9 of the Hottest Mobile Development Skills

Mobile development is a hot IT topic, but which specific mobile skills are employers looking for most. We spoke with Dice president Shravan Goli and Mike Newman, president of On The GoWARE, to find out what IT skills businesses are clamoring for when it comes to mobile developers.

This list represents the mobile development skills employers and hiring managers are searching for within Dice’s resume database.

Methodology: Dice looked at keywords within its resume database that hiring managers searched for from January through September 2013 when those queries included the words mobile + Android, iOS, iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian.

The mobile Web experience and responsive design are  driving demand for JavaScript skills. “JavaScript is more browser-level technology, so if you are building mobile Web experiences you can leverage JavaScript,” says Goli.

That said, there are also cross-platform tools such as Titanium that use JavaScript to help developers build their code set once and run it on any platform. The problem with tools like this is that there are often limitations and lags between features updates.

In a recent report from CapGemini, 29 percent of respondents say they lack the specialist expertise to effectively certify mobile applications making this skill one to consider adding to your toolbox.

“This is mostly on the application testing side for mobile experiences,” says Goli.  Mobile has been in high gear for about the last three years and there aren’t a wealth of people who know how to test for quality on mobile platforms, he says. As more businesses jump on the mobile bandwagon companies either have to groom these skills in house or look for people in a very competitive market.