Every year there is a new job that will pay considerable amounts of money. In one year it may be a website developer, the next year it will be a mobility expert, it seems to change every year. In order to stay ahead of the curve, you simply need to predict what that next area will be. While everyone else is becoming certified in what was popular last year, you should be getting certified in what will be popular next year. A job market is a simple place controlled by supply and demand. When there is more demand for a job then there is supply, the wage offered will be high. So what is the next area and how can you prepare?
The answers lie in the data, in more ways than one. If you look at the top-paying emerging jobs over the last number of years you will see that things like cloud, social, and mobility once topped these charts but now there is a wealth of supply. At the same time most companies have their cloud and mobile strategies in place, there is not as much demand. If you focused your learning on cloud or mobility a number of years ago you are not struggling to find work now but you are not at the top of the hype cycle either and your job is likely evolving away from those core topics.
Last year the key topic was blockchain. Many companies didn’t fully understand the topic but they knew they wanted to be a part of it. There are some incredible stories of lemonade companies changing their name to blockchain lemonade, just to see an increase in demand. Blockchain put simply is a decentralized ledger system. This means it is a technology that takes count and note of things but stores that count in many places. This means that the count can’t be tampered with because there is a record of every place that blockchain touches. It would be the equivalent of you bringing fake money to a shop and the shop keeper refusing to serve you because there is no history to that $5 note you are trying to use. The potential for blockchain is massive. It can be used to track food and logistics to a degree only imagined in the past, and of course, it could revolutionize currency systems.
However, it is not as transformative as people once thought and the number of industries that the technology applies to is more limited than previously thought. Despite that, there is still a huge demand for any expertise in blockchain technology and there will be for some time.
The most in-demand job this year is in the area of artificial intelligence. AI will bring a true revolution to our approach to computing and will impact every facet of our lives. Make no mistake AI is not a fad and if you want to land a high paying job becoming an expert in AI will see you do very well. Yet AI is a broad topic and you learning how to navigate the topic to get a fantastic position is not easy.
One area that underlines all of these technologies and the technologies that will come in the future is data. If you can master data you can have your pick of jobs and companies for many years. To be a data scientist is to have the most in-demand job in the world. The great news is that to be a data scientist you can learn many skills online to get your foot in the door. That foot in the door will be enough for many companies to take a chance on you and train you further in their data systems internally.
If you have a mathematical mind and an understanding of computers and databases than data science is the field you must choose. Do this and your career will take a trajectory similar to the price of bitcoin in 2017. Unlike bitcoin, it will not fall off a cliff.