- Data Scientist
- Cybersecurity Specialist
- User Experience Designer
- Head of Digital
- Content Specialist
LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, has released the 2018 Emerging Jobs in Singapore Report, which has identified digital competency as being in high demand, together with soft skills. The findings underscore the demand for jobs which require hybrid skills, primarily to help Singapore organisations navigate their digital transformation journey.
LinkedIn analysed* millions of unique, user-input job titles from the last five years, and found that while the top five emerging jobs are all related to technology, many of them require management and communications skills. Their actual roles are varied and diverse, reflecting a labour market that values talent with a hybrid set of complementary skills.
According to LinkedIn, the top five emerging jobs for 2018 are:
The global and local talent shortage has made it necessary for HR and talent acquisition teams to evolve and innovate the way they hire. As skills commonly associated with these emerging jobs evolve, hiring based on a candidate’s title is no longer adequate and accurate in filling these gaps.
Although demand for digital talent is growing, supply is not keeping up around the world. With 'data scientist' being the fastest-emerging job title, and also the one which is the most in demand, skills in machine learning and data analytics are highly sought after. LinkedIn notes that out of the talent that has migrated to Singapore, 21.95% are from India, followed by France at about 14%**.
In some sectors, the rising demand for content has also led to job roles such as content specialists, which were not as popular five years ago. This top emerging job is unique to Singapore, home to a number of regional headquarters for various organisations. With most content in English, organisations are looking to locals to fill content specialist roles, but also increasingly at international talent from the UK, Australia and India.
The emergence of user experience designer and head of digital roles in Singapore is also driven, in part, by the financial sector’s investment into establishing a bigger digital footprint. Increasingly, these roles are breaking out of technology companies and spreading across the workforce.
Soft skills like adaptability, collaboration and leadership have emerged to be of increasing importance for professionals, even for roles that are technical. Heads of digital need to know how to communicate and lead effectively as they steward digital transformation projects; content specialists need to be adept at storytelling to ensure their content resonates with their audience; data scientists need to communicate their insights creatively to help consumers make sense of interesting data.
The top skills for the five emerging jobs are:
Data scientist:
User experience designer:
Content specialist:
Cybersecurity specialist:
Head of Digital:
“Digital competence, as we now know, is composed by a blend of hard and soft skills. This competition for talent will only grow fiercer, so organisations need to build an adaptable workforce. Real-time understanding of the demand and supply of skills, talent pools and talent movement is the first step towards building talent intelligence at scale,” added Ang.
Qlik, a data analytics player, agrees with the LinkedIn findings about data literacy. Julian Quinn, Regional Vice President for Qlik Asia Pacific said, “With data and technology presenting opportunities for businesses in Singapore, we believe that data literacy will become an important and common skill – not just to data scientists but for the entire workforce.
"As Singapore is a step ahead in both technology and connectivity, the data literacy skills gap locally is startling. A global research study by Qlik found that 85% of Singaporean employees are not data literate, more than the Asia Pacific (APAC) average. Despite the rising expectations to use data within the workforce, only 15% of employees know how to deal with it. Among graduates, nine out of 10 admitted to not knowing what to do with data.
"Those without the knowledge of data literacy will be limited in what they can accomplish. The responsibility to be data literate falls on everyone’s shoulders - government, employers, and individuals. Governments and organisations can foster this mindset by providing all employees with access to relevant data as well as the tools and encouragement to turn it into insights. On an individual level, people can take simple steps such as asking more questions, and interrogating facts and information given."
Qlik has four tips to enhance data literacy:
- Ask more questions, interrogating the facts and information given. "If you’re shown a graph, be critical and don’t take it at face value – make sure you understand the story it’s really telling," said Quinn.
- Begin pinpointing areas of difficulty where data could be used to support arguments.
- Proactively make the business case for your company to drive a culture of data literacy.
- Start combining data sets to find even deeper insights.
Singapore's Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has also released labour market figures for 1H18. According to the government, total employment grew, more job vacancies were available, and retrenchments declined. The resident unemployment rate was lower than a year ago, although it rose slightly in Q218 as more people entered the labour force looking for work in line with the pickup in economic activities, MOM said.
Total employment (excluding foreign domestic workers) grew by 6,900 in 1H18, compared with a decline of 17,300 in 1H17, and a growth of 6,700 in 2H17.
Resident unemployment rate rose slightly as more entered the labour force to look for work. The seasonally-adjusted resident unemployment rate rose from 2.8% in March 2018 to 2.9% in June 2018 after a general downtrend since June 2017, but remained slightly lower than the same period a year ago (3.1%). The unemployment data comes from Labour Market Second Quarter 2018, Manpower Research & Statistics Department, MOM.
There were 5,350 retrenchments in 1H18, which was lower than in 1H17 (7,640). At the same time, the six-month re-entry rate into employment of retrenched residents was about two-thirds (63%) in 1H18***, comparable to that in 1H17 (64%). Job vacancies rose to a three-year high of 56,700 in June 2018, an increase from 53,900 in March 2018.
MOM expects labour demand to pick up in 2H18, in line with seasonal hiring as seen in previous years. Hiring is expected to remain cautious in sectors such as Construction and Marine Shipyard, while job opportunities will continue to be available in others such as the Information & Communications, Financial & Insurance Services, Healthcare, Professional Services, Wholesale Trade, and Built Environment sectors.
Explore:
Read the 2018 Emerging Jobs Report for your country
*LinkedIn analysed millions of unique, user-input job titles based on common job roles and counted the frequencies of job titles that were held in 2013 and compared the results to job titles that were held in 2017. The ‘emerging jobs’ are the top five job titles that saw the largest growth in frequency over the five-year period.
**LinkedIn has clarified that the data collected is about the previous locations of talent who have migrated to Singapore, as opposed to the nationalities of that talent. While people moving from India to Singapore might have Indian passports, it is entirely possible that they are from another nationality, were based in India, and later took up a job in Singapore.
***The 1H 2018 rate is the simple average of Q118 and Q218 rates of re-entry into employment.
LinkedIn analysed* millions of unique, user-input job titles from the last five years, and found that while the top five emerging jobs are all related to technology, many of them require management and communications skills. Their actual roles are varied and diverse, reflecting a labour market that values talent with a hybrid set of complementary skills.
According to LinkedIn, the top five emerging jobs for 2018 are:
- Data Scientist
- Cybersecurity Specialist
- User Experience Designer
- Head of Digital
- Content Specialist
The global and local talent shortage has made it necessary for HR and talent acquisition teams to evolve and innovate the way they hire. As skills commonly associated with these emerging jobs evolve, hiring based on a candidate’s title is no longer adequate and accurate in filling these gaps.
Although demand for digital talent is growing, supply is not keeping up around the world. With 'data scientist' being the fastest-emerging job title, and also the one which is the most in demand, skills in machine learning and data analytics are highly sought after. LinkedIn notes that out of the talent that has migrated to Singapore, 21.95% are from India, followed by France at about 14%**.
 |
| Source: LinkedIn. Talent migration graph showing the total number of people who have migrated to Singapore since January 2017. |
In some sectors, the rising demand for content has also led to job roles such as content specialists, which were not as popular five years ago. This top emerging job is unique to Singapore, home to a number of regional headquarters for various organisations. With most content in English, organisations are looking to locals to fill content specialist roles, but also increasingly at international talent from the UK, Australia and India.
The emergence of user experience designer and head of digital roles in Singapore is also driven, in part, by the financial sector’s investment into establishing a bigger digital footprint. Increasingly, these roles are breaking out of technology companies and spreading across the workforce.
Soft skills like adaptability, collaboration and leadership have emerged to be of increasing importance for professionals, even for roles that are technical. Heads of digital need to know how to communicate and lead effectively as they steward digital transformation projects; content specialists need to be adept at storytelling to ensure their content resonates with their audience; data scientists need to communicate their insights creatively to help consumers make sense of interesting data.
The top skills for the five emerging jobs are:
Data scientist:
- Data science
- Machine learning
- Analytics
- Data mining
- Big data
User experience designer:
- User experience
- Design
- User interface design
- Wireframing
- Banking
Content specialist:
- Content marketing
- Digital production
- Sales enablement
- Content delivery
- Communication
Cybersecurity specialist:
- Computer security
- Consulting
- Management
- Cisco Systems products
- Research
- Sales
Head of Digital:
- Digital marketing
- Internet banking
- Management
- Communication
- Leadership
“Digital competence, as we now know, is composed by a blend of hard and soft skills. This competition for talent will only grow fiercer, so organisations need to build an adaptable workforce. Real-time understanding of the demand and supply of skills, talent pools and talent movement is the first step towards building talent intelligence at scale,” added Ang.
Qlik, a data analytics player, agrees with the LinkedIn findings about data literacy. Julian Quinn, Regional Vice President for Qlik Asia Pacific said, “With data and technology presenting opportunities for businesses in Singapore, we believe that data literacy will become an important and common skill – not just to data scientists but for the entire workforce.
"As Singapore is a step ahead in both technology and connectivity, the data literacy skills gap locally is startling. A global research study by Qlik found that 85% of Singaporean employees are not data literate, more than the Asia Pacific (APAC) average. Despite the rising expectations to use data within the workforce, only 15% of employees know how to deal with it. Among graduates, nine out of 10 admitted to not knowing what to do with data.
"Those without the knowledge of data literacy will be limited in what they can accomplish. The responsibility to be data literate falls on everyone’s shoulders - government, employers, and individuals. Governments and organisations can foster this mindset by providing all employees with access to relevant data as well as the tools and encouragement to turn it into insights. On an individual level, people can take simple steps such as asking more questions, and interrogating facts and information given."
Qlik has four tips to enhance data literacy:
- Ask more questions, interrogating the facts and information given. "If you’re shown a graph, be critical and don’t take it at face value – make sure you understand the story it’s really telling," said Quinn.
- Begin pinpointing areas of difficulty where data could be used to support arguments.
- Proactively make the business case for your company to drive a culture of data literacy.
- Start combining data sets to find even deeper insights.
Singapore's Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has also released labour market figures for 1H18. According to the government, total employment grew, more job vacancies were available, and retrenchments declined. The resident unemployment rate was lower than a year ago, although it rose slightly in Q218 as more people entered the labour force looking for work in line with the pickup in economic activities, MOM said.
Total employment (excluding foreign domestic workers) grew by 6,900 in 1H18, compared with a decline of 17,300 in 1H17, and a growth of 6,700 in 2H17.
Resident unemployment rate rose slightly as more entered the labour force to look for work. The seasonally-adjusted resident unemployment rate rose from 2.8% in March 2018 to 2.9% in June 2018 after a general downtrend since June 2017, but remained slightly lower than the same period a year ago (3.1%). The unemployment data comes from Labour Market Second Quarter 2018, Manpower Research & Statistics Department, MOM.
There were 5,350 retrenchments in 1H18, which was lower than in 1H17 (7,640). At the same time, the six-month re-entry rate into employment of retrenched residents was about two-thirds (63%) in 1H18***, comparable to that in 1H17 (64%). Job vacancies rose to a three-year high of 56,700 in June 2018, an increase from 53,900 in March 2018.
MOM expects labour demand to pick up in 2H18, in line with seasonal hiring as seen in previous years. Hiring is expected to remain cautious in sectors such as Construction and Marine Shipyard, while job opportunities will continue to be available in others such as the Information & Communications, Financial & Insurance Services, Healthcare, Professional Services, Wholesale Trade, and Built Environment sectors.
Explore:
Read the 2018 Emerging Jobs Report for your country
*LinkedIn analysed millions of unique, user-input job titles based on common job roles and counted the frequencies of job titles that were held in 2013 and compared the results to job titles that were held in 2017. The ‘emerging jobs’ are the top five job titles that saw the largest growth in frequency over the five-year period.
**LinkedIn has clarified that the data collected is about the previous locations of talent who have migrated to Singapore, as opposed to the nationalities of that talent. While people moving from India to Singapore might have Indian passports, it is entirely possible that they are from another nationality, were based in India, and later took up a job in Singapore.
***The 1H 2018 rate is the simple average of Q118 and Q218 rates of re-entry into employment.
