The labor market has undergone enormous changes in the last two years, caused primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of economic changes directly affecting employment, working conditions, employers’ opportunities, and employees’ expectations are still felt today. This situation also applies to the IT sector, which is developing at a rapid pace. The second quarter of 2022 is slowly coming to an end. Therefore, it is worth considering how the trends in software development will evolve in the coming months. Are there any upcoming spectacular changes in the IT labor market? You can find out by reading this article.
If you are wondering what are the most popular programming languages in 2022, we recommend our separate article dedicated to this topic.
Cloud services
The rate of expansion of cloud services in recent years is gigantic and there is no sign that it will slow down in the near future. All major providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google are rapidly expanding their services characterized by increasing sophistication and capabilities. It is difficult to overestimate the number of tools that allow you to build applications that are designed from start to finish to run entirely in the cloud – both in stable and beta versions. Cloud solutions are definitely the number one trend in Poland. Currently, more than 68% of large and medium enterprises see the need to use the cloud as an integral part of business development, but only one in four Polish companies use these services. Unlimited flexibility of resources, significant financial savings, more efficient cooperation between team members (e.g. through easier access to documents) and security of stored data are the main advantages of business migration to the cloud. Polish companies should also be convinced by the fact that one of the leading providers of cloud solutions, Google, in April 2021 opened the Google Cloud Region in Warsaw, which is the largest investment of the IT giant in Poland so far. On the other hand, this year Microsoft will build several data centers near Warsaw, supporting Azure and Microsoft Office 365 solutions, which will be used by approximately 150,000 Polish IT specialists, Microsoft partners and students. All this information confirms the growing potential of the domestic market for cloud providers.
Data analysis
With the rapid growth of information media, the role of statisticians and data analysts, who are responsible not only for collecting information but also for processing it, is becoming increasingly important. The data analytics market is full of tools that are evolving at a rapid pace to keep up with the increasing amount of data collected by companies. Someone has to understand this data, process it, analyze it, draw conclusions, and make different models to implement later. This is made possible by data analytics in its broadest sense. All trends in 2022 related to Data Science leave no illusions about this matter. Data analysts are needed in all industries (including IT, marketing, banking, industry, education, medicine, or public administration) and the number of jobs is forecast to grow steadily in the coming years. Among the main factors that are becoming catalysts for the demand for data analytics solutions is the greater availability of services and solutions offered in the public cloud model, which is described above. This is also confirmed by the estimates of global analytics companies. When it comes to data analytics in terms of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Future of Jobs survey found that 73% of companies will adopt machine learning by 2022. This confirms that data analytics is one of the top software development trends in 2022.
If you want to know how to hire a data analyst or learn more details about this IT field, we recommend checking out our comprehensive guide.
Cybersecurity
With the continuous development of digital transformation, the number of hacking attacks on users’ private data stored on both web and mobile applications is increasing. The famous story of the leak of 533 million Facebook users’ data in April 2021 clearly shows that cybersecurity is a global problem, and protecting the privacy of app users is a very complicated process.
The most common reason for leaking sensitive information from mobile apps is:
- No binary protection – 92%
- Disclosure of sensitive data as a result of a side-channel attack – 69%
- Unsecured data storage – 63%
- No data encryption during transmission – 56%
- Possibility of user-side injection attack – 40%
- Putting passwords or keys permanently in code – 23%
In any case, the most important thing is to check the applications and regularly update the software and test the code for security vulnerabilities.
In recent years, the number of attacks on the security of applications has grown rapidly, but not only – phishing, which consists in impersonating another person or institution in order to steal confidential information, is also becoming a big problem. When using platforms such as Vinted or OLX, phishing attempts are common and often end up with unwary users losing a lot of money. What’s more, the exploits and tools used by attackers are more and more advanced, which translates into effective attacks against entire institutions, corporations, or even cities. New and more complex attack scenarios are also emerging, as exemplified by the evolution of ransomware into double extortion attacks or npm packet poisoning.
All of these situations are reflected in software development work. Concern for network security is becoming a higher and higher priority. Newer, more secure programming languages are being used more frequently, e.g. TypeScript instead of JavaScript or Rust instead of C++. An increasing number of organizations are expanding their teams with Cybersecurity IT specialists. Work is also continually underway to secure virtual supply chains so that installed packages or updates are guaranteed to be secure.
There’s no doubt that cybersecurity – framed somewhat out of necessity – is one of the technology trends of the year.
Containerization
Another trend in IT in 2022 is the growing importance of containers and microservices. Their popularity is due to the fact that more and more projects require scalability, security and 24/7 availability. To give an idea of what containerization is, it is worth citing the example of the well-known streaming service Netflix. Every day millions of people around the world watch Netflix, and yet there are no technical problems with it. This is possible precisely because of the use of microservices. Breaking one platform into many microservices reduces the risk of stopping the whole system, increases its stability and allows to identify a new problem faster.
The growing number of users and the need to provide a very powerful platform has also caused Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and even Uber, among others, to abandon building monolithic applications. This year, it can be expected that an increasing number of applications will be developed based on a technology stack standing entirely on external servers. Containerization and building applications on top of microservices accelerate this process.
E-commerce i m-commerce
The Polish e-commerce market is constantly developing. According to the PwC report, “Strategies for Winning. E-commerce leaders’ perspectives on digital commerce development“, online product sales have increased by 35% in just one year. One of the main reasons for the growing interest in online shopping is the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple lockdowns. A large increase in popularity is also seen in mobile commerce (m-commerce). Today, nearly 80% of people around the world own smartphones, and according to a report prepared by Deloitte, about one-third of consumers use their phones to shop. This shows that m-commerce is a clear trend in the IT industry in 2022. The growing importance of mobile commerce is therefore linked to the important role of mobile application developers.
If you want to know how to hire Mobile App Developers in 2022, we recommend our article dedicated to this topic.
Automation and artificial intelligence
The services market has undergone an incredible transformation in recent years thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, which has taken hold in our homes and workplaces for good. Low-code solutions also fit into another trend regarding IT software development in 2022, namely the broader push towards hyper-automation. Applications developed on such platforms can cover practically everything – from workflow management to databases or automation of important processes.
It can be expected that this year the standard developer tools will also receive further improvements resulting from the use of artificial intelligence. A good example of this is the automation of code review – already today we have scanners that check the code for security, performance, or style. Of course, it should be remembered that the automatic code review will not replace the traditional code checking, but it can already be considered useful support in the entire process of software development.
Due to rising labor costs and labor shortages, more and more jobs are becoming automated. For example, Amazon has already registered over 1.5 million drones in the U.S., which replace deliverymen, in Japan, the robot Penny is a common sight in restaurants, which replaces waiters, and in the UK we can meet robots on the streets, delivering food ordered online.
Automation of processes is also very visible in electronic banking. Our local market is dominated by electronic payments – now account for 47% of all transactions, and among the methods, they reign supreme:
It is also worth mentioning the increasingly popular smart solutions that are used in homes (so-called smart home). Thanks to smart devices (IoT – Internet of Things) we can fully automate even the simplest processes such as turning on the light, closing the blinds, turning on the power, controlling the gate, alarm, or air conditioning – and all this from anywhere in the world. More and more people decide to buy this type of solutions, the number of which on the market is still growing and will certainly continue to develop.
The most sought-after IT Specialists
According to our report “Prepare for IT Recruiting in 2022,” IT specialists such as Quality Assurance (QA) Engineers, Frontend Developers, Fullstack Developers, DevOps Engineers, Mobile Developers, and Data Scientists are currently the most sought after. Within each of these groups, the highest number of offers was for Mid-levels and the lowest for Experts.
Summary
As the trends in IT in 2022 show, the world is moving mainly towards broad data analytics, cyber security, and automation of not only systems but also – everyday work and life. Cloud is also playing an increasingly important role, which of course is not a new phenomenon, but there is no indication that it will be stopped in the future. In addition, we can observe an increasing integration of development tools, but also the functions of the applications themselves with elements of artificial intelligence.
If you are considering implementing the above trends in your company and are looking for the right IT specialists – contact us! At Next Technology Professionals we are able to present the first candidates even within 3-5 days. Thanks to our extensive database of candidates, direct search method, and the possibility of in-depth verification of candidates, we are able to carefully select them and deliver only the most promising CVs.