Despite the current economic downturn, a survey of IT jobs in the U.S. and Canada shows growing demand for a variety of service-oriented architecture skills and a growing need for SAP NetWeaver skills.

As companies move from the old SAP ERP systems to SOA-oriented NetWeaver there is a shortage skills that IT departments need, said David Foote, co-founder, CEO and chief research officer for Foote Partners. As a result, several SAP skills have grown between 25% and 30% in value in six months and by as much as 57% in the past 12 months, according to the latest quarterly update of Foote Partners' IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index.

Companies are having to pay a premium for people who have experience working in areas including SAP Web Application Server, production planning, business objects, quality management, strategic enterprise management, product lifecycle management, human capital management (HCM), and master data management (MDM), according to Foote.