money The best jobs for 2020: Tech dominates again
After making their New Year’s resolutions, job candidates are back on the hunt.
January sees the highest level of job searches than any other time of the year, following the two slowest months of November and December. Landing a new position during this competitive period may depend on applying for the right job.
Tech jobs still dominate the best positions for this year, holding 20 of the 50 best jobs, according to Glassdoor’s 2020 list. But you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to nab one, because many traditional industries are hiring techies as well.
“People with the tech skills are in really high demand and employers are willing to pay top dollar for these roles,” said Amanda Stansell, senior analyst at Glassdoor. “That, along with really great job satisfaction, is what is making them a really excellent job for people to get into.”
The list ranks by equally weighing the median base salary reported on Glassdoor; the number of job openings on the website; and the overall job satisfaction rating (scale: 1.0= bad job to 5.0= best job) over the past year.
What are the best jobs?
The best job for 2020 is a front-end engineer. The role – which uses different programming languages to test and create code – comes with a median base salary of $105,240, high job satisfaction, and over 13,000 openings across the country.
Java developer and data scientist take the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively. Data scientist, which topped the list for the last four years, was toppled in 2020 because of a growing number of openings in other fields.
Even with the growing importance of work culture and job satisfaction, salary still remains a priority for job hunters. Two-thirds of workers and job seekers view salary information as the most important factor when researching a job, according to a separate Glassdoor survey.
If this is your priority, strategy manager is the role for you. While it ranks ninth overall among the best jobs, it comes in at No. 1 on pay with a median base salary of over $130,000.
Tech jobs in non-tech
Tech jobs don’t just exist in tech companies. More traditional industries like banking, retail, and healthcare are competing to attract tech talent, creating more opportunities for tech job seekers.
“Given nearly every company is a tech company in this day and age, employers across industries need to hire workers with a range of technical skills to enable them to build and maintain an online presence as well as organize and analyze data,” Stansell said.
From data scientist to salesforce developer, almost all the tech positions on the best-jobs list can be found at non-tech companies.
Aside from tech jobs, professional service ones – such as compliance officer and design manager – along with healthcare jobs – like speech language pathologist and nursing manager – are also among the top rankings.
Landing a top job
Many of these roles remain highly competitive, despite the ample number of job openings. Preparation and research are key elements to master any job search and stand out against the competition, Stansell said.
Job seekers should also leverage their professional and personal networks to help get the attention of hiring managers and recruiters through referrals when possible.
Top 10 jobs in 2020
Here are the 10 best jobs for 2020, according to Glassdoor.
1. Front End Engineer
Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.9
Number of Job Openings: 13,122
Median Base Salary: $105,240
2. Java Developer
Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.9
Number of Job Openings: 16,136
Median Base Salary: $83,589
3. Data Scientist
Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.0
Number of Job Openings: 6,542
Median Base Salary: $107,801
4. Product Manager
Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.8
Number of Job Openings: 12,173
Median Base Salary: $117,713
5. Devops Engineer
Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.9
Number of Job Openings: 6,603
Median Base Salary: $107,310
6. Data Engineer
Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.9
Number of Job Openings: 6,941
Median Base Salary: $102,472
7. Software Engineer
Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.6
Number of Job Openings: 50,438
Median Base Salary: $105,563
8. Speech Language Pathologist
Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.8
Number of Job Openings: 29,167
Median Base Salary: $71,867
9. Strategy Manager
Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.3
Number of Job Openings: 3,515
Median Base Salary: $133,067
10. Business Development Manager
Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.0
Number of Job Openings: 6,560
Median Base Salary: $78,480
Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @denitsa_tsekova.
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