The 2016 Open Source Jobs Report: Companies Hungry for Professional Open Source Talent

Fifth annual report expands scope beyond Linux to examine what motivates open source professionals and how companies are attracting and retaining this in demand talent

NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, May 5, 2016 – Recruiting open source talent is a top priority for hiring managers focused on recruiting technology talent, and recruiters are increasingly looking for more professional training credentials from their candidates. According to the 2016 Open Source Jobs Report released today, 65 percent of hiring managers say open source hiring will increase more than any other part of their business over the next six months, and 79 percent of hiring managers have increased incentives to hold on to their current open source professionals.

This is the fifth year Dice®, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, and The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, are partnering to produce the jobs report. The four previous years’ research focused exclusively on the job market for Linux professionals. As open source software has become an ever increasing footprint in technology infrastructure and end products, it is important to understand the opportunities and challenges associated with the overall open source talent market. As a result, the organizations are expanding the report this year to examine the broader job market for open source professionals. While this means comparisons to past years’ results are not exact, the data is more broadly relevant to a larger pool of professionals and hiring managers.

The 2016 Open Source Jobs Survey and Report provides an overview of the trends for open source careers, motivation for professionals in the industry and how employers attract and retain qualified talent.

Key findings from the 2016 Open Source Jobs Survey and Report include:

• Open source talent is one of the top priorities for recruitment this year. Fifty-nine percent of hiring managers say they’ll add more open source professionals to their ranks in the next six months. This is an increase when compared tolast year’s Linux-specific jobs report, which found 50 percent planning to add Linux talent during the same time period.

• DevOps is among the most sought after skills in the industry. Fifty-eight percent of hiring managers are seeking DevOps professionals while the need for developers remains the top position on their list at 74 percent. Open source professionals also feed this trend as 13 percent of the surveyed identified DevOps as the most in-demand skill today – more than any other category.

• Networking is a leading emergent technology. As the second most in-demand knowledge area, 21 percent of hiring managers say networking has the biggest impact on open source hiring. The only higher category, at 51 percent of surveyed hiring managers, is knowledge of OpenStack, CloudStack and related cloud technologies.

• Open source professionals are driven to innovate and collaborate. Only two percent of professionals stated that money and perks were the best thing about their jobs. Working on interesting projects tops the list with 31 percent, while working on the most cutting-edge technology challenges (18%) and collaborating with a global community (17%) are also high on open source professionals’ lists.

“Demand for open source talent is growing and companies struggle to find experienced professionals to fill open roles,” said Bob Melk, President of Dice. “Rising salaries for open source professionals indicate companies recognize the need to attract, recruit and retain qualified open source professionals on a global scale.”

“It’s a seller’s market and it’s only going to get more beneficial for open source professionals,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director at the Linux Foundation. “As more and more open source projects are developed, open source professionals will need to update their skillsets with knowledge and experience including DevOps and networking. Ongoing training and certifications will be the key to growing their expertise and keeping a competitive edge.”

The annual report features data from more than 400 hiring managers at corporations, small and medium businesses (SMBs), government organizations, and staffing agencies across the globe—as well as responses from more than 4,500 open source professionals worldwide.

The full 2016 Open Source Jobs Report is available to download for free.

About Dice

Technology powers companies. Professionals power technology. Dice quickly delivers the opportunities, insights, and connections technology professionals and employers need to move forward. Dice is a proud winner of 2015 Recruitment Service Innovation Awards: Innovator of the Year, Niche Employment Site; Most Innovative Big Data Solution. Learn how to effectively move forward at www.dice.com. Dice is a DHI Group, Inc. service.

To access tech careers, visit Dice and follow us on Facebook, Twitter. To access tech talent solutions, visit Dice and follow us on Facebook, Twitter.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen, and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.