The Gap between Higher Education and the Software Industry -- A Case Study on Technology Differences

TL;DR

This study analyzes the technology gap between higher education curricula and industry demands in the software sector, highlighting increasing industry focus on cloud and automation technologies not yet reflected in education.

Contribution

It introduces the JMAR text-analysis tool and provides a trend analysis of technology demands in Swedish job posts versus educational syllabi over six years.

Findings

Demand for cloud and automation tech is rising in job ads.

Higher education syllabi emphasize concepts over specific technologies.

There is a noticeable language and content mismatch between education and industry requirements.

Abstract

We see an explosive global labour demand in the Software Industry, and higher education institutions play a crucial role in supplying the industry with professionals with relevant education. Existing literature identifies a gap between what software engineering education teaches students and what the software industry demands. Using our open-sourced Job Market AnalyseR (JMAR) text-analysis tool, we compared keywords from higher education course syllabi and job posts to investigate the knowledge gap from a technology-focused departure point. We present a trend analysis of technology in job posts over the past six years in Sweden. We found that demand for cloud and automation technology such as Kubernetes and Docker is rising in job ads but not that much in higher education syllabi. The language used in higher education syllabi and job ads differs where the former emphasizes concepts and the latter technologies more heavily. We discuss possible remedies to bridge this mismatch to draw further conclusions in future work, including calibrating JMAR to other industry-relevant aspects, including soft skills, software concepts, or new demographics.