The annual report on employment in the open source sector released by the Linux and Dice Foundation is available. This report shows that opportunities are growing for qualified open source professionals.
The survey was conducted among more than 750 hiring managers and 6500 Open Source professionals. The summary of the conclusions of this report is very positive and shows some significant changes since the 2017 report:
Hiring open source talent is a priority for 83% of recruiters, up from 76% in 2017.
Linux is back among the most popular open source skill categories, making it knowledge required for most entry-level open source careers.
Containers are rapidly gaining in popularity and importance, with 57% of hiring managers seeking this expertise, up from only 27% last year.
There is a gap between the views of hiring managers and information technology professionals on the effectiveness of efforts to improve diversity in the industry.
Hiring managers move away from hiring external consultants and choose to train existing employees on new open source technologies and help them obtain certifications.
A still very tight recruitment market
While 55% of open source professionals surveyed say it is easy for them to find a job and 87% believe that mastering open source has boosted their careers, the situation is just as tricky for recruiters. 87% of recruiters report difficulties in recruiting.
To keep the most exciting profiles and attract talent, several strategies are put in place. Among these, training and particularly certification have become essential weapons, and it can be observed that companies implementing such plans have doubled since 2016, reaching almost half of respondents (42%). Developers say that training is their first difficulty (49%) in the open source sector before the lack of documentation (41%).
Salaries remain the primary motivation element for recruitment with 30%, but open source professionals also declare for 19% that their primary motivation lies in the originality of the projects and for 14% the possibility of balancing their professional and personal lives. Besides, 10% of them consider flexible working hours and teleworking as the main reasons for their recruitment decision.
The most sought-after skills in the open source market
Only upheaval in the 2018 ranking of skills sought: Linux. He had not gone far, but mastery of the operating system came back in force with 80% of recruiters looking for these skills. With 44% of recruiters looking for profiles that master containerization technologies, the growing trend observed over the last two years is confirmed and places these technologies among the most fashionable in technology companies. For the rest of the podium, we find the cloud, security, web technologies, networks.