As jobs in data science and digitalization skyrocket, the demand for soft-skills to balance the hard knowledge is ramping up.
As the largest professional network in the world, LinkedIn has analyzed career trends in 2019 and produced its Emerging Jobs Report for next year. The annual study looks into the fastest-growing job opportunities in the various markets, reveals the skills associated with the jobs, and indicate what the trends portend for the near future.
For Singapore, the top emerging jobs are:
- AI specialist
- Robotics engineer
- Full stack engineer
- Backend developer
- Data scientist
- DevOps engineer
- Data engineer
- Cybersecurity specialist
- Community specialist
- Partnerships specialist
- Clinical specialist
- E-commerce specialist
- Customer success specialist
- Product owner
- Creative copywriter
As an aspiring Smart Nation, the country’s hot emerging jobs are reflected in AI and Robotics. Roles such as Community specialist and Customer Success specialist indicate that soft skills in customer service are strongly in demand. There is also a trend wherein tech professionals are expected to possess strong soft skills.
For the Australia job market, the top 15 are:
- AI specialist
- Cybersecurity specialist
- Marketing automation specialist
- Robotics engineer (software)
- Site reliability engineer
- Customer success specialist
- Data scientist
- Data engineer
- Growth manager
- Chief Strategy Officer
- Anti Money-Laundering specialist
- Product owner
- Service designer
- Full Stack engineer
- Automation consultant
For the India job market, the top 15 are:
- Blockchain developer
- AI specialist
- Javascript developer
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA) consultant
- Back-end developer
- Growth manager
- Site reliability engineer
- Customer Success specialist
- Full Stack engineer
- Robotics engineer (software)
- Cybersecurity specialist
- Python developer
- Digital Marketing specialist
- Front-end engineer
- Lead Generation specialist
Discerning the salient regional trends
The role of Data Scientist, the top emerging job last year, continues to rank high. In fact, the profiles of data scientists received the most views in LinkedIn. Dr Angshuman Ghosh, Senior Manager, Data Science and Strategy, Grab, had invested hundreds of hours to learn new skills in data science when he saw the career trend. “As technology evolves, one has to continuously learn and upgrade to remain relevant and competitive in the fast-changing field of data science.”
Another professional who benefited from leveraging a strategic LinkedIn presence is Siew Choo Soh, Managing Director for Consumer Banking and Big Data, DBS Bank. “As a professional in this domain, we must do our part to share our skills and encourage others to take up this discipline to broaden the community of available talent that will help drive the next wave of digital transformation through AI.”
Soh was referring to skills in TensorFlow, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Python, RPA, MySQL, MongoDB, Apache Spark, R, AngularJS, Node.js, Reacty.js, Blue Prism, UiPath and Git. A good mix of these skills is needed for the top jobs such as AI specialist, RPA/Robotics/Full Stack engineer, software developers and roles in data science.
These trends stretch across Australia, Singapore and India, and mirror many of the top emerging opportunities in the reports for the USA and UK, with the exception of data protection roles in the latter region.
According to Feon Ang, VP for LinkedIn’s Talent and Learning Solutions, Asia, even as we see the rise in demand for data and technology expertise and continual learning to adapt and evolve skills to stay relevant, the biggest skills gap is ultimately in the soft skills:
“Digitization and automation have opened doors for more jobs that require creativity and interpersonal skills to help make sense of data and technology. We hope that the Emerging Job Report will serve as a useful guide for companies to identify areas that they should be investing in for planning and hiring talents, as well as for reskilling and upskilling existing employees.”
