OpsRamp, the service-centric AIOps platform for the modern enterprise, today announced the results of its survey on the talent crisis for the Cloud, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering skills at the Gartner Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference. The survey illustrates a crisis in hiring for digital talent and skills that is stifling innovation, impacting productivity and derailing revenue growth. 

The transition to cloud-native applications and infrastructure is well underway: Over 60% of IT professionals mentioned that a majority of their applications are either built or run using hybrid cloud architectures. Infrastructure and operations (I&O) organizations will need vastly different skills, technologies, and processes over the next five years as they adopt a cloud-first posture. How do IT leaders find the right talent that can deploy and maintain dynamic, flexible and cost-effective digital services?

OpsRamp's Cloud Skills Survey highlights the strategies and tactics used by IT leaders to manage their talent pipeline for meeting the goals of enterprise transformation initiatives. Here are three leading insights from our cloud skills survey:

1. Finding Great Talent Is Tough. 94% of respondents found it at least "somewhat difficult" to find candidates with the right technology and business skills for driving digital innovation. More than 77% of enterprise IT teams are working with managed service providers to enhance their digital quotient.
2. The Skills Deficit Is Real. 90% of hiring managers report that the digital skills gap is either somewhat big, quite big or huge. Nearly a third of respondents believe that the demand for cloud-native skills outpaces existing talent pools.
3. Enterprise Transformation Starts With The Right Culture. Most respondents cited "unwillingness to change pre-existing attitudes toward technology" as the leading concern for embracing new business models. It is hard to transform from a digital laggard to a digital leader without the right practices and processes.
   

"We knew that a skills gap existed, but we didn't truly understand its severity until now," said Darren Cunningham, VP of Marketing at OpsRamp. "Enterprise IT leaders would like to make the leap to cloud-native technologies but are struggling to adjust their workforce to transform their digital DNA. Enterprises will need to invest in skill building and retraining programs to equip their internal teams to manage hybrid workloads effectively, given how expensive and difficult it is to hire the right external talent."