Programming Skills Most In-Demand in the Next 10 Years
What are the chances that your job will be in demand in a couple of years? Although a particular set of programming skills might be highly sought, the near future is vague. The changing fortunes of time force people to acquire new expertise which will be competitive in the employment market. Of course, good programmers are wanted in different industries experiencing digital transformation, as well as web development companies like Railsware. Therefore a Django or Ruby on Rails developer with programming skills has to look ahead not to be late in the field. We are not fortune-tellers but dare to make the following prediction of programming skills that won’t cut you out of the loop in the next decade.
Computer Vision
A future driverless vehicle won’t be achievable without the efforts of computer vision engineers and their programming skills. They deal with building smart systems that are capable of interpreting visual data. The scientific discipline includes a number of applications that computer engineers encounter on a daily basis. For example, there are face-recognition software, image metasearch, numerous virtual reality apps, and so on. The algorithms based on computer vision underlie all of these.
Investments in the businesses where this field of computer science is applicable are huge and expected to reach over $200 billion in 2021. In 10 years, this figure might increase with another null.
Skills required in:
- Python
- C++
- MATLAB
Data Visualization
For instance, Instagram is a perfect evidence that people enjoy perceiving data in a visual form. If we have already begun to communicate with photos or images, why not spread this trend to other areas. Data visualization allows people to see alphanumeric data as images for better insight and response. First, we hasten to say that this field is not limited to making charts of financial reports. The application range is vast including geographic maps, interactive images, infographics, heat maps, etc. Second, visualization of big data is the next level of expertise, which allows turning number-based data into easy-to-understand visual context.
Another example is a company strategy. In order to achieve great results, everyone in the company has to understand it the way CEO understands it. So, the strategy should be clearly communicated to all colleagues. Data visualization is the key here as well.
Experts possessing these programming skills are going to be in good books in the next years due to the growing trend of data visualization in versatile businesses. Imaging of big data gives a pictorial view of the state of things and helps businesses make the right decisions. Data visualizers are much-in-demand in different businesses. They drive real outcomes like predicting sales volumes, defining trends, discovering customer behavior triggers, etc.
Skills required in:
- Python
- R
- Java
- C#
Machine learning
Engineers who know how to architect machine learning algorithms, as well as AI machines, are worth their weight in gold. We know about these technologies from numerous Hollywood movies. Today, we can state that they became part of our lives. The benefits of machine learning are leveraged in banking apps, autonomous vehicles, fintech solutions, recommendation systems, and other tools. The technology keeps finding its usage in every industry where a human interacts with a machine.
From one side, the automation of different tasks is the reason for the massive replacement of thousands of workers by machine learning-based algorithms. On the other side, the demand for artificial intelligence careers will be as high as never due to multi-billion investments.
Skills required in:
- Python
- R
- Java
Data Science
Generally, a data science expert analyzes data and extracts knowledge from it. It is a real mammoth task that requires the knowledge of software engineering, and competencies in statistics and mathematics combined with versatile business-related skills like problem-solving, design thinking, etc. Though data science is interrelated with machine learning, it is a separate field of knowledge. As for the demand, relevant professionals are wanted in a range of industries including finance, healthcare, consultancy, pharmacy, banking, and many others.
Data is king and will remain it in the years to come. If you know how to identify the data-analytics problems, clean, validate, interpret, structure and perform other operations with data using statistics and software engineering, you won’t stay unemployed in the next decade.
Skills required in:
- Python
- Java
- R
- Julia
- SAS
Cybersecurity
The demand for network security analysts is high, and it will raise in the future. Cybersecurity allows for protecting information that organizations store in their networks. Indeed, there were a lot of data breaches in history. The recent one in September 2018 led to the data exposure of almost 90 million Facebook users. Uber and Yahoo are big names, but they could not evade cyber attacks and lost tremendous amounts of money. Network security professionals are ingenious engineers who can analyze potential risks and cope with them if they happen.
Despite the huge market uptake for this type of specialists, the field experiences a significant shortage of talents. The market of cybersecurity is expected to grow more than threefold in the next 10 years.
Skills required in:
- Python
- JavaScript
- C++
- Ruby
- PHP
Network Analyst
This profession is often associated with a bridge between business people and technical employees. Network analysts design, implement and maintain networks in line with business and IT goals. Above all, it requires a combination of technical and programming skills with an understanding of how to tailor-make computer systems for the business. In practice, the scope of responsibilities may include customer accounts restructuring as for their security improvement, installing networks, data collection, and analysis, integrating communication systems in call centers and so on. Network administrators can implement their expertise in various fields including retail, finance, IT, etc.
The need for this sort of professionals is and will be high due to the growing digitalization of industries. Medium-sized and big companies are investing heavily in their networks. Consequently, experts responsible for things related thereto will be definitely in demand in the coming years.
Skills required in:
- C
- C++
- Java
- Perl
- SQL
Mobile App Developer
Indeed, to say that the mobile app market is huge is to say nothing. It is expected to exceed $190 billion by 2020, and in ten years this figure will be even more impressive. This industry is a perfect example where business needs and technical skills come in synergy. In fact, the mobile app market has mostly two camps – Androiders and iPhoners. Likewise, the two giants, Google and Apple, are in constant battle, and the situation is unlikely to alter in the next years. However, the need to have a powerful and cost-effective solution for building cross-platform native apps caused Facebook to invent React Native. This framework has already made a stir in the market for this reason.
At the same time, the future of app development will be reshaped with the burst of progressive web apps, low-code platforms, and other contemporary approaches. With the notion of entertainment apps iPhone and Android still being trendy. Nevertheless, those engineers who managed to adapt to the newest mobile app development tools and changing fortunes of time will flourish.
Skills required in:
- Objective-C
- Swift
- Kotlin
- Java
- JavaScript
Database Developer
Meanwhile, this profession is not as loud as the previous ones. However, the situation seems to change in the next years, when businesses will unfold software products based on AI, as well as the ability to build AI-powered models. All this requires well-maintained databases for efficient operation. Besides, a database is an essential element of architecting data networks. Developers proficient in database related programming skills like operation, maintenance, optimization, and so on, will experience a rising demand very soon.
However, the areas of activities won’t be limited to software production or web development. Database engineers will be highly sought for in any company having a massive internal database like banks, public administrations, industrial facilities, etc. According to the US Department of Labor, the forecasted growth in demand for database developers in 2028 is going to be 11%.
Skills required in:
- C
- C++
- SQL
- Python
- Java
DevOps Engineer
An expert in development operations (DevOps) combines skills in IT operations and software development. This category of employees covers engineers who prefer dealing with deployment and network operations, as well as system administration. So, many companies opt for this sort of professionals to make their projects more effective. Programming skills are an essential point in the CV of any respectful DevOps engineer since a lot of coding is necessary to automate different tasks like processes configuration, app installation, server triggering, etc. Thus, the knowledge of at least one scripting language is a must for a DevOps professional.
The future of these employees will not be dim. A DevOps skill set will continue to be in demand although the name of the occupation may alter in the course of time. Many CEOs and CTOs of small and large companies like CollabNet and Atlassian prophesize wide DevOps adoption in the coming years.
Skills required in:
- Go
- Python
- Scala
- Ruby
- C
Final Points – Programming Skills for Future
That’s our pick, but the range of areas to implement your programming skills is huge. For example, these include cloud computing, data engineering, and many others. At the same time, many software engineers make an emphasis on developing soft skills in addition to expertise in coding. There is an opinion that the future belongs to T-shaped professionals namely those with advanced hard and soft or programming skills. Nevertheless, the demand for IT specialists will grow, so anyone has a chance to expand his or her tech knowledge and increase marketability.