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9 tech skills that pay over $120,000 and are in demand
More than 6.7 million Americans work in the tech industry today and close to 200,000 tech jobs were added in 2015 alone, researchers say.
But in order to nab one of those jobs, especially one with a fat salary and loads of perks, you need the right skills.
If you’re an expert in a rare tech skill, you will almost certainly be paid well. But the jobs requiring that skill could be harder to find.
Then again, some skills are needed everywhere, but there’s also plenty of competition for them, keeping salaries lower.
The best tech skills strike a balance: high enough in demand but also specialized enough to command decent pay.
A startup called Paysa, which uses artificial intelligence to help people determine their market worth and to advise them on which skills to learn to boost their salaries, recently conducted research to find the most in-demand job skills in the tech industry.
It looked at the average salary and the number of jobs available for 248 skills, including 29 programming languages, and in 569 cities. From there, it up came with this list of skills that are most in demand.
No 9: PHP is worth $124,475
PHP appeared in 5% of the job listings Paysa scanned. It’s a language popular for web development, though is used for other projects too. It has a reputation for being easy to learn.
Average salary for jobs requiring this skill is $124,475.
No. 8: SQL is worth $126,532
SQL appeared in 13% of the job listings Paysa scanned. SQL is the language used with databases like Oracle, noSQL and Microsoft SQL.
Such databases can be found in just about every major business all over the world, so this skill is hugely popular. It’s also important enough to command a high salary.
Average salary for jobs requiring this skill is $126,532.
No. 7: PL/Sql is worth $126,177
PL/Sql appeared in 5% of the job listings Paysa scanned.
Pl/Sql is Oracle’s programming language extension for the Oracle database. Oracle’s database is the most popular database of its kind, a SQL database, which stands for “structured query language.” So it makes sense that this would be a skill that’s highly in demand.
The average salary for jobs requiring this skill was $126,177.
No. 6: JavaScript is worth $126,988
Javascript appeared in 11% of the job listings Paysa scanned.
It is an extremely popular language for web development and also considered one of the easiest languages to learn.
Average salary for jobs requiring this skill is $126,988.
No. 5: C# is worth $129,692
C# appeared in 7% of the job listings Paysa scanned.
C# is an offshoot of C developed by Microsoft and made popular by programmers writing apps with Microsoft web programming tools.
Average salary for jobs requiring this skill is $129,692.
No. 4: Java is worth $131,962
Java (which is not to be confused with Javascript) appeared in 13% of the job listings Paysa scanned.
Java is an extremely popular language, originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Oracle bought Sun so Java is now owned by Oracle.
The average salary for jobs requiring this skill is $131,962.
No. 3: C is worth $133,691
C is a programming language that appeared in 5% of the job listings Paysa scanned.
C is the basis for a lot of other languages, and used to be a staple for a computer science education. But there are easier languages to learn these days and some debate among programmers if it’s still necessary to learn C. Looks like many employers do prefer their coders to know it.
The average salary for jobs requiring this skill was $133,691.
No. 2: C++ is worth $133,954
C++ appeared in 7% of the job listings Paysa scanned. It is one of those languages derived from C and is considered a fundamental language to learn if you want to call yourself an expert coder.
The average salary for jobs requiring this skill is $133,954.
No. 1: Perl is worth $139,214
Perl is a popular programming language that appeared in 5% of the job listings Paysa scanned. Perl is known as an easier language to learn that is good for all sorts of projects.
Average salary for jobs requiring this skill was $139,214.
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