MAGIC EYE

Only seeing dinosaurs.

Skills gap reports are a little like Magic Eye paintings, you have to squint when you look at them.

If you try to adapt your curriculum every time a new skills report comes out, you'll end up teaching a software engineering bootcamp for teachers who are also nurses but want to break into climate tech.

So bear that in mind when you read the latest skills gap report. You don’t have to look at the report head on and do everything it advises. You can take a slice that works.

All that to say, the latest skills gap report from Skillsoft has some useful info about certification.

The report says IT professionals — and their employers — still see great value in certification.

Ninety-one percent of respondents hold at least one certificate, and the average IT employee has four. Forty-one percent of those were earned in the last six months, demonstrating a current and robust value perception around certifications.

The most popular non-cyber security certifications are Microsoft, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco and ITIL, and IT Service Management.

The most popular security, governance, compliance, and privacy-related certifications are Microsoft, ISACA, CompTIA, Cisco, and (ISC)2.

A number of hire-train-deploy providers operate in this space, although bootcamps have, to date, largely steered clear.

Sidenote: I hope they still make Magic Eye paintings. Maybe they are just TikTok videos now.

On to the news.

US news

→ Nucamp will add all its online coding bootcamps to Degreed's catalog. The move means students can do an online bootcamp for less than $5k, which seems compelling if the quality of the education is good.

→ Upright Education has announced partnerships with Concordia University and Green Bay Community College to offer access to software development, UX/UI, and tech sales programs.

→ A reader pointed out Interview Kickstart, which is well-positioned to upskill developers with 2-5 years of experience. Bootcamps have typically ignored this area, even though they have a ready pool of alumni willing to upskill. Maybe this will change. Afterall, there are over 100k bootcamp graduates out in the world. 

→ ClearanceJobs, the country's largest professional network for workers with federal security clearance, partnered with tech talent accelerator SkillStorm to address skill gaps in high-demand technology roles. The initiative, ClearanceJobs' first partnership focused on creating economic opportunity, will enable the 1.4 million professionals on its platform to access instructor-led training that leads to credentials from major tech employers, including AWS, Salesforce, CompTIA, and Pega — helping workers with security clearances to both launches and accelerates careers in tech.

→ Continuing the theme of certifications, BlackHat has launched a cybersecurity certification. The program, created in partnership with Cambridge-based IT security firm The SecOps Group, enables participants to prove their knowledge and ability in hands-on penetration testing. Quiet in the back.

→ A followup on the Redmonk piece from last week - an undergraduate course has tested teaching their software engineering course using legacy code.

UK news

→ HyperionDev has expanded it’s UK footprint by announcing a new partnership with Imperial College. HyperionDev runs a similar model to the Trilogy/2U bootcamps, partnering with universities to deliver continuing education. The company already runs bootcamps with Edinburgh, Manchester and Nottingham universities in data science and software engineering. I understand these partnerships can be quite lucrative, universities typically pay 80% of tuition. Although I’m not sure how places like HyperionDev are doing it in the UK, so don’t quote me on that.

→ In a similar vein, King’s College announced a partnership with FourthRev. The pair will launch the King's UX Design Career Accelerator later this year.

→ Also in London, apprenticeship bootcamp Founders & Coders will launch an AI Apprenticeship, aimed at mid-level developers. In the UK, school leavers are the typical demographic for software developer apprenticeships (last year, just over 1,000 apprentices enrolled). The AI apprenticeship, aimed at mid-level employees, is a much larger market. As we've said before, around 80% of enrolments at the big apprenticeship companies (e.g., Multiverse, Corndel, QA) come from mid-level professionals. Smart move by Founders & Coders.

→ Code First Girls announced they have passed 100,000 learners. The company is the UK’s largest provider of free coding education for women and recently expanded to the USA, France, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, and Hungary. In 2022 alone, Code First Girls taught 44,861 women how to code, compared to just 6,450 women who embarked upon undergraduate computing degrees in the UK in 2022. 

→ UserLab, a UX design agency in Newcastle, has won a £125k tender to deliver a UX bootcamp in Newcastle and the north-east. The article describes UserLab as a "leading" user experience design and research services provider. The use of scare quotes is wonderfully passive aggressive. But I get it; every provider calls themselves a "leading" provider. I guess it makes a change from "world-class."