Amid skills gap, the report also finds that 74% of leaders expect their cloud skills development budgets to increase over the next year.

Pluralsight, the technology workforce development company, released its second annual State of Cloud Report, which compiles survey results from more than 1,000 technologists and leaders in the United States, Europe, Australia, and India on the most current trends and challenges in cloud strategy and learning. The study findings reveal a large multicloud skills gap, underscoring how critical cloud skills development is for organizations to ensure the multicloud reward outweighs the risk.

A Hasty Multicloud Gold Rush

In 2023, multicloud strategies are becoming increasingly commonplace, with more than 65% of organizations currently operating within multicloud environments and another 20% saying they’re actively pursuing an additional cloud platform for their cloud environment.

However, in the rush toward multicloud architectures, many organizations are finding themselves underprepared and lacking resources to succeed. Pluralsight’s State of Cloud report found that:

• Only 20% of organizations have defined a cloud security strategy while another 28% are working to build one.
• To compound the problem, only 9% have extensive experience with more than one cloud provider.

There is good news, though – 71% of leaders expect their cloud budgets to increase over the next 12 months and 74% of leaders expect their cloud skills development budgets to increase in parallel.

“Learners are struggling to keep up with such a fast-paced cloud evolution,” said Drew Firment, Chief Cloud Strategist at Pluralsight. “As a result, most organizations still lack the maturity to operationalize multicloud computing, and this year’s research findings make that clear. Organizations should be strategically leveraging cloud skills development if they want to build a culture of cloud and maximize their cloud investments.”

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Looming Skills Gaps: 2022 vs. 2023

Organizations on the path to multicloud need to invest in skills development—but where should they begin? Pluralsight’s report reveals the top in-demand skills and skills gaps across cloud roles in 2023:

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning skills are the most in-demand cloud skills (23%) in 2023, up from 16% in 2023. In last year’s State of Cloud Report, data analytics skills were the most in-demand (33%), but fewer technologists (18%) ranked it as an in-demand skill in 2023.
• The largest cloud skills gaps exist in data, analytics, engineering, and storage (42%), followed by security and governance (37%). In 2022, automation and DevOps were cited as the most glaring skills gaps (30%).

As data and AI-based solutions continue to dominate the tech landscape, it’s increasingly important for cloud practitioners to be fluent in these skill sets. The report makes it clear that these skill areas will continue to be a huge focus in 2023. To bridge these skills gaps, organizations must lean into developing their technology teams so they are equipped to keep pace with the rapidly changing tech landscape

A Case Study in Upskilling Success

VMWare, a leading innovator in enterprise software and Pluralsight customer, is one example of an organization leveraging a robust skills development program to drive multicloud success and, consequently, competitive customer value. In order to deliver the multicloud solutions it is known for and solve customer challenges, it needed a workforce adept in navigating multiple cloud providers.

“With Pluralsight Skills, we can ensure that our teams have the skills needed to get the most out of our multicloud investments, making our teams stronger, more efficient, and more agile than ever before,” said Jessica Thomas, Director Technical Education at VMWare. “Pluralsight Skills helps us achieve our goal to arm our technologists with the skills they need to deliver the best multicloud solutions to market.”

Looking Ahead

Amid economic uncertainty, mass workforce restructuring, and undefined cloud strategies, multicloud comes with a significant amount of risk. But when leaders shift their focus from consuming cloud technology to creating sustainable business value, that risk can be mitigated and even transformed into ROI.

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