I’m happy to announce the roll out of the third LinkedIn Emerging Jobs Report, particularly because — judging by the results — this may be the last year we’ll need a person to write the introduction. Next year, it will probably be produced with artificial intelligence by, say, Robot Louis Stevenson.
This year we’ve scoured LinkedIn to identify the fastest-growing jobs (see Methodology below) in 17 countries across four continents. And, while there are many fascinating and nuanced differences nation to nation, one thing stands out everywhere: Artificial intelligence and robots are no longer on their way. They’ve arrived. In a big way.
AI specialist was the top emerging job in eight countries and was in the top ten in another five. Robotics engineer was among the top emerging jobs in nine countries. What’s driving this? Partly, the race to build the first self-driving car. The biggest demand for AI talent and expertise comes — no surprise — from software and IT services companies.
Not every job on the lists was a purely tech-related role. For example, customer success specialist was one of the three fastest-growing jobs in four countries. It’s a new role steeped in an old function — customer service. Customer success specialists make sure that your clients or customers are getting the most out of your products and services.
Without further ado, below are the three fastest-growing jobs in each of the 17 countries we looked at:
- AI Specialist
- Cyber Security Specialist
- Robotics Engineer
Austria
- Data Scientist
- Digital Marketing Specialist
- Full Stack Engineer
- AI Specialist
- Site Reliability Engineer
- Data Engineer
- Data Protection Officer
- AI Specialist
- Commercial Real Estate Agent
- AI Specialist
- Site Reliability Engineer
- Customer Success Specialist
- Blockchain Developer
- AI Specialist
- Javascript Developer
Ireland
- AI Specialist
- Cyber Security Specialist
- Customer Success Specialist
Italy
- Data Protection Officer
- Salesforce Consultant
- Big Data Developer
- Data Protection Officer
- Growth Hacker
- Privacy Officer
New Zealand
- Cyber Security Specialist
- Data Engineer
- Full Stack Engineer
Saudi Arabia
- Cyber Security Specialist
- Digital Specialist
- Legal Researcher
- AI Specialist
- Robotics Engineer
- Full Stack Engineer
Sweden
- Data Protection Officer
- AI Specialist
- Javascript Developer
Switzerland
- AI Specialist
- Customer Success Specialist
- Cloud Engineer
United Arab Emirates
- Data Scientist
- Full Stack Engineer
- Customer Success Specialist
- AI Specialist
- Data Protection Officer
- Robotics Engineer
- AI Specialist
- Robotics Engineer
- Data Scientist
Here are some key takeaways from the Emerging Jobs Report:
Nontraditional casting. If you’re a recruiter, you’re probably wondering where you’d find AI specialists and customer success specialists. Well, you could start by looking at the people who have already been hired into those roles to see what they did before they landed their current job.
In the United States, for example, the top three previous jobs held by AI specialists are software engineer, data scientist, and research assistant. (Software engineers, already hugely in demand, were the top source of people to fill seven of the 20 fastest-growing roles on the U.S. list.) The top three previous jobs held by customer success specialists were account manager, account executive, and project manager. For anyone who has to find talent for these fast-growing jobs, it may pay dividends to see where other recruiters have gone before you.
Data daze. Companies everywhere are trying to leverage the endless data now available to them. Consider this: In every country but one, data scientist made the list of fastest-growing jobs. Eleven countries also have data engineer on their list while data analyst, data consultant, data specialist, and data entry operator also popped up. Want a big job? How about big data developer, a position that appears on three countries’ top 20.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Related: Here’s How IBM Predicts 95% of Its Turnover Using Data
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Safety in numbers? With the explosion in data, there has also been a sharp increase in concern about protecting it. If your company is hiring people to analyze data, it may also be looking to bring in people who can protect it. Cyber security specialist is one of the fastest-growing jobs in 16 countries and data protection officer is one in six.
Beyond tech. While companies in all 21 of our countries are looking to fill tech roles, those aren’t the only jobs to surface in our global survey. For example, in Saudi Arabia, actor was No. 17, while in Australia, anti-money laundering specialist was No. 11. India has increasing opportunities for video producers (No. 20) and Italy is looking for intensive care nurses (No. 11).
Recruiters, you are on fire. In LinkedIn’s recent The Future of Recruiting Report, we noted that the demand for recruiters has increased 63% in just the last three years. So, at the same time that recruiting is a well-established function and seems like a graybeard amid all the jobs no one hired for even a decade ago, it is also a very hot function. In Austria, for example, recruiter is No. 4 on the list of fastest-growing jobs. In France, Ireland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden, talent acquisition (TA) specialist was a Top 20 emerging job. Maybe that’s a nod to TA moving beyond just recruiting. In France and Italy, information technology recruiter made the list too. So, clearly, recruiters will continue to search for more recruiters.
It just makes sense. Companies know that to find the talent they need — whether it’s a full stack engineer in Australia or a scrum master in Canada, a digital marketing specialist in India or a sales development representative in the United Kingdom — they first need to find talent for their recruiting team.
Methodology
These analyses were based on all LinkedIn members with a public profile who have held a full-time position within the target country during the past five years. After identifying the talent pool in each country, we calculated the share of hiring and compound annual growth rate for each occupation between 2015 and 2019 to establish the roles with the largest rate of growth.
To receive blog posts like this one straight in your inbox, subscribe to the blog newsletter.
Topics: Artificial intelligence Data insights
Related articles