Fastest-Growing Job Areas Today
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The COVID-19 pandemic brought on massive layoffs and over 60 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance. Social injustice, mass protests and political strife added more fuel to the dumpster fire that was 2020. Many businesses had to adapt to a new normal and figure out how to survive and best serve their customers.
As a result, the demand for certain jobs increased in 2020, and these in-demand jobs are expected to grow in 2021 and provide opportunities to get hired. We ranked them by salary, from smallest to biggest paycheck.
Some jobs require a degree. Others don't. Technology jobs are on the rise, with a trajectory that has been spurred upward due to our increasingly online lives. Big cities still have the most job opportunities, but work within these fields can be found in almost any area, especially if you have an internet connection. Many of these jobs can be done remotely.
Mental Health Specialists
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Top job titles: Behavior therapist, mental health specialist, psychotherapist, mental health technician
Top hiring locations: Boston, San Francisco, New York City
Skills: Play therapy, mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy
Education: 97% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $41,600-$65,000
Note: Data for the rankings is from LinkedIn's Jobs on the Rise report, which identified 15 career trends where demand has spiked in year-over-year growth between 2019 and 2020.
What Mental Health Specialists Do
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Mental health specialists help those with mental disorders and substance abuse issues. Given their field, these specialists need to be skilled in crisis management and know the basics of first aid.
They work in rehab centers, correctional facilities, schools, hospitals, military institutions, outpatient clinics and other health-care facilities.
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on people's jobs, finances and health. Hiring in this field increased by 24 percent in 2020 due to the health crisis.
Frontline E-Commerce Workers
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Top job titles: Driver, supply chain associate, package handler, personal shopper
Top hiring locations: Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C.
Skills: Time management, customer service, leadership
Education: 75% of hires have a bachelor’s degree or higher
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $42,000-$56,000
What Frontline E-Commerce Workers Do
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The pandemic increased the need for gig workers, as people who could afford to shelter in place enlisted shoppers to bring them groceries, takeout and other items. Other roles that saw an uptick in hiring were drivers, package handlers and supply chain associates to keep up with the booming increase in online shopping.
Overall, e-commerce jobs increased by a whopping 73 percent year-over-year. LinkedIn reports that there are over 400,000 open jobs in this field. But pay in this field can vary. Most gig workers have to work long hours and rely on good tippers to make a sustainable wage.
Business Development and Sales Professionals
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Top job titles: Sales consultant, sales operations assistant, inbound sales specialist, strategic adviser
Top hiring locations: New York City, Denver, Atlanta
Skills: Customer retention, sales process, team building
Education: 92% of hires have a bachelor's degree or higher
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $43,300-$105,000
What Business Development and Sales Professionals Do
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Some businesses sought to weather the pandemic by hiring professionals who could manage the bottom line and provide advice on how to navigate turbulent times. Business development professionals were those kind of hires. These workers focused on things like retaining customers and modifying sales, marketing and financial strategies.
Other businesses profited from the pandemic, and, if they didn't lay off workers, many added salespeople to their team.
Overall, LinkedIn found that hiring for business development and sales professionals grew by over 45 percent from 2019 to 2020.
Loan and Mortgage Experts
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Top job titles: Underwriter, mortgage loan officer, escrow officer, loan closer
Top hiring locations: New York City, Dallas, Chicago
Skills: Risk management, customer service, credit analysis
Education: 86% have a bachelor's degree or higher
Possibility for remote work: High
Salary range: $43,700-$60,000
What Loan and Mortgage Experts Do
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Loan and mortgage experts are the people who find and underwrite loans for individuals and businesses.
While millions of Americans have lost or are expected to lose their homes because of the pandemic, there were enough people who kept their jobs and also took advantage of historically low interest rates to buy a new home. There was a frenzy of home buying activity that began in the spring of 2020, which drove up home prices in many areas.
Other loan experts found work in filing Paycheck Protection Program loans and other loans that could help businesses stay afloat. Hiring for these jobs increased almost 59 percent in 2020 from 2019, and about a quarter of job postings in this career indicate that remote working is possible.
Professional and Personal Coaches
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Top job titles: Career coordinator, life coach, fitness coach, business coach
Top hiring locations: New York City, Houston, Boston
Skills: Mentoring, social media, entrepreneurship
Education: 92% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Medium
Salary range: $44,300-$50,000
What Professional and Personal Coaches Do
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Career and personal coaches help others realize their goals in the workforce and in life. Career coordinators work in schools and help students find employment.
With the turmoil that 2020 wrought, many people sought some kind of stability or guidance by enlisting the help of coaches.
Job openings for this role increased by 51 percent in 2020.
Digital Content Creators
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Top job titles: Content coordinator, writing consultant, podcaster, blogger
Top hiring locations: New York City, Chicago, Atlanta
Skills: Creative writing, video editing, public speaking
Education: 92% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: High
Salary range: $46,000-$62,400
What Digital Content Creators Do
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Digital content creators make videos, blogs, podcasts, and other forms of online content.
As people sheltered at home, demand for online entertainment exploded. Businesses sought out new avenues to reach audiences, with podcaster and YouTuber being the most in-demand positions in this category.
Digital content creator jobs increased by 49 percent, and 12.5 percent of job openings are remote.
Education Professionals
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Top job titles: Teaching assistant, elementary school teacher, mathematics tutor, curriculum developer
Top hiring locations: New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C.
Skills: Lesson planning, time management, differentiated instruction
Education: 97% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $46,500-$63,200
What Education Professionals Do
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The pandemic changed how schools and universities had to operate, and demand for primary, secondary, support workers and tutors increased by over 20 percent in 2020.
Computer science instructors were the most in-demand, with openings for that role increasing by 119 percent. Job openings for English and academic tutors, high school teachers, instructional design specialists and social studies teachers all increased.
Digital Marketing Professionals
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Top job titles: Digital marketing specialist, social media manager, marketing representative, search engine optimization specialist
Top hiring locations: New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles
Skills: Product marketing, digital strategy, brand management
Education: 94% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Medium
Salary range: $48,000-$96,000
What Digital Marketers Do
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With everyone sheltering in place and increasing their screen time, businesses capitalized on getting their presence and products in front of more eyeballs by hiring digital marketing professionals.
Social media managers, marketing chairs, growth officers and marketing officers were roles that saw an uptick in postings in this career path. Overall, LinkedIn found that there were 33 percent more job openings for digital marketers in 2020 than in 2019.
It's not uncommon for this job to be done remotely, either.
Health Care Supporting Staff
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A nurse, Ines, prepares a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to a health care worker at a coronavirus vaccine center in Poissy, France, Friday, Jan.8, 2021.Top job titles: Health-care assistant, pharmacy technician, dental assistant, home health aide
Top hiring locations: New York City, Boston, Chicago
Skills: Patient education, data entry, physician relations
Education: 83% of hires have a bachelor’s degree or higher
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $65,300-$106,000
What Health Care Supporting Staffers Do
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It's no surprise that health-care workers were in huge demand because of the pandemic. In addition to doctors and nurses, there was a growing need for all kinds of people who work in hospitals and clinics.
The need for medical screeners absolutely exploded, with demand for that position increasing by 1,562 percent since 2019. However, the median pay for a medical screener is $42,000, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, it's a dangerous position.
Infection control nurse positions increased by 128 percent, while laboratory technicians increased by 98 percent since 2019.
Workplace Diversity Experts
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Top job titles: Diversity manager, diversity officer, head of diversity, diversity coordinator
Top hiring locations: New York City, San Francisco, Chicago
Skills: Community outreach, teaching, organizational development
Education: 99% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $72,000-$97,000
What Diversity Experts Do
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The decade-long year that was 2020 also saw massive protests against police brutality, which was sparked by the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for over eight minutes. As the Black Lives Matter movement grew, so did discussions on race relations both in and out of the workplace.
Workplaces are becoming more sensitive to diversity needs, and some enlisted workplace diversity experts to guide them. These experts help businesses bring in new, diverse voices and also conduct diversity training.
LinkedIn saw an increase of over 90 percent in job openings for this role in 2020.
Nurses
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Top job titles: Registered nurse, certified nursing assistant, nurse practitioner, intensive care nurse
Top hiring locations: New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia
Skills: Patient advocacy, clinical research, time management
Education: 89% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $73,000-$111,000
What Nurses Do
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As hospitals filled with an ever-increasing number of patients struck with COVID-19, hospitals and clinics hired more nurses for help. Additionally, nurses have been increasingly in-demand in long-term care facilities due to an aging population.
Being a nurse is a tough job, especially during the pandemic. Nurses worked grueling hours, sometimes lacked sufficient PPE and suffered high-stress levels in addition to being under constant threat of exposure to the virus.
Intensive care, neonatal and clinical research jobs were the most in-demand roles in the nursing career. Overall, there was a 30 percent increase in demand for nurses in 2020.
Specialized Engineers
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Top job titles: Web developer, full stack engineer, frontend developer, game developer
Top hiring locations: San Francisco, New York City, Washington, D.C.
Skills: Program management, web development, distributed systems
Education: 93% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: High
Salary range: $77,500-$104,000
What Specialized Engineers Do
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Specialized engineers develop and maintain web platforms and software that is vital to business. They also might specialize in game development or information technology. Demand for engineers rose about 25 percent in 2020, largely spurred on by the pandemic and the need for more people to develop and maintain online systems.
This is a job path that can be quite lucrative, and about a quarter of specialized engineering roles have remote positions available. Customer engineers (CEs) saw the biggest growth in demand. Jobs for CEs increased by 106 percent in 2020.
Demand for back-end developers, software engineering specialists and cloud support engineers all increased by 55 percent or more.
User Experience Professionals
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Top job titles: UX designer, product design consultant. user interface designer, UX researcher
Top hiring locations: San Francisco, New York City, Seattle
Skills: Web design, design thinking, UX testing
Education: 97% of hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Medium
Salary range: $80,000-$103,000
What User Experience Professionals Do
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If an app or website is cumbersome to use or annoying to navigate, people won't go to it. That's where user experience (UX) professionals come in. These developers, designers and researchers provide a vital need for businesses by making their consumer-facing tools easy to use.
Demand for UX professionals increased by 20 percent in 2020. UX consulting was the fastest-growing job in that category, with 45 percent more openings in 2020. UX design specialists and interface designers saw demand increases of 36 percent and 26 percent, respectively.
Nearly 27 percent of all UX designer postings allowed for a remote position.
Data Science Specalists
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Top job titles: Data scientist, data science specialist, data management analyst
Top hiring locations: New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.
Skills: TensorFlow, Statistical Modeling, Data Visualization
Education: 98% of all hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Medium
Salary range: $100,000-$130,000
What Data Science Specialists Do
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Data scientists analyze all kinds of data and analyze it for trends, algorithms, predictive models and solutions. Jobs for data scientists can exist in virtually any field, from health care to sales and marketing.
This is a specialized field and pays very well. Demand for data science specialists increased by almost 46 percent in 2020, possibly because businesses need to analyze new types of data due to the pandemic.
The Los Angeles metro and greater Boston areas have the highest demand for data science specialists in the entire country.
AI Practitioners
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Top job titles: Machine learning engineer, artificial intelligence specialist, machine learning researcher
Top hiring locations: San Francisco, New York City, Seattle
Skills: C++, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python
Education: 99% of all hires have at least a bachelor's degree
Possibility for remote work: Low
Salary range: $124,000-$150,000
What AI Practitioners Do
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Artificial intelligence has been a growing field for quite some time. The pandemic boosted business needs for AI workers, who develop AI and machine learning algorithms to solve problems.
Machine learning researcher jobs grew by 43 percent, followed by machine learning engineer and AI specialist roles, which grew by 29 percent and 24 percent, respectively. Overall, demand for this highly paid position increased by 32 percent in 2020.
For those who are looking to polish their resume or brush up on interviewing skills, LinkedIn has some free new hire video courses available to watch.
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