businesses and organizations to upgrade their tech
- Growing demand for IT security specialists to help organizations fight cybercrime
- The prevalence of smarter applications that enable companies to analyze and interpret data
- Cloud computing changing the way IT departments operate
Of course, this is great news for those like you who are looking to begin their IT career. However, with the tight competition and highly competent job candidates out there, you might need to step up your game and prepare well for your job search.
What’s important for you now is to identify your clear career goals and develop a comprehensive career plan. These will let you list and outline the necessary learning efforts, IT skills, and IT certifications you need to take to build your competitive edge as an IT professional.
With that, having ample knowledge about the current IT career landscape is a great first step, too. Now, let’s look at the top IT career paths you can consider to plan a fast-track IT career!
Computer support
A lot of professionals beginning to build their IT careers take on computer support roles that aid in many various aspects of computer operations. This career path is best for those seeking to specialize in a narrower field such as cybersecurity or web development, or continue in computer support to become a senior or a manager.
Moreover, these are the roles you can take on:
- IT support technician
- Desktop support technician
- Help desk technician
- IT associate
- Senior help desk support technician
- Service desk supervisor
- Support desk manager
Cybersecurity
There are three primary cybersecurity functions: engineering defenses, testing security, and responding to cyberattacks.
Also, some of the most basic cybersecurity skills you need include:
- Knowledge of common cyberattacks
- Ability to perform risk analyses
- Ability to manage risks through using controls
- Knowledge of compliance regulations
Further, these are just some of the specific roles you can take on:
- Information security analyst
- Cybersecurity analyst
- Cybersecurity engineer
- Senior cyber engineer
- Information security manager
- Ethical hacker
Networks and systems
IT professionals in this field focus on the day-to-day support that keeps networks and systems running properly. Their roles include maintaining the software and hardware, monitoring the system for possible issues, analyzing problems, and building plans to avoid or address issues.
Think you’re up for these roles?
- Network administrator
- Systems administrator
- Network implementation technician
- Systems analyst
- Network engineer
- Systems engineer
- Network security engineer
- Cloud network engineer
- Senior systems administrator
- Computer network architect
Software development
In this fast-paced digital era, it’s no doubt that software development is a booming career field for IT aspirants and experts. More and more organizations continue to build their own team of software engineers and developers to create and maintain the technology behind every application, website, or program. These are then crucial to allow an organization to interact with its customers, provide them with topnotch services, and help them process their purchases and other activities.
To detail, here are the most popular job titles in this IT career path:
Web development
Ecommerce has been on the rise for years and years now. With the ever-changing consumer behavior, a lot of businesses consider building their online presence to reach more customers. With this, the demand for web development enthusiasts continues to increase.
Moreover, these IT experts have a variety of opportunities in a lot of industries. Schools, hospitals, and other companies and organizations rely on them to serve their communities.
IT jobs in this field include:
- Web developer
- Web designer
- Front-end developer
- Back-end developer
- Full-stack developer
- Front-end engineer
- Back-end engineer
- Full-stack engineer
Data
With the presence of Internet-connected devices, organizations have access to big data on their customers, services, and other key business factors. That said, the increase in demand for data skills makes this career path a viable option for those looking for IT-related jobs. This is because working with data can require you to keep up with hardware and security (data technician) or analyze data to find patterns and trends (data analyst or scientist).
You can consider the following jobs if you want to pursue this career path:
- Datacenter technician
- Database administrator
- Data analyst
- Data scientist
- Data engineer
- Data architect
Cloud computing
Aside from it is one of the major tech trends you should know to work in any industry, cloud computing is also a top technical area in IT seeing the most demand by Global Knowledge.
With more businesses investing in cloud services due to its benefits most especially for larger companies, IT pros specializing in this area are needed to take charge. Cloud enables complex businesses to access data and software remotely anytime, offering cost-effective solutions that are scalable to suit business needs.
Now, the most in-demand cloud computing skills include:
- Database Skills
- Programming Languages
- Cloud Migration and Deployment
- Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
- Serverless Architecture
- System/Platform Certifications
- DevOps
If these skills suit your passion and interests, check out this list of some roles you can take on:
- Cloud engineer
- Cloud computing programmer
- Cloud architect
- Cloud consultant
Start Building Your Information Technology Career Path
Now that you’re familiar with the different IT career paths you can choose from, your next step is to plan your job search ahead.
To get you started, you may check out this blog where we listed the most in-demand IT jobs in the Philippines. If you’re just starting out, you might want to consider applying for these entry level IT jobs, too!
Also, did you know that you can also turn your passion in the tech field into reality even if you don’t have a formal education? Check out this blog to know how you can pursue an IT career without a degree! For more job openings, browse all the available IT jobs listed in Bossjob!