cord data on primary skills and requests assessed to determine the most sought-after technology skills for 2022. Taken from the Insights Library on cord.
It’s typical to see a big increase in hiring activity in the opening months of a year. cord have analysed the numbers to determine the tech skills that are most likely to be in high demand in 2022, based on the number of message requests each engineer listing that skill received, on average, from companies looking to hire.
Engineers considering changing jobs in 2022 can use this data to assess the demand for their skillset and/or decide which skills to learn in order to maximise their chances of success.
Terminology
“Primary skills” refer to the skills that engineers identify as part of their primary skillset when they create their profiles on cord. They can select multiple skills.
“Message requests” are messages sent by companies to engineers, regardless of whether or not the engineer accepts that request.
Baseline data
On average, during the six months from which data is drawn, engineers received the following number of message requests on average:
All functions: 2.92
Development: 3.57
Infrastructure: 4.23
Top 5
The most obvious link between the top 5 Development skills is that they all form part of the Javascript ecosystem, in broad terms.
Redux. Topped the list of in-demand Development skills. Only 104 engineers listed Redux as a skill, but between them they received 1,712 requests, meaning engineers skilled with Redux received 16.46 messages each on average — 4.6x the number the average developer received, and 5.6x the number the average engineer on cord received.
Typescript. 565 Typescript Developers received 8,959 messages between them, an average of 15.86 messages per engineer. This is 4.4x the average number of requests received by the average Software Developer.
React Native. React Native Developers are also in relatively short supply, with just 102 engineers listing it as a primary skill during the period in question. They received an average of 15.24 messages each — 4.3x the average Software Developer received.
Node.js. Node.js Developers numbered 589 during the six months in question and received 8,572 message requests, averaging 14.55 each.
React. React is one of the most popular skills on cord with 1,059 engineers listing it as a primary skill during the five months in question. Demand, however, outstrips supply, with the average React Developer receiving 14.07 message requests — 3.9x that of the average Software Developer.
Notable mentions
Outside the Javascript ecosystem, Go, Kotlin, Scala and Python appear to be the most sought-after languages, although the high scores for Spring and Spring Boot suggests that Java Developers armed with the right toolkit are also in demand (Java came 22nd on the list, with 8.05 messages per engineer).
High scores for AWS and Microservices suggests that Back End Developers are well-advised to hone and showcase their infrastructural and architectural know-how if they want to appeal to hiring managers in 2022.
Top 5
Terraform. The 149 engineers who listed Terraform as a primary skill received 1,931 message requests between them, an average of 12.96 each. This is 3.1x the number of messages the average infrastructure engineer received, and 4.4x the average engineer on cord received.
AWS. Understandably, AWS is even more in-demand among infrastructure engineers than it is among software developers. 355 infrastructure engineers listing AWS as a primary skill received 4,351 message requests — 12.26 each, or 2.9x the infrastructure average.
Kubernetes. 119 Infrastructure engineers with Kubernetes as a primary skill received an average of 11.42 message requests each, 2.7x the infrastructure average.
GCP. With only 41 infrastructure engineers listing Google Cloud Platform as a primary skill, it is one of the most in-demand technologies on cord. Practitioners were approached more than ten times each on average.
Docker. 60 infrastructure engineers listing Docker as a primary skill shared 598 message requests, giving them 2.4x the number of message requests as the average infrastructure engineer.
Notable mentions
As far as programming languages go, Python, Java, Javascript, C# and C++ appear to be the most useful for infrastructure engineers to know in terms of attracting interest from hiring companies.
Cyber security edged its way into the top 20, but is significantly behind C#, SQL and C++ in terms of the number of messages per engineer — in fact, Cyber Security ranks below the average across all skills on cord for the number of messages received per engineer.
Key Insights
- Most in-demand Development skills are mostly Javascript-related, with Redux topping the list
- Terraform is the most in-demand infrastructure skill
- Cyber security professionals received, on average, fewer message requests than the average engineer on cord
- Link to Insights article
Data Disclaimer
Development data is based on 13,387 Software Engineers who joined cord in the 6 months to 14th December 2021. Infrastructure data is based on 2,419 Infrastructure Engineers who joined cord in the 6 months to 14th December 2021.
