Tech represented a bright spot in the economy as one of the best industries to work in during the pandemic. With flexible, high-paying jobs, it was incredibly attractive to many people embarking upon new career paths. Then, a shift: as economic uncertainties carried on through 2022, Google, Microsoft and Amazon laid off over 70,000 employees—the start of a downsizing tide that included Salesforce, Meta, Twitter, Stripe, Shopify, and others.
But that’s not the whole story.
Because, despite the widely publicized layoffs, overall employment in tech roles grew 12% year-over-year to reach 6.39 million professionals as of November 2022. What’s more, 79% of those laid-off tech workers found new jobs within three months. News cycle aside, we’re still in the midst of a tech talent shortage—with 65 potential candidates for every 100 job openings.
This reality confirms what we’ve known all along: that every industry is a tech industry. While headlines were shouting about the tech industry’s woes, companies across all industry sectors quietly added 137,000 positions in November 2022 alone.
The bottom line? If you’ve been dreaming about a new career in a specific industry, tech is still the best way to get your foot in the door. With so many in-demand roles across so many interesting industries, there’s never been a better time to discover a job you love.
Tech Skills are Valuable Currency
Why do tech skills remain in high demand amid today’s shifting job climate? Simply put, because the idea of “business as usual” no longer exists. The only assurance is that the nature of business will continue to evolve. That’s because technology has fundamentally changed the way every business operates—but for businesses to be able to operate in this new tech-powered future, workers have to acquire the skills necessary to keep up.
For instance, digital transformation has changed how companies are led, with senior tech leaders taking a more active role in shaping company strategy. It’s changed how workers view their future job prospects, with many open to the idea of reskilling into new careers. It’s even changed the nature of how companies create value with platform companies like Google and Facebook and many others generating more value from users than their workers themselves.
Perhaps, most obviously, it’s changed how customers interact with companies. Increasingly, customers want simple, fast, and personal service powered by tech. Those expectations were already on the rise before the pandemic hit. Experts say that businesses have gone through 7-10 years of technological acceleration in the three years since COVID-19 started. What was once considered “best-in-practice” for 2018 now lags behind the average, so companies are scrambling to keep up and look ahead to what’s around the bend.
Tech skills are the fuel that keeps this engine of transformation turning. It’s no wonder The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects strong growth from 2021-2031 for a range of tech roles including Software Engineer (+25%) and Data Analyst (+23%) to Data Scientist (+36%) and UX designer (+23%). And, like communication or problem-solving competence, tech skills are widely transferable and perfect for breaking into a new industry.
Industries That Need Your Tech Skills
With the current global tech talent shortage, along with sweeping industry changes, many of the best industries to work in are hiring for tech roles that you can train for in just 12 weeks. Here are just a few examples of where tech skills could take you:
Retail
It’s been a banner decade for retail technology: feature-rich mobile apps that allow shoppers to buy online pickup in-store; augmented reality to personalize customer experiences in new ways; self-scan checkouts, mobile wallet payments, and digital coupons that ease purchasing; chatbots for faster, more intuitive customer service; RFID tags that track product lifestyles.
It’s hard to imagine our lives back in 2013 without all of these advances. Retailers can use technology to understand buyer behavior, adjust pricing and promotions on the fly, and finetune supply to keep up with ever-changing demand—but they need tech talent to make it all happen.
You might find your perfect match in one of these scenarios:
- As a retail software engineer, you build lead pipelines that bring new and existing customers to the website to find what they need.
- As a retail data analyst, you guide overarching sourcing, merchandising, and inventory management decisions through the use of business intelligence.
- As a retail data scientist, you apply mathematical concepts to generate statistics, models, and tests that drive the company’s e-commerce business.
- As a retail UX designer, you develop wireframes and prototypes to create innovative and results-driven member experiences.
Healthcare
Healthcare has changed dramatically with the revolution in electronic medical records and wireless communication systems making it easier than ever to share patient information and provide better care. Wearable technology, implants, and telemedicine advances allow for remote patient monitoring, while transparent databases with pricing and outcome information take us ever closer to value-based reimbursement.
Healthcare companies use technology to analyze clinical data that improves the quality of their medical research. In patient care settings, they use technology to collect data that reduces errors, identifies risks, lowers readmissions, and improves outcomes. Tech yields operational insights that limit waste and maximize efficiency—helpful to improve staffing, increase hospital capacity, and so much more.
You might find your perfect match in one of these scenarios:
- As a software engineer for a healthcare company, you work with engineers and architects to build robust applications that serve millions of patients each year.
- As a hospital data analyst, you translate clinical data into meaningful analysis to support staff and patient outcomes.
- As a data scientist for a health insurance company, you design and implement end to end experiments, including data ingestion, preparation, engineering, analysis, modeling, and performance tracking.
- As Ontada’s UX designer, you design compelling experiences that help cancer doctors make data-driven decisions and support patient treatment journeys.
Hospitality
Hospitality is a competitive field, whether you’re operating a hotel, restaurant, taxi service, or online travel site. The last decade has brought technology that enables hospitality companies to recruit and train faster, reduce wasted energy and stay on top of routine maintenance, and go above and beyond with their customer service offerings.
Companies need tech talent to make sense of data collected from a variety of channels, and to develop intuitive systems that let guests unlock hotel rooms, view menus, pay bills, order food delivery, upgrade airline seats and so much more—all from a phone.
You might find your perfect match in one of these scenarios:
- As a software engineer for a restaurant group, you collaborate with C-suite, restaurant managers, and partners to build functional online ordering software.
- As a data analyst for a casino, you identify trends and opportunities that can guide strategic investments and lead to revenue growth.
- As a data scientist for a travel site, you identify areas where artificial intelligence can transform the travel industry and build forecast models based on data.
- As a UX designer for a hotel, you design the intuitive system guests use to discover amenities, book their stay, and manage their reservations.
Finance
At one time, ATMs were the gold standard of self-service banking. Now customers use a variety of apps and websites to move and store money, build investment portfolios, submit loan applications, solicit financial advice, and make payments.
What’s more, blockchain, crypto currency, digital fungible tokens—these new forms of currency fundamentally change how value is created and safeguarded. Artificial intelligence and automation will free up manpower to focus on strategic tasks, while much of the daily monotony will be handled by tech talent’s creations.
You might find your perfect match in one of these scenarios:
- As a finance software engineer, you engineer customer-facing web and mobile apps with open source frameworks and back-end Java systems.
- As a finance data analyst, you analyze stock and bond credit rating and risk analysis trends, applying standard methodology to portfolio monitoring.
- As a finance data scientist, you generate actionable business insights through experimental frameworks and machine learning algorithms.
- As a finance UX designer, you problem-solve and work on projects to help deliver a more seamless, customer-focused experience from web to app.
Professional Services
Professional services sector businesses use technology for client management and 24/7 support, as well as resource optimization and smart pricing. Over the past couple years, many offices have gone fully virtual, using teleconference, customer relationship management, and team collaboration software to complete work, recruit top talent, and scale business more efficiently.
Furthermore, automation and artificial intelligence take the load off professional service workers so they can focus on high-value tasks. Along those lines, consultants are in a unique position to research and offer clients the right technology to solve urgent pain points. Increased access to data backs up their expertise with deep insight and demonstrable value.
You might find your perfect match in one of these scenarios:
- As a software engineer for a computer security service, you maintain the enterprise resource planning system programming, testing, and troubleshooting.
- As a data analyst for a staffing company, you resolve master data issues, gather and cleanse data for accuracy, and prepare data conversion files.
- As a data scientist for a government consultancy, you perform modeling, scripting, and programming to support critical missions affecting the nation.
- As a UX designer for a marketing agency, you create responsive web experiences to manage acquisition, onsite user flow, and digital ad retention.
Manufacturing
In manufacturing, modeling software has greatly reduced the time it takes to move from idea to prototype. Assembly line jobs are becoming 3D printing engineer jobs as the technology becomes more affordable and ubiquitous. Data gives manufacturers a bird’s eye view of staffing, employee productivity, machine efficiency, and supplier performance.
Tech workers help manufacturers create more resilient supply chains, automate more aspects of production, detect machine errors and maintain equipment, convert to sustainable fuel sources, and modernize processes. From hiring and accounting to operations and customer service, every aspect of manufacturing has been touched by digital acceleration in the last decade.
You might find your perfect match in one of these scenarios:
- As a software engineer for computer chips, you work on safety-critical computer programming projects to support NASA and Department of Defense missions.
- As a data analyst for a timber company, you develop and maintain data collection systems to guide logging, real estate, and road construction projects.
- As an auto manufacturer data scientist, you analyze and model data to help determine price and volume requirements for North American markets.
- As a UX designer for a wearables company, you design interaction flows, develop prototypes, and conduct research to build augmented reality systems.
Explore All Tech Industries with General Assembly
Changing industries can be daunting, especially when you’re staring at the vast sea of opportunity solo. Join a tech bootcamp and you don’t have to go at it alone.
General Assembly has a team of dedicated career placement experts who have worked with all of these industries to help companies fill their in-demand tech roles and bootcamp graduates discover careers they love.
Not sure which industry is right for you? Take our quiz and Meet Your Match