Why web development jobs are on the rise
According to Mashable, web development is among the top 8 skills that can assure you of employment in today’s economy. The demand for websites has risen sharply and skilled web developers have been landing jobs more than most other professionals. Alongside demand, the salaries for web developers have also been rising steadily over the last 5 years. Projections are that by 2020, web developers in developer-friendly countries will be earning averagely $80,000 which is a significant increase from the current $70,000 average pay.
The number of new web development jobs is also set to continue rising. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, web development jobs will rise by 15% between 2016 and 2026. This growth rate is above average and not many other occupations can match it. We recently did a small research on popular job boards for “web developer” vacancies and the following were the results:
Indeed — 51,278 jobs
SimplyHired — 40,240 jobs
Dice — 42,582 jobs
These figures are comparatively high but not even close to the actual numbers in the real market. According to NPR, almost 70% of jobs are not published. By loosely translating this into a fact, we can approximate that the actual number of open Web Developer jobs in the US markets currently is 149,000. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has its estimate at 162,900. It is noteworthy that web development professionals are also hired under a variety of other titles thus the estimates given here could still be lower than the real numbers. For instance, instead of advertising for web developer jobs which are too generic, companies are being more specific and thus using terms such as “front-end developer”, “back-end developer”, “full stack developer” or “PHP developer”. A big advantage of web development as a career is that one is not limited to jobs within a certain state or country. This, therefore, drastically increases the number of web development jobs available.
Why web development jobs are on the rise
Over the years, web development has been rising in demand in the job market and there are reasons behind this. They include the following:
1. Increased demand for web-based systems
A few years ago, the world was had moved from web 1.0 to web 2.0 which was characterized by the addition of social media sites and dynamic or user-generated content on websites. This also saw the creation of websites with better usability and user experience. Today, web technology has evolved to web 3.0, though web 2.0 is still in use. Web 3.0 has characteristics such as artificial intelligence, a semantic web, 3D graphics, connectivity, and ubiquity. Web technology is becoming better and more applicable to people’s lives. We have moved from a point where websites were simply static pages on the internet to the current point where you can virtually do anything using web apps. You can shop, learn, get entertained, socialize, access government services, make investments and much more on websites. With all these being availed online, more people are opting to leverage on the convenience of using web-based systems instead of doing these things physically.
Behind all these systems are web developers. As more companies and government agencies strive to put their services online, they need technical help from web developers. Web developers are also required to offer maintenance services to the web-based systems for as long as they are online. Lastly, organizations and the government will still want their web-based systems to be updated or upgraded to offer more services. All these tasks require web developers. Therefore, the demand for web development services just keeps going up.
2. E-commerce
Alongside having physical stores, many sellers are opting to have their businesses online. E-commerce is itself developing and there are newer technologies to be leveraged. Web developers can add tools aimed at improving sales, engaging customers better and performing analytics. E-commerce shops are becoming easier to monitor and optimize than physical stores. Cookies and other related techniques are being used to observe the online tendencies of buyers and this information is being used to improve services offered and increase conversions from clicks to sales. Web developers are needed to achieve all this. With the increase in the number of sellers willing to venture online, more web development jobs will be posted.
3. The fall of the app boom
There are contradicting views and opinions as to whether the app market is saturated. As from 2008, most businesses wanted to have apps and this caused a huge demand for app developers. However, the increase in the number of apps in app stores led to users having to plough the line between the apps they wanted and the ones they just wanted. Apps began fighting for spaces on smartphone screens and at the time, web technologies were getting better. Today, websites are able to offer comparatively similar or better user experience and have become more versatile than apps. This is why many users are falling back to websites. Websites have been made responsive to snap neatly into any device’s screen and offer the same services an app would. Companies thus do not have to make different apps for each smartphone OS. Therefore, many companies will be going for web developers in place of app developers in the future. This will see an increase in web development jobs in the market.
Learn full stack web development
With a deeper look into the job market, it is clear that web development is one of the ways you cannot go wrong. There are and will be many web development opportunities in the market. The best you can do is learn the skills today. At Cruisecoders, we have created an Immersive Full stack course to prepare you for a successful web development career. Our course is all you will need to venture into the market as you will learn both front-end and back-end development. We will not take you half the journey, we will walk you all the way to your web development career. We will engage you in exciting lectures and practical exercises, give you lots of resources and avail ourselves 24/7 just to make you an expert developer. Even more, we will offer to help you land your first job once you complete our course. This is a win-win as you will easily recoup your fees within your first month of employment and we will build our brand name in the market. Our former Immersive Full stack students have been landing jobs paying up to $105,000 in leading organizations shortly after taking the course. It could be you tomorrow, register with us today.
