Following reports that three of the UK's largest mobile operators are set to receive approval for the creation of a joint mobile payments platform, research from IT specialist recruitment site CWJobs has indicated 45% of IT professionals have witnessed a rise in demand for specialist tech pros with mobile skills. A further 79% expect the number of mobile roles in the banking and retail sectors to rise.
In recognising the opportunity, 57% of IT pros indicated that they would consider re-skilling in order to take on a mobile role in either the banking or retail sectors. Specifically, security (67%) .net (38%) and Java (37%) were the skills highlighted as those in greatest demand.
In additional to the research, CWJobs hosted a breakfast briefing for recruitment and HR professionals last week to discuss the latest trends in 'm-commerce'.
Speaking at the briefing, Michael Nuciforo, ex-head of mobile at RBS said: "Having previously considered the channel a difficult one to tackle, banks are now embracing mobile and are realising that in order to make the platform work, they need to invest in specialist IT professionals to manage it. This means hiring teams of developers, designers to ensure seamless usability, payments and security experts and agile workers - opening up great opportunities for a variety of tech candidates, not just those with financial sector experience."
Richard Nott, website director, CWJobs, added: "With the combined market for mobile payments expected to reach over £380 billion globally by 2013, mobile commerce is set to grow faster than any other in the IT sector this year. Savvy IT pros are already making moves to ensure their skill sets meet this growing requirement as 62% of those polled in our latest survey think m-commerce is here to stay."
