IT Job Outlook: Hiring Trends and the Top Ten Cities for IT Professionals

American workers have had a rough few years with layoffs, outsourcing, and a sluggish "jobless" recovery. According to Dice.com, the employment picture is looking up for IT professionals in the U.S. with rising demand for technical talent and steady improvements in IT hiring. Not only that, Dice.com has identified the top ten cities for IT employment.

In its The Rising Demand for Tech Talent – Spring 2011 report, Dice reports that its technology job postings have grown 30% year/year with full-time job postings growing dramatically faster than contract positions. For example, full-time job postings have grown 35% while contract position postings have grown 22%.

So what skills are in demand? The Dice report indicates that the most common skills that employers are looking for are: J2EE/Java, Oracle, C/C++/C#, SQL, Windows, Unix, Linux, HTML, JavaScript, and XML skills. While these skills have been in demand for quite some time, some of the fastest growing skills required include cloud computing, virtualization, CSS, Ruby on Rails, PeopleSoft, Apple/Mac, and CISSP.

Where are the jobs? Dice.com regularly compiles reports detailing the cities with the most IT job postings. As of March 1, 2011, the top ten cities with the most IT job postings (and the change compared to the same period a year ago):

• New York / New Jersey – 24% increase
• Washington, D.C. / Baltimore – 25% increase
• Silicon Valley – 41% increase
• Chicago – 31% increase
• Los Angeles – 20% increase
• Atlanta – 53% increase
• Boston – 26% increase
• Dallas – 42% increase
• Seattle – 47 % increase
• Philadelphia – 22% increase

Clearly, the job outlook is looking brighter for IT professionals. Not only that, Dice reports that 54% of hiring managers and recruiters are expecting "tech talent poaching" to become more aggressive this year.

With an improving job market, rising demand for both traditional and new technology skills, the IT job outlook has improved. With over 75,000 available tech jobs posted on Dice.com alone, opportunities are available for those IT professionals with the right skills across the nation.

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