Linux Projects Driving Demand for IT Pros With Open Source Skills

As demand for their skills surges, open source professionals said it would be “easy” for them to find a new, potentially better job, according to a recent survey from the Linux Foundation and Dice. The resulting “2018 Open Source Jobs Report” reveals that this message isn’t lost on their employers, who are investing in open source training and certification as an incentive to retain current staffers. However, to build a strong—and stable—open source workforce, they’ll also need to boost salary packages and opportunities for “exciting” work assignments. More than 6,500, IT managers, administrators, developers and other tech professionals who work on open source systems along with 750 hiring managers took part in the research. The following slideshow presents survey highlights, with charts provided courtesy of the Linux Foundation and Dice.

The findings reveal that 55 percent of open source professionals said it would be “easy” for them to find a new job. In addition, 87 percent said that acquiring skills in open source software and technology has advanced their careers.

Three of ten open source pros said getting a higher salary would keep them from moving on to another job. Nearly one in five said they’d be likelier to stay with their employer if they had more opportunities to work on new and exciting projects. They’d also appreciate more work-life balance (as cited by 14 percent) and flex work/telecommuting options (10 percent).

Nearly one-half of hiring managers said employing certified open source professionals is a priority for them. But 87 percent are encountering difficulties in recruiting enough open source talent.

Four of five hiring managers are looking to recruit open source pros for Linux projects. Nearly two-thirds are seeking these employees for cloud-related needs, and about one-half are recruiting these pros for security-based assignments as well as web technologies.

When asked which technologies most affect hiring decisions, 66 percent of hiring managers selected the cloud and 57 percent picked containers. Nearly one-half chose security and 47 percent cited networking.

More than two of five hiring managers said their company is using open source training and certification opportunities as an incentive to retain employees, up from 26 percent in 2016 who said this. About two-thirds said their employees are requesting or taking training courses on their own.

A lack of training opportunities poses the biggest challenge for open source developers, as cited by 49 percent of these professionals. A lack of documentation ranked second, as cited by 41 percent.

The failure to gain managerial buy-in for open source technology represents another major challenge, as cited by 34 percent of open source pros. Others included departmental silos (as cited by 27 percent), and a lack of needed hardware (22 percent) as well as software (16 percent).