There appears to be two main trends that will shape our life in IT this year. The first trend is the view that IT spending is set to increase in 2004. Although this has been predicted for every year since 2001, there does seem to be more consensus that it will happen this year. Of course, we all hope that this is true, but even at my most pessimistic this does at least suggest that things won't get any worse this year.

The second major trend is the continued growth in offshore outsourcing. I'm not sure that this will happen as quickly as some of the industry analysts are predicting, but it is undeniable that this is will happen -- the economics are too difficult to ignore.

Although there has been some disquiet in political circles, I don't think that this alone will be enough to stem the tide. The same pattern is emerging in a broad range of fields: legal, medical, call centers, and film production as well as IT. And of course, in the last 30 years we have seen a similar occurrence in manufacturing.

Although I don't want to appear to say that we as individuals can't make a difference here politically, in this forum I would suggest that we accept this as a given and formulate plans on how we will adapt to these changing circumstances.

I think that there will always be a need for local IT staff; however those most at risk from this reduction in demand for IT staff are those with low skills, low levels of job performance and/or doing repetitive tasks that can be easily documented and done by others. Therefore I would suggest that the key to staying employable in IT now is to have higher skills, higher levels of job performance and/or getting closer to how the technology is used in business (project management, analysis, design and architecture, etc).

Putting these two trends together I admit does give a mixed view of our future. However, I'm still quietly confident about continuing to work in IT as long as I can continue to demonstrate real business benefits from my labors. But I am not kidding myself that I will always have a position in IT no matter what (especially since I probably have another 25 years until retirement!).That's why it's always a good idea for all of us to keep an eye out regularly on the emerging trends and how these may affect our future employability. In my own case, I have already changed careers before (moving from civil engineering into IT), and one day I may want to do the same again, however at the moment I don't see a need for this.

In my certification plans in 2004, I'm already working towards completing the Security+ certification. Last year I updated my major certifications, so at the moment I don't see many other compelling certification options that will be of benefit to me in my career. I expect that much of Security+ content will be old news to me, but I'm also expecting a lot of the material to put some structure around what I already do know and also to force me to look deeper into other areas that will be useful to me in my career.

What are your plans for 2004? Let me know by adding your thoughts below.