The Information Technology Workforce in The AI Era: A Systematic Review of Roles and Skills

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the labor market by reshaping workforce roles and skills. This study focuses on the IT workforce, aiming to systematically identify the roles addressed in the literature and the dimensions of their transformation. Guided by the PRISMA framework, search terms and time intervals were applied to Web of Science and Scopus, yielding non-duplicate 7,959 articles. After filtering for SSCI-indexed journals, 164 articles were reviewed descriptively and 19 analyzed through content analysis. Findings show that software development, data-related, and IT management roles are most affected by AI. Productivity gains emerge as the main positive effect, while negative and transformative impacts differ by role. Inexperienced software workers face displacement risks, data roles encounter heightened technical skill barriers, and IT management may experience reduced transparency. Transformative effects include the reshaping of technical and leadership skills as well as the expansion of ethical and technical responsibilities across IT roles.