Let’s take a look at their findings and see what conclusions we can draw.
In terms of skills, we’re seeing a bigger push for cloud computing, AI engineering, and machine learning analysis. There’s also more focus on employees who have the technical skills to bring a project to life across every stage of the software development lifecycle.
There’s no getting around it—the average salaries and YoY growth of these jobs is stellar. Every job on the list pulls an impressive six figure salary, and most feature great projections for job growth that extend well beyond the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ projections for the workforce overall. This is often true for many up-and-coming tech jobs, but it’s demonstrated well in LinkedIn’s reports.
This list isn’t all about the technical—in fact, when it comes to universal in-demand skills across all jobs, creativity ranks as one of the most desirable traits. This one is a bit problematic, as it’s hard to teach creativity. LinkedIn regularly offers suggestions for boosting your creative potential, so if you’re lacking that creative spark, you might want to check those out.
It’s easy to imagine these technical roles as computer-centric fields where you’ll spend more time looking at your screen than your coworkers—but in truth, people skills are always in demand. Companies want employees who integrate well with their established ecosystem; it doesn’t matter what credentials you have if you bring conflict into every interaction.
One noteworthy omission from LinkedIn’s list was marketing roles. From what we’ve seen in our experience as recruiters, marketing is a promising field with just as much potential as some of these tech industries. With so much growth in computing, data analysis, AI, and software engineering, it naturally follows that marketing roles will pop up to fill these gaps. Think project coordinators, data analysts, acquisition managers, and more.
So, is LinkedIn’s report a good assessment of where the industry is headed in 2019? For the most part. LinkedIn’s data prioritizes emerging tech fields while underemphasizing the coordinators, marketers, and managers that help keep the lights on. Nevertheless, the report takes a positive outlook for tech in 2019, and from what we’ve seen, workers in these industries have every reason to be optimistic.