Xpatweb managing director Marisa Jacobs, says some of the most sought after professionals included IT application developers (11%), data analysts (10%), data scientists (9%), software developers (9%) and software engineers (8%). Jacobs says Xpatweb's Critical Skills Survey is now taking place for the fifth year running and there isn't much change in the critical skills shortage list. Furthermore, Jacobs stresses that all countries are seeing a demand in the same critical skills.