Dive Brief:

• A new CompTIA study on the state of IT professionals shows that most are satisfied with their jobs. The report, Evaluating IT Workforce Needs polled 820 IT professionals.
• The report also found that some professionals worry their skills will soon be obsolete; many, however, said they were interested in careers in cybersecurity (51%) and cutting-edge areas such as the Internet of Things (30%) and artificial intelligence or machine learning (20%).
• The industry must develop a robust workforce that can effectively fill the IT jobs of the 21st century, whether those jobs are in cybersecurity, IoT, AI or some new technology that's still to come, Nancy Hammervik, executive vice president of industry relations at CompTIA, said in a statement.

Dive Insight:

Companies have been expressing worry about the need for more AI and cybersecurity experts for some time now. Schools have taken note and answered the call with various degree and non-degree programs. And, based on this latest study, it seems that workers are on board with this upskilling plan.

Still, the first steps seem out of reach for many. While 80% of workers in a recent poll said they feel that professional development is their responsibility, one-third did nothing to upskill in the past year. Forty percent noted their employers haven’t offered opportunities or paid for upskilling.

If employers need this talent, they may very well have to encourage employees to undertake new training, and they may have to consider footing the bill, too — or somebody else will.