From developers to DBAs: The hottest outsourced IT jobs

Around one-third of organizations will spend more money on IT outsourcing over the next 18 months, while 48 percent plant to hire more contractors, according to IT staffing agency Bluewolf’s recent report, entitled “2012-2013 State of IT Outsourcing.” The reasons for the upshift: Companies are eager to dig into piping-hot technologies like cloud, big data, and mobile but can’t find sufficiently skilled IT workers to fill related job openings. Couple that talent shortfall with the ever-present need for speed to market, and the need for outsourcing becomes a bit clearer, though perhaps still tough to stomach for unemployed or underemployed IT pros in the United States.

If there’s any consolation, it may be that companies are no longer as gung-ho about enlisting offshore talent to fill their IT outsourcing needs, according to Bluewolf. This is because CIOs who were dazzled by the prospect of cheaply recruiting IT talent that China, India, and Eastern Europe have seen “mixed results,” according to Bluewolf, leading them to reevaluate which services and functions they ship overseas.

Although IT pros in the United States might not have to worry quite as much about losing work to their foreign counterparts, they may be feeling greater competitive pressure from the cloud. “Cloud as a delivery model — which can be implemented in weeks, modified on the fly, and abandoned just as quickly — is gaining momentum,” according to the report. “Businesses are leveraging the cloud to outsource applications (Salesforce, Google Apps, Eloqua), data storage, and even the management of entire data centers to third-party providers.”

Broken down by IT service type, 73 percent of companies said they are outsourcing at least some application-related functions, from application development to hosting. In monetary terms, they’re spending around 48 cents per outsourcing dollar. Meanwhile, 62 percent of organizations are outsourcing infrastructure-related functions, from full-scale data center operations to networking to IT security. Spending-wise, companies are spending 35 percent of the IT outsourcing dollars on infrastructure services.

Application development is the most frequently outsourced IT function, according to Bluewolf, representing 46 percent of all outsourced app-related functions. Twenty-six percent of those app dev functions are handled offshore. The top outsourced app-dev jobs are for software developer (for all languages), Salesforce.com developers, and quality assurance analysts.

Further, 30 percent of survey respondents said they plan to outsource more app dev duties over the next 12 to 18 months. “As applications become more process-centric, the development community needs to have skill sets around specific business processes as well as industry expertise,” the report cautioned.

Web and mobile development, too, are hot spots for outsourcing: 39 percent of all outsourced app dev tasks are for the Web or mobile devices. Companies plan to increase outsourcing here by 27 percent over the next to 18 months, but interestingly, only 4 percent of these jobs are going overseas.

“As organizations continue to integrate Web and mobile strategies into their marketing and e-commerce efforts, CEOs and CIOs are re-evaluating the best ways to manage demand. Some choose to keep Web and mobile development within IT and leverage an elastic workforce mix, others reorganize these functions under marketing or sales because of revenue potential,” according to Bluewolf.

The top outsourced jobs for Web and mobile development include mobile developers (for Android and iPhone), front-end developers, and UI/UX designers.

Organizations also are increasingly turning to hosted applications, rather than dealing with them in-house. “Much of the total cost for owning and operating this infrastructure is now shifting to managed-service and cloud-based providers,” according to Bluewolf. “We foresee that application-hosting outsourcing will only increase as more organizations lean on cloud-based providers and more service providers integrate cloud into their offerings.”

Twenty-eight percent of outsourced application functions fall under the hosted application umbrella, and organizations expect to boost usage of hosted apps by 35 percent over the next year and a half. Ten percent of hosted apps are handled offshore, and the top staffing placements here include Salesforce consultants, Eloqua consultants, and all manner of software developers.

Among outsourced IaaS (infrastructure as a service) functions, data center operations represent the biggest chunk at 23 percent. “Demand for storing and analyzing data combined with the increased amount of unstructured data captured by the enterprise is causing data center operations to grow in size, complexity, and scope. Outsourced solutions such as co-location and virtualized environments and ‘rural area’ sourcing can be a cost-effective and scalable approach” to handling that growth, according to Bluewolf.

Twenty-two percent of respondents said they expect to outsource more data operations in the next year and a half. Currently, 11 percent of those outsourced operations are handled offshore. The top job placements here include data warehouse architect, data warehouse developer, and data warehouse QA.

Big data is driving up demand for outsourced database administration tasks, according to Bluewolf. They represent 17 percent of all outsourced infrastructure-related services, and 14 percent of organizations will outsource more of them in the next 18 months. 11 percent of outsourced database admin duties are handled offshore. Top placements in this space include senior database administrator, data architect, and data modeler.

Also hot on the outsourced infrastructure scene: network operations, as organizations are struggling to keep all the big data flowing smoothly to demanding consumers. Sixteen percent of infrastructure-outsourcing dollars go toward network maintenance and administration services, and 21 percent of surveyed companies said they’ll increase spending through 2013. Eleven percent of outsourced networking operation duties are handled offshore. The top job placements include network administrator, network engineer, and network security engineer.

Data recovery services, too, are enjoying increased demand and currently represent 16 percent of all outsourced infrastructure-related functions. Over the next 12 to 18 months, companies expect to increase their spending here by 17 percent. “While many DBAs currently have DR and database mirroring experience, they are often focused on more essential ROI projects. Because of this, many companies are outsourcing DR to best-of-breed managed service providers,” according to Bluewolf. The top job placements for this segment include storage administrators, senior database admins, and data modelers.

Bluewolf’s “2012-2013 State of IT Outsourcing” report can be downloaded for free at Bluewolf’s website (PDF).

This story, “From developers to DBAs: The hottest outsourced IT jobs,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.