Pluralsight’s top tech skills for 2023

Upskilling is part and parcel with being in tech, but it can be tough to know where to spend your efforts. That's why we've done research into the top tech talents you should might want on your resume in 2023, how you can test your current proficiency in these areas, and what learning resources are available to help you increase your knowledge.

For a more detailed explanation for why these tech skills made our list, keep reading! Take our free Role IQ tests after each section to gauge your current skill level, and see how you match up to other industry professionals.

1. Python
2. Multicloud Proficiency
3. Cybersecurity
4. Kubernetes and Terraform
5. CI/CD and automation
6. Artificial intelligence and machine learning
7. DevOps
8. Data engineering and data science
9. Linux
10. Java

The Chinese Zodiac calendar might say 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit, but in tech, it’s the Year of the Snake. Here’s why you should be proficient in Python:

• In 2022, the demand growth rate for jobs requiring Python went up by 7.9%. 

• Gartner ranked Python as a “Critical Needs Skill” according to research into demand pressure and current job openings.

• In Pluralsight’s recent 2022 meta-analysis of industry trends, Python was the #1 most popular programming language.

• Python is also one of the ten most loved languages by developers, far more than C-based languages, Java, or Swift.

Python is becoming increasingly important due to its use in AI, machine learning, data analytics, data visualization, and web development. Even though it’s a high-level interpreted language, making it comparatively slow to C and C++, it’s easy to for people to learn and understand.

• Data Analyst (Python)

• Python Web Developer

Check out Pluralsight’s Core Python learning path for free, which provides 44 hours of on-demand Python learning across 25 courses, taking you from beginner to expert. If you’re already familiar with Python, you can easily jump ahead to your current level of knowledge.

While 75% of organizations are building new products and features in the cloud by default, only 8% of technologists claim extensive experience with cloud-related tools. That’s not a skills gap — that’s a skills chasm! That’s why if you want to be a unicorn in terms of skills, multicloud proficiency is where it’s at. That’s why we’ve put multicloud proficiency as the second-highest priority for tech experts in 2023.

According to Gartner, more than 80% of organizations use more than one cloud provider (compared to 49% in 2017). With organizations starving for quality talent, becoming proficient in multicloud gives you more job prospects across the board and increases your value to organizations interested in, or already using, multiple clouds. AWS, Azure, and GCP are still the three most popular cloud providers, which means becoming proficient in these gives you the best cross section. 

It’s also worth noting in terms of tech skills, employers in the U.S. ranked hiring people with cloud architecture and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) skills as considerably difficult, according to Gartner research. As a result, jobs requiring cloud architecture or IaaS knowledge boasted some of the highest salaries. 

• Cloud Architect (AWS)

• Developer on AWS

• Database Engineer on AWS

• DevOps Engineer on AWS

• Network Engineer on AWS

• Microsoft Azure Developer

• Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect

• Microsoft Azure Administrator

• Cloud Architect (Google Cloud)

Here are some completely free courses you can take to build multicloud proficiency:

• Cloud Computing Foundations (16 lessons)

• AWS Essentials (88 lessons)

• Introduction to AWS (39 lessons)

• Azure Concepts (12 lessons)

• Google Cloud Concepts (11 lessons)

• Serverless Concepts (18 lessons)

Each of the major cloud providers offer a foundational-level certification designed to teach you the fundamentals of each platform, and give you a solid foundation in cloud computing. Even if you don’t take the exam itself, taking a cloud certification prep course will give you important baseline skills. You can then decide to take more advanced certification courses as needed, such as the associate-level certificates.

We suggest taking the following cert courses by A Cloud Guru, which include hands-on labs that allow you to practically learn your skills in a risk-free, simulated cloud environment:

• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C01)

• AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals

• Google Cloud Digital Leader

If you’re considering more advanced certifications, check out these handy articles which cover what pathway might be best for you.

• Which AWS certification is right for me?

• What’s the best Microsoft Azure certification path for me?

• Which Google Cloud certification is best for me?

We surveyed more than 1,750 leaders and technologists in 2022, who agreed the number one skills gap was cybersecurity. According to the respondents, the most impactful negative consequences of this technical skills gap was cybersecurity risks.

Network security, cloud security, security architecture, and application security were all called out specifically by Gartner as critical technical skills in 2022. IT Security Professionals were the most in-demand for important tech initiatives, according to the ITC 2022 Future Enterprise Resiliency & Spending Survey.

Because of all this, and the increased popularity of cloud computing, we forecast that cybersecurity skills will only become more relevant in 2023 and beyond. 

• Security Analyst

• Microsoft Azure Security Engineer

Learning about cybersecurity can be a bit like drinking from a firehose — there’s a lot to take in, and you’re not going to absorb it all at once. We recommend reading this great article by Kat Seymour, our resident Security Author, which explains what you should expect if you want to join the field. Pluralsight offers a wide range of information and cybersecurity courses which you can check out with a 10-day free trial, as well as dedicated courses on security fundamentals.

Some certifications that may be worth taking to help you brush up on cybersecurity are the Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate (CBROPS 200-201) or CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601).

In 2022, the number of open jobs calling for Kubernetes experience jumped by 11%, according to Gartner research. There was also a big surge of interest in platform-agnostic services like Terraform and Kubernetes on the Pluralsight platform, with viewership of these courses increasing by 100%.

Again, one of the best ways to learn Kubernetes and Terraform is to take a foundational level certification course. Here are two courses offered by A Cloud Guru:

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

• HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) was the most in-demand technical skill in 2022 in terms of job requirements. The number of open jobs asking for people with CI/CD experience surged by 15.4% from 2021, making it the number one “Critical Needs” skill, according to Gartner’s IT Skills Quadrant. However, since CI/CD is specific to app development, we’ve placed it a bit lower down our list.

In terms of developer experience, seven in ten developers report having CI/CD available at their organization in 2022. If you’re a developer, it’s basically a must-have skill.

Automation, a crucial aspect of CI/CD, was listed as the second-most important skill in ITC’s Future of Work Global Survey 2022. It’s also the skill that one quarter of professionals are deficient in, according to Pluralsight’s State of Upskilling 2022 report.

Pluralsight offers a number of courses on CI/CD and automation. The most comprehensive is how-to guide for building a CI/CD pipeline from start to finish: "Implementing a Full CI/CD Pipeline." This course alone includes 58 lessons and 12 hands-on labs.

Anyone who reads the news won’t be surprised to see AI/ML make this list. Stepping outside the mainstream headlines, AI was the second-most in demand skill in 2022 in terms of job requirements, right behind CI/CD, with a 14.3% increase in U.S. job demand. According to Gartner, it had the second-highest hiring difficulty (nine out of ten) and one of the largest market salaries (USD $142,600 or greater). 

This wasn’t just the case in the US, with global organizations ranking AI development and training as their third-most “critical technology and human skill to hire for or develop in the next 18 months”. (IDC) With more businesses looking to automate processes and use AI/ML, being the one knowledgeable in this area is a safe bet for any technologist looking to future-proof their careers.

Despite the high level of job demand, we’ve placed this sixth on our list because we believe many of the higher-ranked skills (E.g. cloud proficiency, Python) lead into AI/ML and also can be used outside of it for many other situations.

• Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence Developer on AWS

• Machine Learning Engineer (PyTorch)

• Machine Learning Engineer (TensorFlow)

• Machine Learning Engineer (Scikit-Learn)

• Microsoft Azure AI Engineer

You may have heard that “DevOps is dead”, but the figures show the exact opposite:

• In StackOverflow’s 2022 Developer Survey, 59.3% of companies reported having a DevOps function.

• DevOps was listed as a “critical needs” skill by Gartner in 2022, with a high number of currently open U.S. jobs requiring DevOps expertise. 

• For the last three years, DevOps has been one of the most searched-for terms on both Pluralsight and A Cloud Guru. 

• DevOps Foundations was the ninth-most popular Skills IQ tested on Pluralsight.

On a personal level, learning about DevOps is good for your career. On an organizational level, it saves time and money, and produces better software. Some people feel there are reasons not to move to DevOps, but we predict it’s only going to become more important in 2023.

• DevOps Engineer on AWS

• Microsoft DevOps Engineer

A Cloud Guru offers a DevOps learning path with a whopping 15 courses and 139 hands-on labs. It’s a one-size-fits all pathway, since you can hop in wherever you’re most comfortable, whether you’re a total novice or looking to take your skills to the next level.

We also strongly recommend checking out the completely free course “DevOps Concepts”. It’s a one hour course broken down into nine easily digestible lessons.

Data Engineering and Data Science are some of the most in-demand job skills according to Gartner’s IT Skills Roadmap 2022. Demand growth for both of these fields increased by over 7% from 2021 to 2022.

If you’re looking to get into data engineering, it’s worth taking the following learning pathways . These paths take you from novice to guru — so feel free to start at your current skill level.

• AWS Data Pathway (18 courses, 87 hands-on labs, 17 practice exams)

• Azure Data Pathway (12 courses, 49 hands-on labs, 8 practice exams)

• GCP Data & ML Pathway (15 courses, 53 hands-on labs, 5 practice exams)

Pluralsight also offers a wide range of more specialized courses for data professionals.

While you can go your entire life without touching a Linux environment, it will limit your options in tech. A large number of web servers (37.6%, according to Web3Techs) use Linux, it’s commonly the core of dev environments, and it’s natively very powerful. Linux was the second-highest IT Ops-tested skill on the Pluralsight platform in 2022.

A Cloud Guru offers some free courses on Linux, listed below:

• Linux Operating System Fundamentals (16 lessons)

• How to Get a Linux Job (14 lessons)

There are also a number of dedicated learning paths you can take, depending on your Linux specialization:

• Linux Red Hat Engineering Pathway (18 courses, 206 hands-on labs, 3 practice exams)

• Linux Red Hat Architecture Pathway (17 courses, 183 hands-on labs, 3 practice exams)

• Linux Security Pathway (13 courses, 82 hands-on labs, 5 practice exams)

• Linux DevOps Pathway (15 courses, 139 hands-on labs, 1 practice exam)

• Linux Containers Pathway (16 courses, 127 hands-on labs, 1 practice exam)

Sitting in tenth on our list of top skills to know for 2023 is Java. Why Java, you ask? Java was the second-most popular language on the Pluralsight platform, and one of our most frequently taken Skill IQs. 

Don’t just take our word for it, though. It ranked #3 in RedMonk’s Programming Language Rankings in 2022, #4 on Tiobe’s list, and #6 on StackOverflow’s list. In terms of job listings, Gartner ranked Java as a “Core Skill” due to a high number of jobs requiring this language, a slight increase in year-on-year demand by 1.8%.

However, Java really stands out as one of the fastest growing and high-volume digital skills by digital demand among S&P 100 companies, according to Gartner, with an average annualized demand growth rate (ADGR) of 163%. 

We ranked Java #2 on our list of the most popular programming languages in 2022. Learning this Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA) language is a solid move in terms of professional development.

• Java Developer

Pluralsight offers a Java Language Fundamentals learning path (52 hours, 26 courses) which you can try for free. It focuses on the fundamentals of the Java languages, giving you a solid foundation, and then takes you into more advanced techniques.

This may be a list of the top ten talents people are looking for, but learning something new is better than not learning anything at all. Not only does it show your dedication to continuous learning --- a soft skill industry leaders are on the search for in 2023 --- it helps you bring new solutions to the table, expands your job options, and stops you from getting into a rut. 

It can be difficult to find the time to learn when you feel busy, even when you've got paid learning time. Carve out the time, keep it sacred, and make learning a new skill every quarter (no matter what it is) one of your resolutions!