Top Tech Trends Report Reveals a Boom for Tech But a Surprising Bust for Jobs
The streets of tech are not paved with gold.
McKinsey shows what tech matters most for companies in 2024 and why for, for many tech employees, tech was a bust in 2023 despite a boom.
This is a great read, but it is important to understand that it is not like other tech trend reports that are trying to find the next big thing.
McKinsey is surveying what companies are using now, so this report focuses less on the bleeding edge than others.
The big reveal is that despite all the money pouring into the 15 selected technologies, the past year saw a drop in job postings for 13 of them! Unsurprisingly, only GenAI, and “electrification and renewables” were able to buck the trend.
What it does say very clearly is that being in tech doesn’t guarantee a high-paying tech job.
We’ll look at the cause of these job losses in the Straight Talk section below:
👉THE TOP 15 TECH TRENDS
Ranked by adoption as a percentage of respondents
cloud and edge computing: 48%
advanced connectivity: 37%
generative AI: 36%
applied AI: 35%
next-generation software development: 31%
digital trust and cybersecurity: 30%
electrification and renewables: 28%
industrializing machine learning: 27%
future of mobility: 21%
climate technologies beyond electrification and renewables: 20%
immersive-reality technologies: 19%
future of bioengineering: 18%
future of robotics: 18%
quantum technologies: 15%
future of space technologies: 15%
👊STRAIGHT TALK👊
The stats for the job postings are truly stunning and don’t indicate a roaring tech market, so much as one whose “pause” button was pushed:
-26% in tech trends job postings from 2022 to 2023
-17% global job postings from 2022 to 2023
+8% tech trends job postings from 2021 to 2023
What is stunning is that tech trend jobs fell 9% more than global job postings.
This is where things get interesting. McKinsey lays the blame for the lack of new jobs firmly on two factors:
the decline in private equity tech investments in 2023 which fell from 30-40% and;
technology companies’ cost reduction efforts amid decreasing revenue growth projections.
Both are reasonable explanations, but then McKinsey goes for tech workers’ jugular, saying that fewer than 50% of potential candidates have the high-demand tech skills specified in job postings.
This means that workers trained in the 15 sectors had a tough year in 2023 but other tech workers had it even worse and have little hope of being reskilled in one of the new sectors.
The net change from 2021 to 2023 for most jobs in the tech trend categories was positive which it claims is indicative of long-term growth rather than “short-term vicissitudes.”
This is likely true, but it seems clear that a career in tech, even if within the 15 anointed categories, is hardly the gravy train it once was.
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Great list of top tech trends! 👍