10 Digital Skills Guaranteed to get you a Job
Skill acquisition is by far one of the best things you can do for yourself as a young person.
Apart from the fact that it helps to alleviate poverty and reduce the rate of unemployment, acquiring a skill helps anyone, most especially young people to develop problem-solving skills and thinking ability.
As a young person, you can acquire skills such as fashion designing, carpentry, welding, shoemaking, Electrical repairs, and installation, they are so numerous that if I keep talking about them, this blog will probably lose focus.
Well, there are a set of skills that are actually gaining more and more popularity and are creating more and more opportunities for people to work in various ways such as: remotely from home, in big companies, as a consultant or even opportunities tom work outside your country. What skills are those? Digital skills.
The skills of the 21st century.
So today I want to take you on a journey! Yes, a journey that will enlighten you on 10 digital skills that be will definitely land you a job in 2020. But first, let’s answer a few questions:
What are Digital Skills?
Digital Skills are skills that are continuously revolving around technology.
They are not static sets of skills that apply to just an individual in a particular job But they are ever-changing to meet advances in technology and to meet different situations pertaining to technology.
Now let’s stop beating around the bush and go into the business of the day: 10 digital skills guaranteed to get you a job in 2020 and in the future. Follow me:
Mobile Development
Mobile development is 1 out of 10 digital skills guaranteed to get you a job. Did you know that you spend more time on your mobile phone apps than you do on any other activity such as cooking, exercising, or even reading a traditional book?
Perhaps you might be thinking-“oh, I have an android phone but I don’t install applications all I do is watch movies, make phone calls and chat”.
I am still saying the same thing you need applications such as VLC player, MX player, WHATSAPP, and the likes for that to happen. So in view of this little analysis mobile development is definitely a skill guaranteed to get you a job.
You might decide to work with a company that is into app development and app developers are paid so well. Plus this skill is in high demand in almost every tech industry due to need for more and more mobile applications.
Android developers make an average of $97,986 per year according to the glass door while iOS developers make up to $107,829 per year. Although that’s in the US.
In Nigeria, the figures are reasonably less. So mobile development is guaranteed to get you a job.
Machine Learning
Have you ever heard of Artificial Intelligence or AI for short? Maybe you have heard about Jarvis in the Avengers movie.
Many industries are looking to apply AI in their domain in order to incorporate and improve such things as cybersecurity, image recognition, medicine, or face recognition.
Several machine learning companies are on the verge of hiring ML engineers. A sure digital skill guaranteed to get you a job and not just anyhow job but a high paying job. ML engineers or Machine Learning Engineers make an average of $142,000 per year.
How much is that in Naira and kobo? Do the calculation. An experienced ML Engineer can even make up to $195,752 per year. Start somewhere and climb that ladder.
SEO/SEM Marketing
There are many reasons why you should learn SEO because it’s a digital skill guaranteed to get you a job. The SEO industry is very big and it keeps growing cause almost everyone who as a smartphone makes use of a search engine. An SEO Expert makes between $75 to 150$ per hour.
There is a high demand for these professionals. It is a very important part of digital marketing too. Any digital marketing strategy is incomplete without SEO. Even if you run your own business and you have online content SEO is a good digital skill to acquire.
As an SEO expert, you can work as a consultant, as an in house agent-with a company. You can even help bloggers to increase their ranks on search engines.
Data Visualization
Data visualization is the act of taking information (data) and placing it into a visual context, such as a map or graph.
There is no organization or company without data whether big or small. Even a small provision store requires data to be kept and stored to avoid bankruptcy. So all businesses are data-driven.
Simple. No deductions cause that’s the main truth. And that is why many businesses and organizations need those who are skilled in constantly looking at, interpreting, and sharing data within the company or to customers.
According to Glassdoor, they make $95,792 per year.
DataViz, as it is fondly called, is a digital skill guaranteed to get you a job in any organization of your choice.
Content Marketing
Content marketing helps to improve conversions because it allows businesses to connect with and educate their leads and customers.
It also helps the company to build trust and good relationships with its customers who will then be able to make wise purchasing decisions. Great content creates brand awareness and also helps to improve SEO.
So Content Marketing is one digital skill guaranteed to get you a job anywhere. The job also includes assets like blog posts, long-form content, infographics, micrographics, videos, social media content, and lots more.
There is no industry standard for how much you can charge your customers as a content marketer. Some big companies charge upwards of $25,000. Huge right? Or even crazy.
You don’t need al that hassle even as little $100 to $200 for basic audit is ok.
How much you charge depends solely on you. Learning this skill is a sure way to get a job.
UI/UX Design
A UI/UX Designer or developer is responsible for applying interactive and visual design principles on websites, web applications, and mobile applications for positive user experience.
After digital product designer, UX designer comes in as the second most in-demand role for 2019 according to Onward search Digital, Creative and Marketing Professionals Salary Guide.
UI designer comes as number three and user researcher number four on the list. If you learn UI/UX Design you will never be out of jobs to do.
If mobile development is highly demanded, then UI/UX design is also in high demand because there will be no application or software design without UI/UX designer to design the interface for smooth functioning and positive experience for users.
This is definitely a digital skill guaranteed to get you a job.
In Nigeria, the average salary of a UI/UX Designer is 1.28 million naira per year and there are some making up to 2.05 million naira per year.
Cyber Security
When I was talking about Data Visualization earlier, I told you that every business is data-driven right?
For this very reason, competitors or enemies of a particular business or firm will look for ways to steal data from that organization and then use the obtained data for malicious purposes.
That will be disastrous for any firm and that’s why the skills for Cybersecurity experts will forever be in demand in the tech world and will forever be high paying.
Cyber Security experts are even considered by some as the brains or genius of computers as they try to look for loopholes on a computer system and fix those loopholes before attackers can lay their hands on data from an organization.
If you learn this skill, then trust me your job is secured in any industry that is data-driven.
An early career Certified Ethical Hacker earns an average of $79,554 per year and a mid-class an average of $90,944. So cybersecurity is also another digital skill guaranteed to get you a job.
Cloud Computing/AWS
Cloud, Cloud, Cloud. Apple cloud, Google Cloud, and the likes. All these are examples of a job well done by AWS certified engineers. The majority of information stored on the internet are in the cloud.
Your job will be to create apps and services that are powered by and deployed by AWS.
It could also mean that you will have to develop anything from infrastructure and software applications to containers, operating systems, and system management tools.
You will also be expected to test secure, maintain, and support your creations to ensure that they are working at peak performance levels all the time. What kind of salary should you expect as an AWS developer?
If you want to work as a contractor you can make up to $120 per hour. But if you working as an in house agent with a firm you should expect a range of $98,500 to $143,500 per year.
Plus you can develop software for yourself that fetches your passive income while you look for contracts or work in the house.
Cloud Computing is an ever-growing digital skill that is guaranteed to get you a job. Take your time to consider this and learn a skill.
Blockchain
The blockchain industry has seen enormous growth over the past few years as lots of people are now moving away from the traditional way of banking to internet banking.
According to Burning Glass technologies blockchain jobs have increased by 115% in 2017 alone. LinkedIn alone had a job posting of 4541 in 2017 compared to the previous 1037 in 2016.
And in the first quarter of 2018, blockchain-related jobs were the most in-demand on UPWORK’s platform. TechCrunch thus reports that “Blockchain-related jobs are the second fastest-growing in today’s labor market; there are now 14 job openings for every one blockchain developer”.
Now that’s a real deal. So what is your job as a blockchain developer? You are expected to develop and optimize blockchain protocols, craft the architecture of blockchain systems, develop smart contracts and web applications using blockchain technology.
How much should you expect as a blockchain developer? A blockchain developer will earn between $150,000 and $175,000 per year.
Copywriting
Copywriting is an act or occupation of writing the text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing.
The product called copy or sales copy is written content that is aimed at increasing awareness of a particular brand and intended to persuade a person or a group to take a particular for which it was intended.
So copywriters are the ones behind the act of copywriting. They can write creative text like ad jingles, taglines, and other copy that very creative or more research-based copy. Even just a job description on a website can be an example of copywriting.
You can work for yourself writing content for your own business to improve your idea, your products or services, or even make money from just a simple blog, or you can work for another business either based on contracts or full time.
If you love typing and research then this is a less technical job for you to learn and that is guaranteed to get you a job. 80% of copywriters make an average salary of about $35k to $65k per year.
Conclusion
If you are thinking about learning a skill, then digital skills are sure and guaranteed to get you a job and they are guaranteed to always get you new jobs when you lose one. With Digital skills you are guaranteed to always have caught.
If you are willing to keep learning and put in a lot of effort, you can even learn more and more digital skills. That way your digital skills are guaranteed to get you more than one job and get you a higher income.
Asides from the money, digital skills are fun to learn because they keep evolving and you always have new things to learn about. Tell us which digital skill/skills you decided to learn after reading this post.
