Top Tech Jobs 2015 – Leadership

Silicon Republic is looking to the future, establishing which jobs will be most in demand in Ireland in 2015. In the sixth and final part of this series, we look at leadership, as the hunt to fill management roles goes on.

So far we’ve looked at software development, engineering, cybersecurity, support, and big data and analytics, but there’s one area of IT employment that aids, assists and directs all of these sectors – management and leadership.

Management is a profession all to itself in many ways, with people having the right skillset often headhunted and plucked from business to business, industry to industry.

Hire from within or head-hunt the talent

Strong business skills are a quality that a growing number of employers are looking for when hiring into the tech industry. That’s true from the bottom, right to the top. From our experience in speaking to employers of varying backgrounds, a keen business mind has gained importance due to the evolving nature of the Irish tech scene.

Companies investigate the upskilling of current staff into management positions, understandably so when considering the packages you would need to put together when hiring from outside. These roles require their own, dedicated set of selective skills.

Scale is important in Irish tech now, more so than in the past. Businesses such as Aon, AOL, Pramerica and Fidelity Investments, to name but a few, are operating on such a major scale that means the ability to manage large numbers – be that staff, income or products – becomes even more important.

At the head of the companies looking to recruit multitalented engineers, designers, analysts and so forth, there needs to be solid, professional business management.

Jobs in this area include heads of infrastructure, service delivery, business intelligence, IT and development. There are also technical and enterprise architects, IT managers and then CTOs, CIOs and IT directors.

Every business needs to be led

It’s a fairly broad spectrum of management roles but the tech industry in Ireland has grown to such a strong environment that businesses of all sizes and backgrounds are operating in close proximity to each other. Some require mid-level management, others require key high-level decision-makers.

Also, areas outside of pure tech need to engage in this field to some degree, often in a major way. For example, a recent report by Interxion found that demand for cloud services is growing in Ireland. So for businesses to change from traditional hosting of services and data, to cloud hosting, change management is integral.

Surprisingly, leadership and management is yet another area of limited resources when HR departments search out their latest talent, with Hays highlighting the area as one of the four key skills shortage areas of tech.

“As a result of confidence returning to the wider economy,” explains Hays in its Salary and Recruiting Trends 2015, “senior candidates are now more prepared to move for the right opportunity, while organisations see increased value in investing at CIO and CTO level.

“Salaries vary broadly at this level, depending on the type of organisation. Public service salaries typically range from €90,000-€135,000 under current government guidelines. So job-seekers motivated to move by salary rates may be attracted to established companies who will pay €150,000 plus. Those with a more entrepreneurial spirit are getting behind the advanced HPSUs (high potential start-ups), where the base salary might not be as high, but the risk is rewarded in lucrative stock options.”

Extras help, but salaries are still attractive

The latter point made by Hays is important, as a significant influencer when hiring people into management roles is benefits, rather than base salary. Considering the explosive nature of IT, where acquisitions of smaller companies by major multinational corporations happen all the time, it is indeed understandable why share options can prove so attractive.

However, when looking at salaries, specifically in the IT sector, it still makes for impressive reading. Heads of infrastructure or service delivery can earn around €80,000, with heads of business intelligence slightly more. Technical architects, enterprise architects and IT managers would be into the €100,000+ area, with heads of development, CTOs (both €120,000), CIOs and IT directors (both €130,000) enjoying significant basic salary starting points, on average.