IT Dominates Top 20 Fastest-Growing Skills
Upwork, the world’s largest freelancing website, revealed the fastest-growing skills being hired for among freelancers (now 35% of the U.S. workforce) in Q4 2016. These 20 skills each experienced more than 100% year-over-year growth with the top 10 experiencing more than 200% year-over-year growth.
IT skills make up 65% of the top 20 skills on this list. Data science is the fastest-growing category on Upwork for the second consecutive quarter.
The top 20 fastest-growing skills in Q4 2016
- Natural language processing
- Swift
- Tableau
- Amazon Marketplace Web Services (MWS)
- Stripe
- Instagram marketing
- MySQL programming
- Unbounce
- Social media management
- AngularJS
- Business consulting
- Machine learning
- Brand strategy
- 3D rendering
- Information security
- R development
- Node.js development
- User experience design
- Bluetooth
- Zendesk customer support
“Freelancers represent the future of not only the U.S. workforce but also of many of the innovations we’re seeing globally,” said Upwork CEO, Stephane Kasriel. “The skills on this list are a snapshot of new and emerging technologies that will shape our world and create more job opportunities. As society becomes more and more specialized, businesses will rely on freelancers with the most current skills. Take natural language processing, for example — hiring freelancers allows businesses access to sharply-honed skills that simply aren’t available elsewhere.”
