The IT job roles most in demand aren’t quite what they were a few months ago. Still, people who position themselves properly can find jobs now, recruiters say. The shape of the IT job market is changing not only because of the pandemic (and the stay-at-home orders that accompanied it), but also because of seismic changes in the economy.

For example, Amy Knox, branch manager for Miami at Robert Half Technology, says the travel and tourism industries her region is heavily dependent on have been devastated – and the companies that plan to survive are having to reorder their priorities.

Any project having to do with infrastructure, security, and the rise of corporate networks is at the top of the list, closely followed by the need for greater automation, Knox says.

“I was speaking with someone at a South Beach (Miami) hotel who told me ‘These priorities were on my five-year plan, but now we’re having to get them done in months,’” Knox says. One example: Priority projects for the hospitality industry include systems to allow guests to check into their rooms and order services with a minimum of human interaction.

Top 10 IT jobs in first quarter 2020

According to the Dice jobs report for the first quarter of 2020, here are the top 10 most in-demand roles, along with year-over-year increases in the number of job postings:

1.  Software developer: 36 percent

2. Network engineer: 17 percent

3. Systems engineer: 8 percent

4. Senior software developer: 23 percent

5. Java developer: 52 percent

6. Software QA engineer: 26 percent

7. IT project manager: 28 percent

8. Application developer: 19 percent

9. Computer support specialist: 27 percent

10. Business analyst: 24 percent

This same survey shows trends in IT job postings and how they changed between February and March, for example, with about a 20 percent surge in demand for cybersecurity engineers but a drop in demand for front end development skills associated with developing and designing websites. Dice sees that reflecting a tendency for more companies to focus on protecting what they have rather than creating dazzling new websites and applications. DevOps engineer postings also rose, by six percent, in the same timeframe.