Skills needed in IT churn faster than in any other industry.

I’ve only been working part-time and in a consulting capacity for about a year, and of course doing certifications and learning as I can and such to keep my skills up.

But since I’ve stepped back a bit it gave me more of an opportunity to observe and to realize what would’ve happened if I hadn’t kept up while being out of the regular full-time workforce.

If I hadn’t done the work of studying and learning new things despite not working full-time, about 20-25% of what I used and knew back in 2013 is now completely irrelevant or nearly supplanted by something new.

Seriously, is there any other field where 25% of its necessary (at the time) skills get thrown in the trash bin yearly?

That means in five years in IT with no growth or learning, you are worthless in IT the job market (this jibes with my experience in hiring as well).

In IT, if you aren’t learning something every day you are falling behind. That makes it a tough market in which to stay relevant as sometimes a technology that you spend six months learning might be completely replaced in another six months. (And yep, I’ve seen it happen many times.)