The Fastest-Growing Jobs Around the World in 2023
That’s what we learned from our Jobs on the Rise reports, which launched today. In these reports, we examine LinkedIn data from 28 countries to calculate the job titles experiencing the highest growth rates from January 1, 2018, to July 31, 2022, in countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Overall, we found that technology continues to be the fastest-growing field, which is consistent with trends from before the pandemic. Every one of the countries we looked at included tech among their top 10 fastest-growing roles. Core business functions — including customer success, sales development, and business development — also continued to see growth across the globe. And there’s still an increased demand, particularly in Europe, for jobs in sustainability.
A mixed picture: Amid tech layoffs, engineers are still in high demand
The news in the tech world has been a bit grim lately. Over the past year, nearly 1,000 tech companies around the world laid off more than 150,000 tech workers. But because of trends that accelerated during the pandemic — workers going remote, companies turning to e-commerce to survive, and organizations needing to be more digitally agile — engineering is the fastest-growing field in the world.
That includes everything from site reliability engineers to cloud engineers to AI and machine learning engineers. The No. 1 spot, though, goes to data engineer. Twenty-four of 28 countries listed this role among its fastest-growing careers, and in Switzerland, it was at the top of the list. Meanwhile, 16 countries also listed site reliability engineers among their fastest-growing jobs.
Unfortunately, there continues to be considerable gender inequity in the engineering world. Our data shows that in Switzerland, 17% of the data engineers hired in 2022 were women. The same goes for site reliability engineers; only 6% were women. Colombia showed similar numbers; among its back-end developers currently in the workforce, 7% were women and 93% men. In Italy, the numbers are more encouraging; 33% of its solutions engineers currently working were women. But overall, there’s a huge opportunity for recruiters to create more gender parity in the engineering world.
A kind of optimism prevails: Companies stay poised for growth
Despite rising interest rates across the world and predictions by the World Bank that we’re at risk of a global recession in 2023, companies continue to signal that they’re poised for growth.
Twenty of the 28 countries counted sales development representatives among their fastest-growing jobs, while 13 listed business development representatives. And in five countries, including Singapore and Italy, sales development held the No. 1 spot.
Meanwhile, in seven countries — including Turkey, the Netherlands, and India — growth marketing managers or growth managers were among the hottest careers. Growth marketing managers are the folks who are responsible for all the functions that improve business revenue. This can include everything from acquiring new customers and turning them into regulars to finding new ways to re-engage former clients.
Growth is so important right now that the role of growth marketing manager was the No. 1 fastest-growing job in Canada and France. And three countries — India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom — listed the head of growth or chief growth officer among its top 10. In the United States, head of revenue operations (definitely a growth role) tops the list. Growth manager or growth specialist also made the list in a number of countries. All of these roles share a responsibility for driving efficiency and profitability.
Companies are also doing everything they can to keep the customers they have. Twenty-five of the 28 countries listed customer success associate, specialist, or manager as among the fastest-growing careers.
The cost of doing business digitally: Cybersecurity is hotter than ever
Unfortunately, one of the downsides of the digital economy is that companies are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks. During the third quarter of 2022, 15 million records were exposed to data breaches, a 37% jump from the previous quarter, according to research from Statista.
“It’s confirmation that cybersecurity needs to be front and center if you’re a large enterprise — especially if you’re a public business where you’ve got a bigger responsibility to shareholders,” Jim Dolce, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Lookout, recently told Fortune magazine.
Our Jobs on the Rise reports found that cybersecurity roles — including cybersecurity specialists, engineers, managers, and analysts — were among the fastest-growing jobs in 17 countries. They’re so crucial now that three countries — Singapore, Brazil, and Chile — listed two separate cybersecurity roles among their top 10. That means, in these three countries, digital security accounted for 20% of their 10 fastest-growing careers.
Meanwhile, on the subject of crime: The role of anti-money laundering specialist is also on the rise. It’s among the fastest-growing roles in five countries and tops the list in Sweden. Anti-money laundering specialists are the people who oversee the activity of a financial institution to catch any suspicious activity and make sure there are no violations of regulatory requirements.
So, the overall message is: Security matters and crime doesn’t pay (but if you can help prevent it, you’re more employable than ever).
The planet still takes precedence: Sustainability roles are holding strong
As companies focus on meeting low-carbon goals and finding innovative solutions to address climate change, sustainability roles continue to be among the fastest-growing jobs around the world.
That’s especially true in Europe, where seven of the nine countries we examined included sustainability jobs among their fastest-growing careers. But other regions have also placed a big emphasis on protecting the planet. In Saudi Arabia, environmental manager was the No. 1 most rapidly growing job. In Canada, sustainability manager ranked fifth.
These numbers are in line with LinkedIn’s Global Green Skills Report 2022, which found that the portion of “green talent” in the global workforce rose from 9.6% in 2015 to 13.3% in 2022 — a 38.5% growth rate. Overall, jobs requiring green skills have grown by 8% annually over the past five years.