Job (and other) Trends Revealed

Over at Quoderat someone called iain made a comment on this posting:

Search for commoditized skills like Java, SQL, C++ and you find x,000 jobs advertised. Ideally of course you'd have a longitudinal view on this; you'd have data on the number of jobs offering requiring this and that skill across time and understand the rise and ebb of particular skills.

Well, thanks to the kind folks at job search aggregator indeed.com we can do exactly that.

Their site can display the occurrencece of ads with particular search terms in them over roughly the past year. You have to be careful with false positives, though. The origin of the name of the programming language Forth is from a (forced) mis-spelling of "fourth" as in "generation computer", but "forth" is still a word. It appears frequently in ads for positions in which someone will have to go back and it. I was amazed at the popularity of this niche language, until I figured that one out.

Dynamic Languages Duke it Out...

Anyway, take a look at this:



Don't worry about the extreme tinyness of the numbers. When indeed.com say "all jobs", they mean all jobs. That Python accounts for 0.15% of them is salutary reminder that there's a huge old world of work out there where what programming language you prefer isn't even a comprehensible question.

So, this looks like good news for Pythonistas, and very encouraging news for Rubyists. iain would suggest that this is a sign that the "elite" (whomever they are) should be thinking about moving on from Python. A dubious proposition.

Speaking of elites, that Lisp curve is worth drilling down to:



Unless I wildly miss my mark, that's the 2005 Y Combinator Summer Founders Program wildly distorting an entire job market. Let's not be rude about Lisp's 0.005% of the job scene baseline. (Actually, I suspect that most Lisp jobs never get as far as being publicly advertised, so tight-knit is that community).

...and then get Put in Their Place

But let's put our little posse of dynamic languages into context:



Ouch!

That "java" appears in as much as one fiftieth of "all jobs" is cause for sober reflection. Quickly followed by a stiff drink.

In Other news...

This is absolutely fascinating:



Oh yes, that's something I've waited to see. Mid October 2005, a date (range) to remember: "agile" overtook "RUP". Notice, though, how the "agile" and "RUP" curves seem to fall into step afterwards. This is a potential trend worth watching. As is the seemingly imminent overtaking of XP by Scrum.

Increasingly often now there are lead or management type jobs being advertised with some "Agile methods or RUP an advantage" style requirements. Or even, "Agile methods such as RUP". Hmmm. Well, there are those that will claim that RUP done right is Agile. But I digress.

Thinking about closely correlated search terms, how about these two head-to-head competitors:



That's close to the point of being spooky.

Mull this over

This one pretty much speaks for itself. Couldn't be more zeitgeisty: