LinkedIn has become a great source of information for job seekers. The 2021 In Demand Jobs List* showcases jobs that are show great hiring potential if you have the skills and experience. In demand jobs mean companies need workers, NOW as seen by the number of openings for each.
If you are following Nerd Zest rules for jobs, you are looking for a high salary in a growing industry. Below are the 5 jobs on this list that you should know about and possibly look into if they fit your skill set and education level.
*If you would like to see the report for yourself, log into LinkedIn to see the list.
#3 Health Care Support Staff
- Salary Range: $65-$106K
- Education: 83% Bachelor
- Remote: Low
The health care system is growing and due to the great pandemic of 2020, became a little more visible. The jobs include assistants, aides, and technicians that cover many variety of roles in healthcare systems. The salary range is good and you can be hired in at or above $80K if you have the skills, education, and experience.
The two negatives to mention is the high education needed and the low remote working. This makes sense because this is not a low skill job and requires you to be in the location to perform the work.
#7 Nurses
- Salary Range: $73-$111K
- Education: 89% Bachelor
- Remote: Low
Another great occupation in the healthcare, nurses. These are the unsung heroes of the healthcare universe that deserve all the respect. These people are on the front line and are critical to a well functioning healthcare system.
Again you will see that high salary means high education and high skill. Nurses are highly educated and highly trained in order to perform at a high level. I don’t know about you, but I would not want a low skilled nurse anywhere around me when I need medical attention.
Again remote work is low. If you haven’t noticed all the new hospitals being built over the last 5-10 years, then you have missed the trend for an increase in investment in the healthcare system.
#11 Specialized Engineers (Web Dev)
- Salary Range: $77-$104K
- Education: 93% Bachelor
- Remote: High
These jobs are for the internet gurus that keep the innovation on the web going. Web dev, full stack, front end dev, and game dev are all part of this category. With specialized engineering comes specialized education. These people have to have at least a bachelor because these skills are very tied to computer programming, network computing, and distributed systems.
With the pandemic forcing many companies to rethink office space, this category has a high remote work option. With roughly 69,000 job openings, this looks good for anyone who has experience in web programming.
#13 User Experience Professionals
- Salary Range: $80-$103K
- Education: 97% Bachelor
- Remote: Medium
The User Experience Professional, in my opinion, is fairly new. The reason is because with so much technology being developed and so many people using things like apps, web sites, and technology for day to day life, the engineers that develop and build these things needed help with the end users. Being a recovering software engineer, I saw my fair share of terrible user interface designs and applications over the years. So it made sense to get the super smart engineer some help from regular people who would be using their creations.
Hence the UX Professionals. The role of a UX pro is to understand human behavior and how humans will interact with your piece of technology. Have you ever used an app that was so badly designed that you just deleted it? They had no UX pros.
Again, high salary and specialized education is needed here. I actually hold a professional certificate from Stanford University in Design and Innovation. This was probably the best training I ever received while working for a tech company.
With only around 10,000 job openings, you can see why it’s fairly new. Only the companies that can afford to spend extra on UX features have the jobs.
#14 Data Science Specialists
- Salary Range: $100-$130K
- Education: 98% Bachelor
- Remote: Medium
Data science is not new. Mathematicians, data experts, and number crunchers have been around forever. What IS new, is how much data there is to collect, how it is collected, stored, processed, analyzed, and used. The internet has broken this field wide open and companies need these people to help make them money. Technology also has advanced to allow for systems of collection, storage, and analysis with specialized databases, modeling, and visualization.
Another high salary and high education category. (You see a theme here?) 60,000 job openings is pretty high as well.
#15 Artificial Intelligence
- Salary Range: $124-$150K
- Education: 99% Bachelor
- Remote: Low
Artificial Intelligence work is not new either but companies are finding ways to use AI in their day to day operations. Machine Learning or Deep Learning are the more common phrases you will see with these types of jobs. Basically you are writing software to make decisions based on vast data stores with many (many, many, many) data points.
The high salary is due to the high demand companies are placing on these roles and the limited amount of professionals within the field. (Basic supply and demand curve at work here). The education level is also a barrier of entry. Earning a degree in AI is not a cake walk. The base education is computer science and then specialized classes are piled on top of the foundation.
There are over 61,000 job openings on LinkedIn. The demand is there if you have the right background and skill set.
In Demand Jobs Require In Demand Skills
This data from LinkedIn reinforces my earlier post about finding a job that pays 80K or higher. The jobs with the highest salary are in healthcare and technology. The downside is the high barrier of entry due to the education and skills required to even posses the minimum requirements to get an interview. Acquiring these skills and education is a multi year effort, so plan accordingly if you want to land one of these positions.
Companies are hiring, these jobs exist, and you can be working in one if you have the desire, skills, and education. But if you don’t have the skills and education, don’t worry, there are ways to get them, you just have to go and find out how.
About the Author: The Nerd is a hard working family man helping put things into space, working on this blog, and helping his amazing wife raise our children.
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