Top 9 Tech Skills To Learn In 2021

Abimbola Abe
Reflex
Published in
5 min readDec 14, 2020

Machine Learning

Machine learning is useful in several fields — including image recognition, medicine, cybersecurity, facial recognition, and more. As more businesses realize that business intelligence is profoundly impacted by machine learning, the majority are choosing to invest in it.

Also, a report by TMR notes that MLaaS (Machine learning as a Service) is predicted to grow to $19.9 billion by the end of 2025, from a mere $1.07 billion in 2016.

Machine learning is one of the most profitable and innovative skills you can learn this coming year.

Here are the skills you can choose to hone:

  • Basic understanding of Statistics, Calculus, Linear Algebra and Probability
  • Programming Knowledge(You need to know languages such as Python and R to ease your process of learning this subject)
  • Data Modeling

Programming(Mobile, Web, Software)

Businesses that want to stay relevant in recent times need developers who can build mobile apps and websites for them and help them streamline their business processes including inventories and sales using a backend system.

Learning programming and positioning yourself in this market is a good start in career-changing

Here are the skills you should hone:

  • Problem-solving
  • Collaboration
  • Testing and maintaining
  • Coding and programming

Data Visualization

Data Visualization helps in the transformation of information collected by data analysts/scientists into visual form.

The importance of data science and importing of cloud computing are increasing at a random pace, it will result in the rise of demand for data visualization in 2021. Data visualization acts as a bridge between technical and non-technical persons and it

Careers opportunities in Data Visualization:

  • Data Visualization Engineer: The data visualization engineer focuses on the design and development of reporting solutions to provide fact-based analysis to the decision-makers to identify patterns and trends which may not be revealed by text data.
  • Business Intelligence Analysts: Business Intelligence Analyst is responsible for building reports, dashboards, models, and tools to analyze data, report, and present operations-related data, which is used to monitor product usage, take important business decisions, and forecast business productivity.
  • Data Analysts: Data analysts work on the reporting and visualization part to explain the hidden figures of data with the help of graphs, charts, etc. Their role is to analyze data collected from sales, marketing, etc., and help the firm for better decision making by presenting their finding in the form of reports. There are different categories of data analyst position: operational analyst, marketing analyst, e.t.c.

Data Science

Data science is used for making predictions and decisions with the help of predictive and prescriptive analytics and machine learning.

Data scientists use the latest technologies in finding solutions and they crack complex data and present them in a more useful form instead of the raw data thereby, reaching conclusions that are important for an organization’s development.

Here are the skills you should hone:

  • Programming skills in R or Python
  • Advanced practical knowledge of data science and machine learning
  • Excellent analytical and learning skills

UI/UX Design

In this digital era, the demand for UI/UX designers is also increasing.

Most companies are searching for professionals with the best user interface (UI)or User experience (UX) experienced specialists, the design aspect of software applications is a major concern these days.

It’s a career worth checking out.

Cyber-security

Since data is the new oil, most companies collect customers’ sensitive data and the best thing they can do is keeping their network secured.

Data breaching can affect a company both financially and branding perspective.

So considering these scenarios, cybersecurity will be one of the demanding skills in 2021.

Cybersecurity jobs are very much in high demand with the evolution of technology, this does not seem to be changing anytime soon

What to know before diving in:

  • Creative thinking
  • Critical analysis
  • Problem-solving skills
  • Good communication skills
  • Computer literacy
  • Good programming and coding skills

Cloud Computing/AWS

As the world of technology and computing develops, more and more careers are emerging to suit the needs of the evolving computing landscape.

Cloud Computing is drastically changing the way business is done across all industry sectors.

The Cloud is being adopted in increasing numbers for business, and cloud computing is expected to become a $300 billion business by 2021 globally.

How to start:

  • Coding and database management
  • Become proficient in the most common cloud platforms, namely:(Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure)

Blockchain

Blockchain technology has a growing number of uses in today’s digital era.

The demand for people with Blockchain skills is high due to its many fields of application

A career in Blockchain is a new and exciting opportunity worth exploring.

Career Opportunities In Blockchain

  • Blockchain Developer: Blockchain developers are programmers who create applications for blockchain. They typically have a lot of experience working with C++, Python, and Javascript before becoming Blockchain developers.
  • Blockchain Project Manager: Blockchain project managers need to master the technical bit to understand the technology thoroughly. Another important ability is excellent communication skills; especially when addressing non-technical workers, providing useful updates, or when trying to get resources from higher authorities.
  • Blockchain UX Designer: The blockchain designer's job is shaping a user interface that creates trust and is alluring to a regular user. These individuals need to be able to pay attention to detail, have an artistic touch

IoT

IoT is multilingual — it speaks many programming languages and requires experience with a range of frameworks. However, an IoT engineer is not necessarily a Jack-Of-All-Trades. Being able to work at just one layer of an IoT architecture is already enough to start a successful career in IoT.

Here are the skills you can choose to hone:

  • For developing embedded software for end-point IoT devices, start mastering C and C++.
  • Mastering stream and batch processing. Get used to working with such frameworks as Azure Stream Analytics, Spark Streaming, and Apache Hadoop (Java, SCALA, and Python).
  • Learning how to extract insights from big data by implementing machine learning and visualizing these insights. The prevalent languages for that are Python and R.
  • For user application development, learn how to develop high-performing user-friendly web (Java, .Net, or PHP for the back end; HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the front end) and mobile (native and cross-platform) applications.

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Abimbola Abe
Reflex
Writer for

Documenting my transition Journey into Web3 || Web3 enthusiast and digital marketer. Experienced community manager and writer.