The U.S. News & World Report, a global authority in rankings and consumer advice, recently released their top 100 jobs for 2018. They looked at positive factors like ‘growth potential, work-life balance and salary’, as well as more negative factors like stress levels. Can you guess what was the top job title for 2018? Software Engineer. It was ranked as their Best Job overall. In addition, Software Engineering was seen as the ‘best STEM job’ and ‘best Technology job’.
Why is Software Engineer #1?
Kim Castro, the executive editor at U.S. News says on the website: ‘Technology is the backbone of many of our jobs across the board this year. Nearly every type of company is looking for people who can analyze and interpret data to solve problems. This technological boom is creating new opportunities for statisticians, engineers and software developers – these workers are developing the algorithms that are rapidly changing the global job market.’
Software Engineers create the technologies that we interact with every day, from the app that wakes you up in the morning to social media and music platforms. ‘Software affects almost every aspect of our daily lives. You cannot go a day without encountering some sort of software; software is everywhere,’ states Dr. Melanie Willett, content writer at HyperionDev and former ICT lecturer at Nelson Mandela University and CTI Education Group.
10-year growth for Software Engineers
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which calculates the employment growth for various occupations, projects a startling 24% employment growth for software engineers between 2016 and 2026. This is much faster than the 7% average for other occupations. As far as other factors go, U.S News put together the Software Engineer Scorecard:
To become a Software Engineer, you will need to learn various computer languages and technologies. ‘This obviously depends on the application you’re building and the environment in which you find yourself,’ says Willett. ‘In the Software Engineering Bootcamp at HyperionDev, we teach Java and Python, which are good languages because of their versatility and their ability to be used to build many different types of applications in different environments – e.g. desktop, mobile and web.’
Conclusion
If you’re looking for an ideal career, software engineering is definitely the way to go in 2018. HyperionDev offers a 6-month part-time Online Bootcamp in Software Engineering. Book a free trial today.
If you want to learn more about what a software engineer does on a daily basis, then read this interview with Jeff Hagen who works as a manager for a team of software engineers, as well as checking out the full list of the 100 Best Jobs.
