The pace at which IT has advanced over recent decades is astounding: global internet traffic increased sixfold between 2010 and 2020.

There is no immediate prospect of this letting up either, with global spending on new IT reaching approximately £5 trillion this year. Investment is particularly notable in industries such as healthcare, finance and manufacturing, where technology is increasingly running operations. This speaks of a continuing trend where we will all need to maintain IT skills.

Younger workers are more confident in IT

Yet, many in their mid- or later careers may feel that they’ve missed the boat or that IT is not relevant. Several studies show that younger workers are both more IT literate and confident. For instance, 58% of Gen Z workers feel confident in their digital skills, compared to just 33% of Baby Boomers (Source: Bridge).

The good news is that learning IT is not as daunting as it once was. User-friendly interfaces to software, plentiful video tutorials, beginner courses and online communities offer technical and moral support.

You can also choose whether you’re interested in learning how to code, extract insights from data, build websites, automate routine tasks, tackle security, or create visually pleasing communication documents. Rather than seeing it as daunting, IT offers a means to reduce the effort of work, improve quality and creativity, and thereby increase your job satisfaction.

For some, it is proving a great option for the change that many pursue in mid- and later careers. Employer research consistently highlights in-demand IT skills in the UK as including cyber-security, analytics and artificial intelligence (e.g. Hays).

So, even if it’s not a new career path you want, benefits of improving your IT skills can include job security and satisfaction, both from the outcome and the learning process. Studies have also pointed to IT skills lifting salary too. Tech Nation found UK digital workers earn £10k more per year than non-digital counterparts.

Artificial intelligence won’t replace us

While there is much talk recently of artificial intelligence replacing human work, that’s not happening for decades (by which time human beings might have invented new types of work!).

However, it’s also the case that it is possible for anyone to now access the new ‘ChatGPT chatbot’ application that is causing a wave on the web. Ask it questions and it provides nuanced, accurate answers that make research, referencing, marketing and writing jobs faster and easier. If you’ve not heard of it, perhaps start here!