Among the professional positions most sought after by companies are those belonging to the large range of technical IT figures. The search for these professionals, in just a few years, has grown to such an extent that graduates are not enough to cover all the open positions. According to estimates, the number of graduates would be about 100,000 less than those needed to cover the Italian cybersecurity market alone. At the Politecnico, around 400 students graduate with a Laurea Magistrale (equivalent to Master of Science) degree in IT each year and 97% of them already have a stable employment contract within 12 months of graduation, and over 70%, within a month.
But which are the most specialised and hard-to-find positions? The Rector Prof. Donatella Sciuto discusses it in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore: "In the world of cybersecurity, for example, there is a need for positions such as penetration testers, whose job is to try to attack systems to test their resilience. In the field of training there is a national project, the Cyber Challenge, a programme for young people aged 16 to 24, which aims to identify and attract the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, also in collaboration with universities. As the Politecnico di Milano we take part by selecting the best young people to join the national cybersecurity team. And the mHackeroni, Italy's national team of ethical hackers, placed fifth in Las Vegas at the cybersecurity world championships”.
Fundamental at this point is the relationship between universities and businesses, a key relationship for building skills:
"Companies demand ready-made profiles. In the cybersecurity field, it is very difficult to complete classroom and lab training; therefore, we need to structure partnerships with companies to train individuals".
Then there is the issue of the relationship between professions and artificial intelligence, a topic that is increasingly topical and less immediate than one might think. Rector Sciuto states, “the role of a data analyst requires a lot of statistical and IT skills and application expertise. They are in great demand and will continue to be in great demand as they help assess AI and machine learning systems themselves. That is, we need to check that the data is not biased, but, instead, is representative”.
