Stay Employed – Today’s Jobs with the Least Competition and Greatest Opportunity
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Due to the popularity of our Stay Employed – Jobs with the Least Competition and Greatest Opportunity post last December (and the number of requests we’ve received for updated information), we thought we would follow up with more interesting information from the oDesk Trends vaults to help you develop your resume and determine what skills to focus on to stay employed in these challenging economic times. We will take an updated look at various skills and technologies and the competition – or lack thereof – for positions needing those skills.
In viewing these numbers, keep in mind this is for oDesk which is primarily concerned with placement for freelance and contract positions. This may vary with respect to full time placement numbers, though we think the data is useful to all.
In looking at the table below we give you three columns, one with the skill or technology, the second with the total jobs posted and the last with the Fill ratio. The Fill Ratio shows the competition for these postings – a low percentage in this column indicates great job opportunities, whereas a higher percentage score indicates that jobs requiring those skills get filled at or above our usual rate. Anything not on this list is getting filled at a high rate indicating high competition for the skill or technology.
| Skill | Average # Jobs Per Month | Fill Ratio |
| iPhone | 93 | 23.96% |
| AJAX | 315 | 27.07% |
| Java | 75 | 27.65% |
| Graphics | 106 | 29.13% |
| XHTML | 163 | 29.31% |
| SQL | 112 | 29.89% |
| XML | 111 | 30.28% |
| PHP/IIS/MS SQL | 114 | 30.31% |
| JavaScript | 339 | 30.90% |
| SEO | 201 | 30.97% |
| MySQL | 658 | 31.65% |
| PHP | 731 | 33.84% |
| English | 109 | 34.99% |
| Flash | 257 | 35.86% |
| Writer | 101 | 36.36% |
| Joomla | 236 | 37.11% |
| Drupal | 117 | 37.75% |
| Data Entry | 120 | 37.95% |
| html | 237 | 38.16% |
| WordPress | 197 | 39.36% |
| Photoshop | 285 | 39.61% |
| CSS | 150 | 42.71% |
| Excel | 106 | 48.31% |
First up, iPhone Programmer positions have the lowest fill rate which means the competition is lowest in this particular field. Addition good news: the field is growing, as the number of positions requiring iPhone development skills is growing at a rapid rate as witnessed on our iPhone Developer Trends page.
.Moving down the table we see that AJAX developers are still in demand with 315 jobs posted per month and a 27% fill rate. PHP is still very popular and competitive on oDesk, but developing some additional skills in an area with a lower fill rate might help you keep up a steady work flow.
.The .NET languages that showed so promisingly last December have fallen from our chart, as the positions are in high demand and are often-filled.
.Adding fuel to the ongoing PostgreSQL vs. MySQL debate, MySQL programmers have a strong showing on our chart, with the highest average number of jobs posted per month and a respectable fill rate at 30%. At 658 jobs/month, this is almost double the skill needed for those working with the second highest number of jobs per month, Javascript programmers.
On the less technical front, freelance writers and those with English skills are each enjoying an average of over 100 job opportunities per month with a combined average fill rate of 35%.
Hopefully you’ll find this information useful in guiding your career path. More information can be found on the skills and languages above, as well as many other desirable skills, on the oDesk Trends page.
Mahmud Ahsan
July 29th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
what’s the status of facebook or social application development?
Ben Smith
July 30th, 2009 at 12:13 am
I’m CTO of a small, fast-growing company utilizing PHP, AJAX, and SQL. We are looking for qualitfied developers willing to relocate as necessary to north-central California.
How many of these are we hitting? Let’s see:
1) Ajax (check)
2) XHTML (check)
3) SQL (check)
4) PHP/IIS/MS SQL ( sorta – we’re PHP/Apache/PostgreSQL)
5) PHP (check)
6) HTML/CSS (check)
Guess what I’m looking for is about 1/3 the chart?
Fizz
July 30th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Nothing about Python or Ruby?
Pitr
July 30th, 2009 at 2:39 am
… what about Perl?
peeping tom
July 30th, 2009 at 7:10 am
What about Common Lisp?
boxedfish
July 30th, 2009 at 7:30 am
What about Brainf*ck?
Patrick
July 30th, 2009 at 7:48 am
What about Piet? I sure hope I didn’t spend all those months learning it for nothing!
Erica
July 30th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Facebook and development for social applications didn’t end up on our chart because they are in demand, but also filled at a higher rate!
Erica
July 30th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Python and Ruby both have over 50% fill rate – they’re still great skills to have, but this chart focuses on skills with lower fill rates as areas of opportunity.
Fizz
July 30th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Ah-thanks! I didn’t suspect they’d have such high fill rates.
flip
July 30th, 2009 at 10:41 am
The problem is that “graphics” isn’t graphics it’s website development, UI dev., database and all other aspects of the web, advertising and media as well as traditional print, real media production and design expertise.
Many of the openings want people that can work well in two or more different areas that don’t mesh well at all. That’s why there’s openings …
it’s not just designing, indexing and printing t-shirts.
“Graphics” is a dumping ground catch all word in the business world that should be subdivided and broken into several different areas of diverging skill sets.
xavier
July 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
“At 658 jobs/month, this is almost double the skill needed for those working with the second highest number of jobs per month, Java programmers.”
Then I take it that’s a misprint, and Java programmers should be 375 instead of 75?
Erica
July 30th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Thanks for pointing that out! I meant Javascript, and I’ve corrected the post. So embarrassing, though. (My tech cred slipped considerably with that gaffe!)
Ruby Miller
October 12th, 2009 at 9:10 am
This is great information! I will pass it on to my readers. Thanks
http://www.jobcrave.net
Stay Employed Q4 2009 – Jobs with the Least Competition and Greatest Opportunity | Freelancing and Outsourcing Tips, Commentary, Analysis, and News from oDesk
October 12th, 2009 at 9:36 am
[...] Competition and Greatest Opportunity'; reddit_newwindow='1'; Due to the popularity of our Stay Employed – Jobs with the Least Competition and Greatest Opportunity post (and the ongoing requests we’ve received for updated information), we thought we would [...]