With a growth rate of 9%, twice that of the IT market, the adoption of open source is not losing momentum and is now worth over 5 billion euros in France.
" The increase in the number of open source skills available on the job market will therefore be decisive in the coming years to ensure the continuity of job creation and to support the digital transformation. Yet, open source players are already experiencing difficulties in recruiting and are hampered in their growth by this talent shortage."
The French Observatory for Digital, Engineering, Consulting and Event Professions (OPIIEC) provides an update on the Open Source training and skills in France.
Open source growth risks running into a skills shortage
The OPIIEC relies on thestudy The first part of the study, carried out by Teknowlogy for the CNLL, Syntec Numérique and Systematic, gives an overview of the open source market in France, estimated to be worth more than €5.2 billion in 2019. 93% of activity is generated by services related to open source (maintenance, integration, etc.). 7% of the activity is generated by the development of Open Source software.The sector is growing at a rate of 9%: a dynamic that is expected to continue until 2023 with an average annual growth rate of 8.5%. 60,000 people are currently employed on a full-time equivalent basis in companies specializing in Open Source.
Additional job openings in 2020 were estimated in 2019 at 10,000 to 20,000.
In a second part, the OPIIEC analyzes the training skill needs of service companies and publishers in the "open source" sector, private companies that use open source software, and public organizations, and outlines a series of projections to 2025 (assuming an annual growth rate of around 7% for 2019-22)
At that time, open source could represent 90,900 FTEs.
In addition, between 270,000 and 450,000 IT engineers and technicians would be concerned by the mastery of Open Source skills.
The study then focuses on prioritizing training needs in the various segments of the open source value chain
- Software: " The development of demand for open source software packages is not subject to particular tensions in terms of training and skills".
- Development: " The need for skills is growing in embedded technologies, including IoT. Skills in "containerization" are essential today. The spectrum of artificial intelligence technologies, partly supported by open source software, is a field in which needs are growing strongly. Blockchain is also a growing skill with the development of associated business models.
- Infrastructure: "Open source is already strongly deployed in infrastructure. However, the need for skills and training is increasing. Container technologies are a key factor in the ongoing evolution, along with orchestration. Open source databases are gaining market share against proprietary databases, but are still very little taught in initial training courses. Open Source is an answer to current and future infrastructure cybersecurity issues.
- Development Tools and Product Life Cycle Management: "Training on programming languages is globally adequate. Devops is a key skill for the evolution of software development, including in Open Source. Skills are hard to find and training is insufficient.
The offer of open source trainings lacks visibility
Despite an offer that the OPIIEC characterizes as " abundant and protean in France ", only 5% of IT students receive specific training.- Initial training in the region offers a rich and varied generalist content with long and intermediate courses.
- Some initial training establishments also offer a wide range of continuing education courses: certifications, one-year courses.
- The vast majority of diplomas (BTS, DUT, masters, licenses) are not specialized in Open Source, with a few rare exceptions... The goal is to train flexible students who can work on any kind of software.
- The amount of time devoted to open source software has nevertheless increased in recent years, due to the multitude of open source software used in companies today (data base courses, cloud, specific languages, security).
The OPIIEC discerns three strategies implemented by training institutions and organizations:
- " Thread of water " The Open Source modules are integrated as they come, for the initial training. The new courses: AI (python code), Cloud... lend themselves to the manipulation of Open Source software, in the courses.
- "Opportunism "Opportunity: Initial and continuing education institutions (EPSI, CESI, ETNA, Intech, etc.) have taken advantage of the training reform to develop work-study programs, which are a source of revenue.
- " A double blow " ESN/editors take advantage of their expertise to develop their training offer
"The French training offer needs to be updated and completed
While tensions are noted (data scientists, developers and open source technical consultants) and the need for skills is changing rapidly, "the French training offer needs to be updated and completed," concludes the OPIIEC.The OPIIEC proposes several lines of action to strengthen the use of open source software and expand the training offer: promote the development of open source in France, support the increase in skills of suppliers and customers in this area and provide visibility to learning methods.
Références :
