LinkedIn has recently released its 2020 report on emerging jobs, detailing the fastest-growing jobs around the world and the implications to the global workforce. The analysis was based on the profiles of LinkedIn members who have been employed full time in the past five years. Here we focus on the implication to the UK.
General trends
- While overall the tech sector dominates, with 33% of emerging jobs being in the IT industry, some emerging jobs focus on human interaction.
- In terms of location, London dominates with 44% of emerging jobs being based there, though emerging jobs in cities such as Nottingham, Cardiff and Belfast are growing rapidly.
- The gender divide remains; 65% of these emerging roles are held by males.
Emerging jobs
AI dominates the fast-growing tech sector and, according to McKinsey research, by 2030, it is likely to boost the UK economy by 22 per cent. ‘Artificial Intelligence Specialist’ is the fastest emerging job. Data protection has also become increasingly important, with data protection specialists being highly sought after. Over the last four years, the number of ‘Data Protection Officers’ has increased by a factor of 24. In terms of emerging jobs that call for skills in human interaction, ‘Sales Development Representative’ and ‘Customer Success Specialist’ feature strongly. Here are the top 15 emerging jobs in the UK.
- Artificial Intelligence Specialist – this includes titles such as ‘Artificial Intelligence Researcher’ and ‘Machine Learning Specialist’ with sought after skills being machine learning, deep learning and Python.
- Data Protection Officer – the primary role is to ensure compliance with new data protection regulations.
- Robotics Engineer – while this embraces traditional robotics engineering a growing trend is a focus on code, with UiPath being an essential requirement.
- Site Reliability Engineer – this includes multiple sectors, including financial services and broadcast media.
- Customer Success Specialist – since 2015, the number of customer success specialists have increased by an order of magnitude. Essential skills include both technical and customer relations.
- User Researcher – with the primary roles of knowing customers and delivering user experiences, their value to business and impact on sales and gross margin is enormous and increasingly recognised.
- Data Scientist – the need for data scientists is increasing across multiple sectors, including financial services, marketing, and IT.
- Sales Development Representative – while the role is mainly traditional, refocusing sales from product to solutions led is boosting demand for candidates.
- Cloud Engineer – the demand for cloud specialists continues and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future.
- Cyber Security Specialist – this emerging role reflects increasing concerns over data breaches and threats.
- Platform Engineer – in many ways, this is a similar role to Site Reliability Engineer.
- Full Stack Engineer – critical skills are AngularJS, Git, JavaScript, Node.js, and React.js.
- Enterprise Account Executive – primary roles, sales planning, customer relationships, and market coordination.
- DevOps Engineer – this is a crucial role in coordinating IT and business requirements.
- Content Designer – this skill set is in demand across multiple sectors, where effective communication is vital.
It is important to emphasise that the LinkedIn study on emerging jobs is based on growth over the last five years; they are not necessarily the best jobs in the long term. The job market is constantly evolving, affected by the economy and many other factors. However, this snapshot should provide a useful guide for both recruiters and candidates.
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