Great Learning, an ed-tech platform for executives, came out with a report which states that over a million cloud computing jobs will be created in India by 2022. That said, the industry suffers with acute shortage of talent with more than 1.7 million cloud jobs worldwide remaining vacant due to shortage of talent. According to IDC, there is only one qualified candidate for 100 job postings in cloud computing across the globe. The major reasons for this gap are lack of training, hands on experience in a cloud-based environment and industry recognized certification. This skill gap comes at a time when almost two-thirds of global enterprises are using cloud computing; and the investment being made in cloud infrastructure is 4.5 times the rate of traditional IT spending.
According to the report, In India, the salary of an entry level cloud professional is around Rs. 5 to 7 lacs, which is significantly greater than that of a traditional IT engineer who earns about Rs. 3 to 5 lacs. The salary for an associate working in cloud with less than 5 years of experience can range from Rs. 12 to 19 lacs, while a mid-level manager can easily command upwards of Rs. 20 lacs p.a. Cloud Architects, a new role in the cloud space of an expert who understands both IT infrastructure and applications, and can design and manage application frameworks and operations, can earn upwards of 30+ Lakhs. In fact, MNCs like Oracle have been known to pay senior cloud professionals with 15 – 25 years of experience as much as Rs. 1 cr p.a.
Indian IT embracing cloud
The Indian cloud computing market, currently at $2.2 billion, is growing rapidly and is expected to grow to $4 billion by 2020 with an annual growth rate of more than 30%. As per IDC, an estimated 1 million new jobs will be created in India by the year 2022 as more companies adopt cloud technology. Skills in DevOps, SaaS, IaaS, Automation, Agile and SDN are going to be critical for IT professionals to land these jobs. In line with these skills, job profiles like Cloud Architect, Cloud Software Engineer, Cloud Enterprise Architect and Cloud Infrastructure Engineer are already in great demand.
Traditional IT roles are going to cloud
With traditional IT companies like Cognizant, TCS, Infosys and Tech Mahindra increasingly building solutions on cloud owing to increased flexibility, scalability and speed, there is a huge demand for professionals who can integrate cloud solutions with existing, on-site systems. When a company migrates to cloud, software engineers need to upskill to learn cloud APIs and manage services like container platforms to build cloud-native applications.
Cloud opens new opportunities for analytics professionals
Cloud offers attractive career opportunities to analytics professionals like data architects, data scientists, security experts and migration experts. With Cloud Service Providers offering Analytics-as-a-Service (AaaS) – a combination of data analysis and visualization tools that require only limited programming knowledge, new opportunities have opened for analytics aspirants as there is less of a technical barrier to move into an analytics-based role in the cloud computing domain.
Harish Subramaniam, Program Director – PG Program in Cloud Computing said, “Cloud-computing isn’t just relevant for a niche segment of the industry. In the last year, we’ve seen huge demand from the Banking, Consulting, Healthcare, Retail, Automotive and Manufacturing sectors as well. Understanding how entire industries are getting automated and moved to the Cloud is an essential skill for developers, architects, and decision-makers alike. This is why we’re seeing senior professionals with 10+ years of experience show as much interest in our program as the younger generation.”