Every day, more and more people use the Internet, computers, applications and gadgets as part of their regular activities; studying, working, shopping, banking and playing. This has also created new employment opportunities. Many of the highest-paying jobs that exist today were not even around ten years ago! These jobs were created as more people work directly and intensively with information and communications technology, or ICT. Can you think of any job where you might need to use the Internet and computer a lot? You can probably think of many, including new jobs such as “social media manager” and occupations linked with multimedia and Internet services, digital graphic design, e-publishing, e-business and e-commerce.

In reality, there are far more jobs in ICT, and career opportunities that rely on ICT, than the total number of jobs in all other career fields that do not directly rely on, produce or manage ICTs.¹   Customized software has been developed for almost every single sector, from farming to business to aerospace, and the pressure to innovate is spurred along by the search for solutions to deal with global issues such as climate change, renewable energy and the environment. It is definitely a smart move to get into an ICT career because jobs in this field are only expected to keep growing.

When people think of classic ICT professions they may think of jobs in Information Systems, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Business Computing and Information Technology. Classic ICT work and typical ICT skills include making and managing IT infrastructure, platforms and applications (“aps”); data and information engineering and management; networking; human-computer interaction; system design, programming, implementation, development, maintenance and acquisition; IT project management; and methods and tools for problem solving, abstraction, design, and implementation.

The sector is dynamic, swiftly growing and changing. Societal change and innovation can almost be said to advance at about the same pace as people’s adoption and use of ICTs in everyday life and work.  This creates twenty-first century ICT occupations that are incredibly diverse and include a wide variety of options: both jobs specialized in producing or managing ICTs, and all other jobs that rely heavily and directly on ICT in order to do or produce something. Many of these “ICT-enabled jobs,” such as the work of a marketing manager, do not quite fit into the classical definition of an ICT career (i.e. jobs specialized in producing or managing ICT tools and infrastructure).

Global bodies are increasingly paying attention to the growth and rapid change that is happening in the ICT industry. The International Labour Organization (ILO), for example, recently broadened its program to include oversight on less conventional labour issues such as skill level for software and applications programmers, convergence between information and communications technology, and distinctions between hardware engineers and software engineers.²

Interestingly, the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) Foundation recognizes the growing numbers and complexity of the ICT industry. SFIA proposes a system to understand and organize all the classic and modern variants of an ICT career by focusing on the IT skills needed in the Information Age. These include strategy and architecture, business change, solution development and implementation, service management, procurement and management support and client interface.

As ICTs become increasingly important to provide any kind of service, ICT career roles become more multi-disciplinary in nature and merge with plenty of other societal functions where young women can use their creativity and intuition, including in software application design for bioengineering, power grid informatics, and mobile apps. Just as a vast array of regular occupations rely on ICTs to function effectively, the ICT sector also employs a vast range of people from diverse professions, such as lawyers, economists, business and communications managers, to name just a few.  It is definitely an advantage to keep pace with the rate of change in the ICT sector and the accompanying growing demand for female and male professionals with different talents and skill-sets. There are a number of YouTube videos and websites that can tell you more about career development in this field and why you might want to consider this as an interesting option for your future! You can find some of these on the ITU Girls in ICT Portal at girlsinict.org

 

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[1] According to a December 2009 report by IDC, commissioned by Microsoft, by 2014 more than 90% of all jobs in the European Union will require some ICT skills, almost independent of sector, country or size of company.  See www.microsofteurope.eu/linkclick.aspx?fileticket=FaBGoILPCs0%3D&tabid=107.  Similar trends have been noted for Africa.  See; Youth and ICT Skills in African Labour Markets at www.uneca.org/itca/youth/Documents/Youth%20and%20ICTs-%20dg%20input.pdf (citing 2002 statistics that 61% of all youth jobs required computer skills with this number expected to grow).

[2] The ILO categorizes ICT technology professionals as follows:[1] 251 Software and applications developers and analysts; 2511 Systems analysts; 2512 Software developers; 2513 Web and multimedia developers; 2514 Applications programmers; 2519 Software and applications developers and analysts not elsewhere 252 Database and network professionals; 2521 Database designers and administrators; 2522 Systems administrators; 2523 Computer network professionals; 2529 Database and network professionals not elsewhere classified; see http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/isco/docs/ict.pdf; also consult Tech job portals such as: http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/careersintechnology/Technical_Job_Descriptions_and_Career_Paths.htm - which cater to the demand for IT engineers, software architects, network developers and gaming designers.