Software Design with Digitalisation – BSc (Hons)

The revenue generated by mobile apps continues to increase. In 2017, global revenue increased to $77 billion with 268 billion global app downloads. The estimated mobile app revenue was $35 billion in 2014, $45 billion in 2015 and $58 billion in 2016. The number of free apps downloaded in 2017 was 254 billion, up from 57.33 billion in 2012, and mobile development is one of the most actively growing sectors in the industry. Gross annual revenue from mobile apps was projected to exceed $189 billion by 2020.

The “app gap”, in which enterprises can’t meet the internal demand for writing mobile apps, is getting even worse, in large part because of the rapid rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). Recent research gives evidence that enterprise needs for IoT drives demand for mobile app developers. Ireland is not immune to the shortage in mobile app developers. Irelands National Skills Bulletin 2017 identified mobile app development as a key areas in which there was a skills deficit.

“Shortages of the following skills have been identified for software developers: mobile (iOS/Android), database (with Oracle/SQL), web, cloud; with skills in Java” – Department of Education and Skills.

The European Commission estimates that Europe could face an 800,000 person ICT skills shortage by 2020. The shortage of talent in ICT is a global problem. This is due to unprecedented growth and innovation in the sector. The greatest need within ICT in Ireland is for professionals with experience as: software engineers and programmers, with programming ability in Java, JavaScript, C#, C, C++, .Net, SQL, Perl, Ruby, and Python. In the last year alone, demand for IT skills grew by 15% and there simply isn’t a sufficient pool of indigenous talent to meet this demand. This skills shortage has become increasingly acute as more and more tech companies expand their operations in Ireland. According to the European Commission there are currently over 4,500 difficult to fill vacancies in the sector, with a particular demand for software developers and programmers, mobile technology application programmers, IT project managers with technical backgrounds.