A report from job site Freelancer highlights an uncharacteristic decline in the number of developer-related careers.
Developer jobs have been growing in demand for decades as most technological advancements require programmers to some extent or another.
To see a decline in developer jobs would be a surprise to many, especially given the emergence of technologies such as the IoT, AI, and cloud computing.
Freelancer’s report highlights a huge drop of over 70 percent in popularity for job titles such as ‘software developer’, ‘app developer’, ‘app designer’, and other similar roles over the past year.
Interestingly, one developer role was immune and bucked the wider trend. Web development jobs grew by 92.3 percent during the year. Related roles such as Django, Express JS, and React.js also witnessed significant growth.
Jobs regarding the web and getting digital content online generally dominated the fastest growing job categories. In the top 25, roles around skills like 2D animation, Illustrator, and After Effects can be found.
Writing, however, was by far the fastest growing category of the year. Over the previous year, it grew by 537.5 percent. Might be time for putting in a pay rise request.
The quarterly report tracks notable movements in the jobs market. With 31 million users around the world, the site has a fair amount of data at its disposal for analysis.
Developers remain in high demand, but Freelance’s report highlights a big drop in the number of jobs being posted. We’ll have to wait for the next report to see if it’s the beginning of a trend.
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