Top 5 tech skills to master in 2021

Looking for an IT job in 2021? Want to make sure you stay up to speed in the job you have? It’s good to know which skills will give you the best chance at landing or keeping that position you want.

TechRepublic’s Veronica Combs talked to online course providers, tech experts, and chief people officers to find out what skills will be most in demand. Here are five tech skills to master in 2021.

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1. Cybersecurity. There is no shortage of threats out there. Companies need to build in security at the start of cloud projects. If you can do DevOps and security, you’ll likely be more valuable. 
2. Automation. It’s just one of the AI-related skills that will be in demand specifically. Vice president of learning at UiPath, Tom Clancy says 70% of surveyed C-level executives require employees to have automation skills.  
3. Natural language processing. Voice is moving into more and more projects so speech recognition skills will be more and more valuable. Tools that can create to-dos from a meeting or make voice conversations searchable are just some examples. Don’t be afraid of big datasets and complex problems.
4. Operational machine learning. Data scientists creating machine learning (ML) models is common now. People are needed to cover data operations and DevOps for using the ML in production work.
5. Cloud-native architecture. More companies are building products and services right in the cloud rather than moving there later. Look to develop your skills in cloud foundations and containers. 

These are just some of the top skills that can give you an edge in 2021. If you want the full scoop, read 7 in-demand tech skills to master in 2021 by Veronica Combs.

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