Blue-Chip Skills

Big. Steady Growth. High Return.

What are some of the most widespread, can’t-miss skills that will help a jobseeker land a high-wage job?

To answer that question, we took a look at the last three years of job ads data. We first chose the skills that grew at least 15% over each of those years.[1] We then limited these to only skills associated with higher-than-average wage jobs[2] and only those skills found in at least 20,000 job ads last year.

This produced the below list of 19 blue-chip skills. Interestingly, each was a computer-related skill!

The job titles shown in the above table are commonly associated with the individual skills shown to the left, but this doesn’t mean that those skills are limited to only being used in that job. These skills typically are found across many different jobs. Python, for example, is not only a common requirement for software engineers, but also for DevOps engineers, data scientists, data engineers, and others.

Computer and mathematical occupations are one of the fastest growing groups in the nation. While overall employment is forecast to grow 3.7% over the next ten years, computer and mathematical jobs are projected to grow over three times as fast, at 12.1%.[3] Education requirements for these jobs are typically a bachelor’s degree or higher.[4]

About the Data

All job postings data above are derived from JobsEQ, the Real-Time Intelligence online job ad data set, pulled from over 40,000 websites and updated daily. The relationship between ad counts and actual hires is described here. See our Recovery Model webpage for updates on job posting volume by state.

[1] That is, 15% or more year-to-year growth from 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019, and 2019 to 2020. Each year, the growth computation was adjusted for the relative volume of job postings—thus, technically measuring growth within the overall job market.

[2] The median annual wage in 2020 was approximately $42,000 per the BLS OEWS program (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000). Median wages by skill requirements were taken from JobsEQ RTI data for 2020, with every skill surpassing the $42,000 median threshold qualifying for the “high-wage” designation.

[3] Source: BLS Employment Projections, 2019-2029: https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/emp-by-major-occupational-group.htm.

[4] Source: JobsEQ RTI online job ads data: https://www.chmura.com/jobseq-pro.