Upskilling is part and parcel with being in tech, but it can be tough to know where to spend your efforts. That's why we've done research into the top tech talents you want on your CV in 2024, how you can test your current aptitude in these areas, and what learning resources are available to help you increase your knowledge.
For a more detailed explanation for why these tech skills made our list, keep reading! Take our free Role and Skill IQ tests after each section to gauge your current proficiency level, and see how you match up to other industry professionals.
Let’s be real: if you didn’t see this on the top of the list, you have lived under a rock since 2022 (Which, given the global housing crisis, I couldn’t blame you for. Finding an affordable rock is hard these days.) Demand for AI and Machine Learning Specialists is expected to grow by 40%, or 1 million jobs, in the next five years according to the World Economic Forum — that’s the fastest growing career across all professions, including the non-technical trades like mining or marketing.
Working in AI/ML also makes you an easy hire. According to Gartner, AI/ML had the second-highest hiring difficulty (nine out of ten) and one of the largest market salaries (USD $142,600 or greater).
Even if you’re not in a technical role, or don’t want to become an AI specialist because you’re working as something like a Cloud Architect or a programmer, knowing AI is becoming an essential skill in 2024 and beyond (For cloud specialists, it’s especially important, as these spaces are quickly intersecting with services like Amazon Q). AI is no longer a skill for a technical role, it affects everyone, with tools like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Synk Code, and Mintlify changing how we go about work.
As of 2024, multicloud is now the norm. 65% of all organizations operate within multicloud environments, with 20% actively pursuing an additional cloud platform, according to Pluralsight’s State of Cloud report. The kicker? Most organizations don’t have people proficient in multiple cloud technologies to actually support this infrastructure. In fact, only 9% of technologists are multicloud proficient.
While that’s bad news for businesses, it’s good news for technologists looking to set themselves apart from the crowd by providing a unique and highly valuable skill set. AWS, Azure, and GCP are still the three most popular cloud providers, which means becoming proficient in these gives you the best cross section.
In terms of tech skills, employers in the U.S. ranked hiring people with cloud architecture and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) skills as considerably difficult, according to Gartner research. And — you guessed it — this translated into higher salaries for cloud-proficient hires.
Here are some courses you can take to build multicloud proficiency:
Each of the major cloud providers offer a foundational-level certification designed to teach you the fundamentals of each platform, and give you a solid foundation in cloud computing. Even if you don’t take the exam itself, taking a cloud certification prep course will give you important baseline skills. You can then decide to take more advanced certification courses as needed, such as the associate-level certificates.
Bad actors now the ability to create cyberthreats with next to no effort using AI, using chatbots to make viruses or phishing letters, or training incredibly powerful malware using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). While the motto of 2023 was “AI or Die”, the motto for 2024 will be “Cybersecurity or Die” as companies try to protect themselves from these suddenly supercharged threats.
This was already a gigantic skills gap in 2022 before AI became big, with tech leaders and technologists stating their number one skills gap was cybersecurity. According to Garner’s latest industry research, cybersecurity should be a top 2024 priority for any large enterprise, who will be most at risk from these threats in the years to come.
Ah, Python, beloved by beginner programmers and seasoned AI specialists everywhere. If you somehow skipped learning this high-level language in your tech career, now is the time to double back and dive into it. According to Gartner, Python is the #1 digital skill critical for most companies, regardless of size or status. The reason? It’s got a wide range of use-cases, from AI, machine learning, data analytics, data visualization, and of course, software and web development.
More than just a fun word to say, Kubernetes (K8s) is a hot skill to know in 2024. K8s is another one of the “skills critical for most companies” this year according to Gartner, and our Pluralsight research backed that up. Anecdotally, I’ve known junior IT professionals who have upskilled in Kubernetes and waltzed directly into juicy cloud jobs paying well into the six figures. If you can get your head around K8s, there’ll be a demand for you out there. It also made Pluralsight’s top trending technology for 2024.
Always the bridesmaid, and never the bride — for the second year in a row, Java was the second-most popular programming language after Python. This Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA) language is platform independent, has a thriving community of developers and open source projects, and offers great software security.
For enterprises, Java is valuable for powering large web applications with the Spring framework, big data pipelines with Kafka, and mobile applications running on Android. This is why Gartner has listed Java as a skill needed by in 2024 large enterprises that need to digitize their businesses at scale.
Linux continues to be an enduring skill for the modern tech professional, given it’s the core of many dev environments, and natively very powerful. According to W3Techs, it continues to be used by 40.1% of all websites.
Docker is the bee’s knees. You can package applications and their dependencies in a virtual container, then be sure this is going to run seamlessly in someone else’s environment. It’s simple, portable, and handy. Docker feeds right into DevOps and CI/CD pipelines to help make software development truly iterative, so it’s a worthy addition to this list. Our research suggests that knowing Docker is more than just useful: it’s becoming a must-have skill in 2024.
Powershell is an open-source, cross-platform task automation solution that, simply put, saves IT teams a ton of time. You can use it to configure systems and automate your administration tasks from the command line for Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Other appealing features are its scripting flexibility, object-oriented approach, extensibility, and robust community support. All of this makes Powershell a highly relevant skill to learn in modern IT environments, which is why we’re not surprised it made 2024’s top tech skill list.
Terraform continues to be a hot skill in the world of cloud infrastructure and operations. By allowing users to define and provision infrastructure using a high-level configuration language, it brings automation, consistency and efficiency, reducing the risk of human error. Terraform allows you to manage infrastructure across multiple cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP — and given most companies are multicloud, this is a highly attractive feature.
This may be a list of the top ten talents people are looking for, but learning something new is better than not learning anything at all. Not only does it show your dedication to continuous learning — a soft skill industry leaders are on the search for in 2024 — it helps you bring new solutions to the table, expands your job options, and stops you from getting into a rut.
It can be difficult to find the time to learn when you feel busy, even when you've got paid learning time. Carve out the time, keep it sacred, and make learning a new skill every quarter (no matter what it is) one of your resolutions!
