Technology is a constantly expanding industry, and a new study shows which fields have grown the most over the past five years for technologists under the age of 35. Software developer is up there (perhaps unsurprisingly), along with database administrator and some others.
Analyzing the past four years of BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) data, SmartAsset found database administrator was the fastest-growing job in tech, with a 62 percent increase in “young professionals” employed in the field.
SmartAsset chose to isolate jobs that require a bachelors degree or better, and filtered out any job with less than 15,000 people employed in those roles. A “young professional” is anyone between the ages of 25 and 34. From there, the company compared BLS data from 2014 and 2018 to find how much growth had occurred in four years.
Interestingly, the database administrator role is experiencing churn that seems to expel older technologists. SmartAsset notes the total number of database administrators stayed the same over this four-year span (108,000) but saw a giant spike in how many younger pros were employed in this role.
Of the nearly 1.7 million software developers in the United States, nearly 600,000 are under 35. SmartAsset says: "In part, the large number of young professional software developers is a result of the size of the occupation itself. It is the largest occupation of any in our top 10 by far.” As it also points out, this discipline is expected to grow 24 percent by 2026, which the BLS says is faster than average.
Computer systems analyst is also a popular role for young tech pros, with a 58 percent increase in the last five years. In that time, the under-35 crowd has taken 71,000 more of these jobs (from 122,000 to 193,000). This field isn’t as popular as the software developer role, and won’t grow as fast; this career path is expected to grow ten percent by 2026.
Those three roles aren’t outliers, either. BLS data shows tech remains impervious to the slowing jobs market. The “professional and technical services” designation gained 14,800 jobs last month alone.
