AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A Cloud Guru (ACG), the leader in modern tech skills development, today released the State of Cloud Learning, a report that sheds light on cloud learning priorities among enterprise teams and individual learners.
“Cloud adoption has become critical to a company’s growth trajectory and durability, making acquiring and retaining cloud-skilled talent a top priority for IT teams,” said Sam Kroonenburg, A Cloud Guru CEO and co-founder. “To ensure our platform best meets current needs, we turned to IT leaders and practitioners to identify the focus areas and prominent challenges associated with ongoing cloud learning in today’s complex environment.”
ACG analyzed more than 3 million hours of its usage data and surveyed 26,000 cloud learners—including IT leaders, engineers and developers—to uncover how the industry is thinking about the most popular cloud learning platforms, the barriers to growth in cloud expertise and the future of cloud skills development. Findings include:
Cloud Expertise Brings Rising Value To Businesses And Employees
It’s clear that cloud expertise, measured via certifications and hands-on expertise, is growing in value for both companies and the individuals who work for them. In fact, over 90% of IT leaders surveyed expect to expand their cloud services in the next one to three years, a testament to the benefits of cloud adoption.
Benefits for Businesses
- 71% of leaders are already seeing cloud adoption speed up their time-to-value for new products and features
- 97% of cloud leaders believe their organization would function more effectively with a uniform shared basis of cloud knowledge
- 94% of employees are more likely to stay long-term with an employer who invests in their career through skills development
Benefits for Individuals
- 52% of individuals say cloud certifications expanded their career opportunities, with more than 80% of those respondents identifying a higher salary as a direct result of cloud certification.
- 82% of hiring managers say cloud certifications make a candidate more attractive
- 87% of hiring managers value cloud expertise over a university degree
The Future Of Skills Development Is Multicloud
Nearly 70% of respondents confirmed their organization is currently utilizing multiple cloud platforms. As cloud adoption continues and IT leaders attempt to build and execute this transition, the demand for cloud professionals is heightened across all three major cloud providers: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
AWS Still Leads The Pack
- AWS expertise was most common among respondents, with more than 80% having trained on it, followed by Azure (35%) and GCP (30%)
- Similarly, more than 70% of administrators identified AWS as the primary cloud platform used within their organization, while Azure and GCP were identified as the primary cloud platform less than 10% of the time
Interest In Azure Is Surging
- In June, Azure training time was up nearly 800% year-over-year, compared to between 50-100% for AWS and Google Cloud
- When asked which cloud providers individuals planned to train on in the future, Azure jumped out to a narrow lead at 54%, followed closely by AWS and GCP
Challenges with Cloud Learning Persist
While only 10% of respondents report low buy-in from leadership as a roadblock to cloud learning, challenges with executing on cloud learning programs remain. Notably, tech teams face a lack of skilled talent and struggle to find the time to uplevel skills.
- Over 80% of cloud leaders identify a lack of internal skills and knowledge as a top barrier to cloud success
- Despite a near-universal expectation of expanding cloud services in the near future, only 56% of cloud leaders report having an actionable plan to upskill their workforce
- Over three-quarters of cloud learning administrators say that the hardest part about guiding employees through cloud training is balancing competing priorities with day-to-day work
- More than 76% of learners identified “finding time to study” as the biggest barrier to expanding their cloud knowledge
That said, a supermajority (70%) of learning administrators identified online training and certification incentives as their most effective strategies for combating this problem and advancing learning throughout the organization.
For IT teams looking to uplevel cloud skills, ACG is offering 15% off its new Business Plus package through the end of September for teams of 25 or more. For more information, visit https://acloudguru.com or click here to download the full State of Cloud Learning report.
About A Cloud Guru
A Cloud Guru (ACG) is driven by a simple mission: to teach the world to cloud. We believe people learn best by doing. That’s why our in-house cloud experts go to ridiculous lengths to design fresh, engaging, and hands-on learning tools that empower both individuals and organizations to stay ahead of the technology curve. As the world’s most comprehensive, hands-on, and effective platform for cloud learning, ACG has enabled more than 2 million learners and 4,000 organizations to achieve a brighter future.
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