Top 5 job skills to future proof your career post-Covid

In many ways, this pandemic has helped demonstrate the power of technologies such as cloud and big data, exposed cybersecurity risks, and has helped businesses visualize new ways to use data effectively.

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a curveball that has brought entire countries to their knees. With lockdowns and forced social distancing, we’ve seen industries come to a standstill as people are forced to stay indoors. As society at large tries to grapple with the extent of the impact, technology has in many ways, emerged as the saviour. Among other things, it has allowed people to work from home, people to shop from the comfort of their homes. It has enabled governments to monitor and take targeted action to curb the spread of the virus.

Representational image. (Unsplash)

In many ways, this pandemic has helped demonstrate the power of technologies such as cloud and big data, exposed cybersecurity risks, and has helped businesses visualize new ways to use data effectively.

While the pandemic will certainly spur a digital transformation, here are a few areas where we can expect greater job opportunities to open up in the next few months/years.

Data

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing a large chunk of people to work from home, we’ve witnessed a huge spike in data usage across the globe. Statistics indicate that global data usage has increased as much as 38 percent year-on-year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Already, job opportunities for data engineers, data analysts, data scientists, and ML/AI engineers were growing steadily. With the surge in data usage, we can expect this demand to go up even more quickly.

The Public Cloud has emerged as the backbone of all IT infrastructure. Even back in November 2019, Gartner had predicted that the worldwide public cloud services market would grow 17% in 2020. According to a study by Instinet in March 2020, 68 percent of CIOs say that migrating to Cloud is a top priority. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to accelerate cloud migration even more. We can foresee a greater demand for cloud architects and cloud IT admins.

Cybersecurity

A recent study reveals that 86 percent of CIOs consider security to be their #1 priority. With ‘remote working’ becoming the norm post-COVID, company data is even more at risk. With people relying more on personal or less secure wi-fi networks, the threat levels have increased. As cybersecurity becomes more critical, we will see a much greater demand for security architects and ethical hackers.

Digital Marketing

With more people consuming information online, digital marketing has become a lifeline for CMOs as they seek to reduce marketing spends, drive greater ROI from their marketing dollars, and follow their customers online. In turn, this will result in greater demand for PPC practitioners, digital brand managers, content & SEO experts, CRM, and email marketing specialists.

Business Analysts

As businesses accelerate the shift to digital, digital channels will become increasingly mainstream across sectors such as retail, education, healthcare, and others. As the demand for digital goes up, it will result in greater demand for Business Analysts. Estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for management analysts, including business analysts, is likely to grow 14 percent, between 2018 to 2028.

The Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating change towards a new normal, and it is best for all of us to adapt fast. Some of the changes to our lives are becoming clear - significantly higher importance to aspects of health and hygiene which many of us used to take for granted, major changes to social habits, a complete re-think on what we do for leisure and entertainment are just some of the adjustments all of us are grappling with.

On the work front the shake up is equally disruptive. As our lifestyles change in the Post-Covid era, the shift towards digital is going to be complete and immediate. And while a wide range of jobs are at significant risk from the economic downturn we are entering, digital and tech jobs will continue to see the growth they have seen in the last 2 decades - in fact this growth will accelerate. Getting skilled in these digital skills is one way to ensure that while you adapt to the other changes in your life, at least your Career is on a growth track and Future proof.

(Author Kashyap Dalal is a Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Simplilearn. Views expressed here are personal.)