Research from recruitment specialists Robert Half Technology has revealed that cloud computing is the most lucrative skill to have in the IT job market today.

Cloud topped the bill in the survey of 100 IT directors and CIOs across the UK, with 39% of respondents citing it as the most important.

Security (37%) and project management skills (33%) were the next popular, with virtualisation (29%) and network administration (27%) rounding out the top five.

Interestingly, coding and development skills were mentioned although not as popular; knowledge of C# was cited by 15% of those polled, compared to 13% who said Java.

This translates into the hiring of staff, according to the research. Nearly half (41%) of IT directors said they would hire specialist staff to support cloud initiatives, although the same number of respondents said they had enough employees for their cloud projects. More than four in five (82%) of those polled said they were in some way undertaking cloud initiatives.

“The fact that so many companies are investing in cloud initiatives as well as training for their teams means that there are rich opportunities and a clear career path for IT professionals with cloud skills,” commented Phil Sheridan, UK managing director at Robert Half Technology.

“With such a high proportion of companies planning to hire additional staff in this area, it’s clearly a good time to focus on cloud skills as well as security around cloud initiatives and across the technology function,” he added.

There has long been the belief of a skills gap in IT, with more jobs than talent who can fill them. It’s a heated debate, with a recent article on CIO by Gary Beach putting the blame at the American education system, making the issue impossible to be a short term fix.

Yet it’s not a straightforward debate. As Jon Reed points out on Diginomica, it’s all well and good research analysts saying millions of cloud jobs are going to be created – but where’s the tangible proof?

For now though, it appears that the best philosophy is to be cautious. Yes, if you’ve got knowledge and expertise in cloud computing as a string on your bow, it’ll give you a competitive advantage; but just hold fire on that flood of new jobs heading your way for now.

What do you make of the research?