Most wanted skills in 2018: Hard skills in marketing and data

As 2018 rolls around, knowing which skills to upgrade and improve on would definitely be on the minds of many. According to a recent report by LinkedIn, hard skills in marketing and data will be needed most by companies in 2018. Meanwhile, soft skills such as communication will also be needed.Jobs related to marketing made several appearances, with SEO/SEM marketing taking the eighth spot, followed by marketing campaign management taking 11th spot which put roles such as online marketing manager, digital marketing specialist, digital marketing manager in the spotlight. Mobile development also took the ninth spot, featuring jobs such as mobile engineer, mobile application developer being in demand.The report also highlighted the demand of some hard skills relating to data management and analysis making several appearances in the ranking, with roles such as data scientists and data analyst being in demand.To determine the hard skills in demand by companies, LinkedIn used data from its over 500 million members and identified the skills companies were “working the hardest to fill”.View the list of hard skills in demand here:1. Cloud and distributed computing - related jobs include platform engineer and cloud architect 2. Statistical analysis and data mining - related jobs include business analyst, data analyst, statistician 3. Middleware and integration software - related jobs include IT manager, systems integration engineer. 4. Web architecture and development framework - related jobs include web developer, full stack web developer 5. User interface design - related jobs include UX designer, web developer, UI designer 6. Software revision control systems - related jobs include web developer, software programmer 7. Data presentation - related jobs include graphic designer, data scientist, business consultant 8. SEO/SEM marketing - related jobs include marketing specialist, online marketing manager, advertising manager 9. Mobile development - related jobs include mobile engineer, mobile application developer 10. Network and information security - related jobs include information security specialist and cyber security specialist. 11. Marketing campaign management - related jobs include online marketing manager, digital marketing specialist, digital marketing manager 12. Data engineering and data warehousing - related jobs include software engineer, database developer, data analyst 13. Storage systems and management - related jobs include database administrator, system administrator 14. Electronic and electrical engineering - related jobs include electrical engineer, electronic engineer 15. Algorithm design - related jobs include software engineer, lead software engineer, lead developer 16. Perl/Python/Ruby - related jobs include software engineer, data scientist 17. Shell scripting languages - related jobs include Linux system administrator, system engineer, Java developer 18. Mac, Linux and Unix systems - related jobs include system administrator, Linux system administrator 19. Java development - related jobs include Java developer, web developer 20. Business intelligence - related jobs include business intelligence analyst, forecast analyst 21. Software QA and user testing - related jobs include user experience engineer, software test engineer, quality assurance engineer 22. Virtualisation - related jobs include network engineer, network administrator 23. Automotive services, parts and design - related jobs include vehicle engineer, industrial designer 24. Economics - related jobs include business development manager, auditor, research analyst 25. Database management and software - related jobs include database specialist, database administratorAmong soft skills required by companies this year, leadership came out top. This is followed by communication, collaboration and time management. According to the LinkedIn blog post, 2,000 business leaders were surveyed to determine which soft skills were high in demand. 57% of leaders surveyed said soft skills are more important than hard skills.Here are the top four soft skills:1. Leadership 2. Communication 3. Collaboration 4. Time managementTo gather the insights, LinkedIn looked at all of the hiring and recruiting activity that happened on the networking platform between January 2017 and September 2017.This equalled billions of data points, and identified the skill categories that belonged to members who were more likely to start a new role within a company and receive interest from companies. Skill categories that did not meet a specific threshold for membership were excluded from the analysis.