David Foote’s reputation as a pioneer in IT workforce benchmark research and a keen predictive trends analyst began at Gartner and continued at META Group, where he founded and directed the firm’s CIO service and Human Capital Management and IT Compensation research practices.

He has for the past 12 years led a team of senior analysts and consultants at Foote Partners, whose proprietary benchmarking research (1,960 public/private sector research partners) and advisory services aimed at managing IT's impact on businesses and customers are used regularly by more than 1,400 private and public sector employers.

A popular featured opinion columnist, Web/podcaster, and frequent contributor to dozens of online, print and televised media sources, Foote’s research-backed analysis and predictions on IT market behavior and workforce trends reach a weekly global audience of business and technology professionals. The firm’s IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index™ is the oldest and most comprehensive continuously updated survey of pay and market demand, currently including 382 IT skills, including architecture.

Presentation

Current State of Architecture Pay, Skills Demand, and Careers

Two diverging opinions seem to dominate the discussion about the value of enterprise architects in an economic recession. One holds that EA’s are ill suited to emergency situations where cost-cutting, quick fixes, and evaluating project investments using return on investment hurdles are primary directives. Still another opinion argues that continued investment in architecture skills—whether they are enterprise, systems, networks, applications, data, information, infrastructure, security, solutions, or whatever---is critical during chaotic cycles, driven by increased integration and strategic restructuring activity and need for agility. And perhaps most importantly, such investments help ensure that the enterprise will make it to the other side of the recession undiminished and well positioned to capitalize on growth opportunities.

This session will examine these positions and the current state of the architecture profession, drawing from Foote Partners rigorous proprietary trends research involving more than 1,900 US and Canadian employers, plus salary and skills/certifications pay benchmark surveys covering 87,000 IT professionals.

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