If you’ve perused LinkedIn, Indeed or ZipRecruiter recently, you know that job skill requirements are changing fast.
In its recent report Shifting Skills, Moving Targets, and Remaking the Workforce, the labor market analytics outfit Lightcast confirms what job seekers have known for years: employers are always looking for candidates with new skills to match an ever-changing market.
Lightcast‘s new Skill Disruption Index tracks how much the skillset desired by employers for various jobs has evolved between 2016 and 2021. Not surprisingly, tech jobs — or jobs that are increasingly reliant on technology — sit atop the list.
Here are five of the top “disrupted’ jobs in the last five years — and the UW Professional & Continuing Education certificate programs and courses that can provide you with the skills you need to land a job today.
1. Data Engineer
Skill Disruption Index: 100
IT is one of the most notoriously changeable job areas, and the job of a data engineer is no exception. Data engineers design, build and maintain the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that delivers data for a variety of uses. This job is the highest on the Skill Disruption Index.
Like other IT jobs, the job of the data engineer has been transformed in recent years by a move toward cloud-based data centers and data-driven automation. According to Lightcast, the most requested new skills for data engineers are Microsoft Power BI and artificial intelligence. At the same time, skills like Ruby and the PERL scripting language have fallen out of favor since 2016.
Want to keep your data engineering skills fresh? Check out these relevant programs:
2. User-Centered Designer
Skill Disruption Index: 83
User-centered design tells its whole story right there in the name: the most beautiful design in the world means nothing if it’s not in service of the user. So, it’s no surprise that employers are increasingly looking for candidates with user-focused skills like interaction design, user research, design thinking and user-centered design.
Demand for soft skills like communications is also trending up, reflecting the collaborative nature of the UX role. On the technical side, there’s a demand for skills in newer software tools like Figma and InVision. On the wane is expertise in solution design.
Want to build your UX design chops? Check out these relevant programs:
3. Marketing Specialist
Skill Disruption Index: 79
Although technological change may be most evident in the IT field, technology’s impact reaches far beyond so-called tech jobs. Keeping up with the latest technology can set you apart in a field like marketing.
According to Lightcast, demand for skills like social media, digital marketing and content management is rising for marketing specialists, while the need for expertise in the retail industry or sales is waning. Employers are also looking for marketing specialists with an array of technical skills, including Salesforce, Google Analytics and various Adobe products.
Need to give your marketing skills a boost? Check out these relevant programs:
4. Product Manager
Skill Disruption Index: 75
Product managers focus on product strategy to create, distribute and sell a specific product or service, and as products and services change with the times, so must product managers.
Much like UX designers, a product manager’s job is now focusing more on soft skills. Since 2016, there’s been a marked uptick in product manager job postings seeking candidates who have leadership, verbal communication and influencing skills, according to Lightcast.
In addition to soft skills, product management requires testing products and tactics quickly, measuring results and adjusting accordingly — all of which are enhanced by an understanding of data visualization and analysis.
Want to add to your our product management toolkit? Check out these relevant programs:
5. Talent Acquisition/Recruiting Manager
Skill Disruption Index: 71
Human resources professionals, especially those in talent acquisition and recruiting, know better than most how demand for specific skills can rise and fall. As the Lightcast report states, “the skill and job changes in every job function require the attention of HR — even as the HR function itself is being transformed.”
According to Lightcast, some of the transformations afoot in the HR field are greater use of people analytics, new ways of sourcing talent, including on social media, and the need to build leadership skills and employee engagement during the upheaval of the pandemic and post-pandemic.
Along those lines, requested new skills for talent acquisition or recruiting managers are people development, benchmarking and employer branding. On the outs are cold calling and staffing services knowledge.
Want to get started or ahead in HR? Check out these relevant programs:
Stay Ahead of the Skills Curve
One of the constants of the job market is its inconstancy: what employers are seeking is continually changing, and it’s not enough to simply know that fact. You must act on it.
Stay ahead of the curve with UWPCE’s slate of certificates, specializations, courses and degrees that’ll keep your skillset as dynamic as the job market.