The year 2022 marks the third year the world would be living with COVID-19 which has seen technology reshaping jobs.
Globally 85 million jobs risk being displaced by machines says the World Economic Forum, in its 2020 Future of Jobs report.
Businesses struggling to rebound from the pandemic are requiring new skills to contend with the situation and experts say employers are mostly looking for tech-based skills.
“The top skills for 2022 are anything within the data space and business intelligence, because regardless of whatever sector you work in, organisations are looking for roles that can keep their business sustainable,” said Jennifer Oyelade, director of Transquisite Consulting, a UK and Nigerian registered Recruitment and Training Consultancy.
Some in-demand skills last year including software development, machine learning, data analysis, graphics design, digital marketing, human resource, customer service, sales, financial analysis and Information Technology help desk are still very relevant.
Based on the views of recruitment experts, an additional 10 more skills have become highly sought after.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO, a key part of online marketing that seeks improve web traffic by ranking sites higher in search engines helps in business optimization for media and other content-based business models.
Unini Mosimabale, a human resource officer at Alles Charis Gas Limited said companies will need content writers with a good grasp of SEO to make their products or services visible through the use of keywords.
Web Development
Designing and building advanced websites that integrates web design, web publishing, web programming, and database management is increasingly a sought after skill in the era of e-commerce.
Web development has three basic functional areas: client-side coding (frontend), server-side coding (backend), and database technology.
MyJobMag, a job listing site says it is a skill in-demand today, thanks to the emergence of new web technologies and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) which let websites “plugins” to other useful features.
Strategic Management
Strategic managers plan and design solutions to improve a company’s competitive advantage. Their ability to assess external and internal business environments to identify threats and opportunities makes them relevant in an uncertain world.
Oyelade counsels those seeking a career in finance to learn strategic management as organisations need a road map to their objectives.
Read also: How digital remittance revolution is transforming lives
Business Intelligence (BI)
BI is a technology-driven process for analyzing data and delivering actionable information that helps managers make informed decisions.
Forbes indicates that 54 percent of enterprises say cloud (BI) is all things considered “critical or vital to their current and future strategies.
Also, Analytics Insight shows that SAP Business Objects, Datapine, Microstrategy, QlikView and Sisense are some of the top business intelligence tools in commercial usage in 2022.
Investment Advisors
An investment adviser is an individual or company who is paid for providing advice about securities to their clients. Although the terms sound similar, investment advisers are not the same as financial advisors and should not be confused.
“It is getting tougher to make money and thus, you need to count on the expert to point you in the next direction,” Adebambo Aina, a human resource advisor at Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited said.
Languages
According to Valentin Berard, the chief operating officer at GrabJobs, a job search portal, over the past 20 years, many companies in Nigeria, specifically smaller companies, have recognized the value of employing skilled translators and linguistic experts to broaden their communication platforms beyond the African market.
“Foreign investors are interested in African resources and business, so language skills are highly important and in demand,” He added.
Some of the job titles under languages are Interpreters, Communications Specialists and Translators.
User Experience (UX) Design
UX design is the process by which design teams create products that provide meaningful user experiences for users while delivering on a business’s brand promise.
It aims to provide a positive experience that keeps users loyal to a product or brand. As a job seeker, it is important to take advantage of this opportunity by advancing and expanding your skills
“With the advancement in technology and an introduction to remote work, a lot of companies have had to move their businesses online and this creates a need for building products that will make this shift feasible and effective,” MyJobMag states on its website.
Nursing
The primary role of nurses in the healthcare system is patient care making them the most important part of the healthcare system as they are always with the patient at every stage of the care process, tending to them, counselling the ill and improving healthcare processes.
But Nigeria is facing an acute shortage of nurses as the number of them migrating to the United Kingdom (UK) is on a rise.
According to the register of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) of the UK, the number of Nigeria-trained nurses rose by 54.4 percent to 4,310 in March 2021, the highest in five years compared to 2,792 in the same period of 2017.
“While the planet is still reeling from the effects of COVID-19, healthcare in Nigeria has taken a hard hit, one from which it will only recover with the right nursing professionals on hand,” Berard said.
Video Production/Editing
Video production is basically the entire process of creating a video, while editing is the process of manipulating and rearranging video shots to create a new work.
Consumers have an insatiable appetite for video content, and as a result, video production continues to be a priority for companies.
MyJobMag says creating and editing videos is the essence of the media digital world. “This skill would certainly boost your career as it is one of the most in-demand skills in Nigeria.”
Video Animation
Animation is the capturing of sequential, static images, drawings or photos of inanimate objects—and playing them in rapid succession to mimic real world motion.
It is fast becoming an in-demand skill as a lot of people are getting bored with video adverts; advertisers are creating a twist to advertising by infusing cartoons and comic videos in advertising videos.
This increased demand is also due to the growing need for visual effects in television, movies, video games, and online outlets.
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