Jobs demanding 'cloud skills' increased 400% since 2010, says firm

Though it doesn't identify exactly what "cloud computing skills" actually are, business intelligence firm Wanted Analytics on Tuesday said more than 5,000 U.S. cloud computing job openings were listed online in February alone. This is up 92 percent from February 2011, and an impressive 400 percent from February 2010.

Software Engineers, Computer Systems Engineers and Architects, and Network and Computer Systems Administrators are the three jobs that most commonly listed cloud computing skills. However, Wanted Analytics said 2011 job listings weren't just in the engineering and administration sector. Jobs in marketing, sales, and financial and marketing analysis also demanded experience with cloud computing at much greater rates than previous years.

Predictably, most of these jobs were in California, with 900 in the San Jose area alone. Other cities where there was high demand included Seattle, New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco.

The company found the five metropolitan areas with the best markets for sourcing cloud-related jobs: Tucson, Arizona; Madison, Wisconsin; Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, Phoenix/Mesa/Scottsdale, Arizona; and Des Moines/West Des Moines, Iowa. In these markets, cloud job listings tend to be filled an average of two-and-a-half weeks faster than anywhere else in the country.

Last week, market research firm IDC and Microsoft released a white paper tracking cloud-based job creation, and found the majority of new opportunities would arise in India and China. IDC estimated that spending on public cloud IT services in 2011 constituted $28 billion of the total $1.7 trillion in worldwide IT spending.

Limiting "cloud spending" to IT-related expenses, however, knocks out the non-tech related fields from the overall picture, such as those listed by Wanted Analytics, or even those tertiary fields that feel the effects of cloud expansion such as construction, HVAC, plumbing, and maintenance.

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