While India struggles with a burgeoning population of educated youth, the rest of the world, especially developed countries, faces a shortage of working-age people, caused largely by lower birth rates and an ageing working population. While the requirement for skilled workers in these markets is increasing in line with economic growth, the availability of skilled people simply isn’t keeping pace. In professions like IT services, medicine, and education, the problems are already beginning to be felt.

A report by AIMA, CII and BCG projects that developed countries will have a shortage of 39 million working population in 2020 while India will have a surplus of 47 million people in working age group.

• India is among the world‘s youngest nations with a median age of 25 years as compared to 43 in Japan and 36 in the US.
• 13 million people enter India‘s urban work force each year.
• Total employment in India to reach 516 million by 2015-16

The National Academy of Engineers has identified the following attributes for engineers to be successful:

• Strong analytical skills.
• Practical ingenuity - skill in planning, combining, and adapting.
• Creativity (invention, innovation, thinking outside the box, art).
• Communication.
• Business and management.
• Leadership.
• High ethical standards and professionalism.
• Dynamism, agility, resilience, and flexibility.
• Lifelong learners.

As per survey conducted by Computerworld, following are Top 11 skills that professionals must have for success in IT Career:

• Programming and Application Development
• Project Management
• Help Desk/Technical Support
• Networking
• Security
• Data Center
• Web 2.0
• Telecommunications
• Business Intelligence
• Collaboration Architecture
• Business Acumen and Communication Skills