{"id":378959,"date":"2020-03-08T15:00:41","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T13:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=378959"},"modified":"2020-03-06T15:46:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T13:46:08","slug":"these-are-the-skills-that-microsoft-is-looking-for-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/it-services\/378959\/these-are-the-skills-that-microsoft-is-looking-for-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"These are the skills that Microsoft is looking for in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/375238\/these-are-the-it-skills-that-south-african-companies-are-struggling-to-find\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report<\/a> <\/strong>by Microsoft and the International Data Corporation shows that South African companies are struggling to find digital skills in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft itself is not immune to these challenges, and over the last four to five years it has focused on re-skilling people across its business, it told BusinessTech.<\/p>\n<p>It has also introduced a technical skills initiative that gives every person across the organisation, the opportunity to build and\/ or grow their technical skills, it said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To match the changing digital landscape, we have prioritised deep cloud; AI and machine learning, big data and security technical skills at Microsoft, and see the opportunity for more security, big data and analytics skills,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know that there are many technical skills that are scarce locally, but see an opportunity for reskilling of current teams, and upskilling young people as the workforce of the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Looking at a national level, Microsoft&#8217;s data shows that the biggest skills gap lies in security-related and data protection skills \u2013 a reflection of the heightened awareness among businesses about the increasing threat of cyber crime.<\/p>\n<p>While 53% of companies say they already lack this necessary skill set, 59% expect to need more security specialists in just two years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n<p>Following closely behind is the demand for cloud computing skills as indicated by 49% of companies.<\/p>\n<p>This demand for cloud skills is expected to grow significantly over the next two years, with 68% of companies saying they are likely to need more cloud specialists in future, Microsoft said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/378789\/these-are-the-10-most-difficult-job-posts-to-fill-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">These are the 10 most difficult job posts to fill in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report by Microsoft and the International Data Corporation shows that South African companies are struggling to find digital skills in the country.7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":184599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[26,169],"class_list":["post-378959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services","tag-headline","tag-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378959"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379767,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378959\/revisions\/379767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}