What’s the Hottest Job in Tech?

What's the hottest job in tech? It depends on how you look at it. If you count job openings, the most in-demand tech professional is the software developer, according to tech recruiting firm Dice. If you're aiming for the fastest-growing tech role, point your arrow at data engineer, the firm's research shows. And if you're zooming in on specific tech skills, SQL is most in demand while Kubernetes is fastest growing.

Dice drew these conclusions by analyzing 6 million 2019 job postings in the United States, using a database provided by Burning Glass Technologies, which aggregated data from employer sites, job boards, and staffing agencies. After filtering for information technology jobs, Dice found that a whopping 12 percent of all tech job listings in 2019 sought software developers, keeping that tech profession in first place. Network engineer came in second, followed by systems engineer.

Top 10 Tech Occupations, 2019

Source: Dice

Demand for data engineer, while not high enough to push that post into 2019's top 20, is growing fast, with postings up 50 percent from the previous year.

As far as specific skills go, the Dice study ranked SQL as most in demand, and Kubernetes, an open-source platform, as fastest growing. Python, the researchers pointed out, is strong, making both charts, with almost 20 percent of software developer job postings listing the language as a desired skill, along with 75 percent of data scientist listings and 64 percent of data engineer listings.

Top 10 Tech Skills, 2019

Source: Dice

The full Dice report is available here.