The 5 fastest-growing jobs in Singapore

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. THE STRAITS TIMES PHOTO

SINGAPORE – Jobs in technology that also require management and communication skills are growing the fastest in Singapore, a LinkedIn report revealed.

According to the report, the top five emerging jobs in Singapore are data scientist, cyber security specialist, user experience designer, head of digital and content specialist.

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. It then compared the results to job titles that were held in 2017.

Jobs in data science grew at a rate of 17 times, from 2013 to 2017. Jobs in cyber security grew at a rate of 5.5 times, while jobs in user experience design grew at 3.4 times.

Head of digital and content specialist jobs both grew at a rate of three times.

These roles might all be related to technology, but many require a hybrid set of complementary skills such as management and communication, LinkedIn noted.

Since 2017, out of the talent pool of data scientists that migrated to Singapore from overseas, 21.95 per cent were working in India before starting their jobs here. This is followed by people who worked in France, at 13.82 per cent.

For cyber security specialists, 19.35 per cent of people who moved to Singapore were previously working in India, while 12.9 per cent were previously working in Australia.

Meanwhile, workers who were in the United States took up 14.29 per cent of the overseas talent pool of user experience designers, while 15.69 per cent within the overseas talent pool of head of digital were held by people who had previously worked in Australia.

Out of the content specialists who moved to Singapore from overseas, 14.49 per cent comprised people who worked in the United Kingdom.

LinkedIn said that the rising demand for content has led to jobs such as content specialists, which were not so popular five years ago.

“This top emerging job is unique to Singapore, home to a number of regional headquarters for various organisations,” the firm said.

“With most content in English, organisations are looking to locals to fill content specialist roles, but also increasingly at international talent (working in) the United Kingdom, Australia and India.”

Top skills for data scientist jobs include analytics, machine learning and big data. But LinkedIn also said that data scientists need to be able to communicate their insights creatively so that consumers can make sense of interesting data.

Besides the traditional skills of computer security and information security, top skills needed for cyber security specialists include management and consulting.

Skills highlighted in the report for user experience designers include wireframing and banking. For heads of digital, top skills that emerged include digital marketing, communication and Internet banking.

LinkedIn pointed out that Singapore’s financial sector is increasingly investing into establishing a bigger digital footprint, causing roles such as user experience designer and head of digital to break out of technology companies and spread across the workforce.

And for content specialists, digital production, sales enablement and content delivery are crucial skills.

“Digital competence, as we now know, is composed by a blend of hard and soft skills,” said Feon Ang, vice-president of Talent and Learning Solutions for Asia-Pacific.

“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.”

(Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article had stated that there is a talent shortage in Singapore to fill the top five emerging jobs stated by the Linkedin report, and that a significant proportion of these roles are going to foreign talent. The article then listed the proportion of roles in each job that are taken up by people from overseas. LinkedIn has since corrected its press statement and said that the percentages do not represent the proportion of people from overseas.)