UpWork, which is pretty much the definitive online freelancing platform now, just gave us all a great resource that I think hasn’t gotten enough buzz. I’m talking about the UpWork Top 100. It’s a ranking of the top 100 skills that clients seek in the freelance field.
What does it mean to me as a freelance writer? Not much at first glance – the web still needs content, I type content, there will always be a job for me. But secondary influences come into play here. My greedy little gold-plated heart wants to chase every market as it comes up. When cryptocurrency was big (the infamous BitCoin bubble of 2017), I blogged crypto. Now that legalized cannabis is hot, I’ve jumped into that market. I go where the money is.
There’s something in the UpWork 100 for everyone
That’s my point. Online freelance writers need to be experts in everything anyway. After that, there’s data to mine here that can tell us about eCommerce trends in general, which impacts – you guessed it – freelance writers again.
I’m going to break that top 100 list down into categories, pulling them out of the ranked numerical order. You can already click through the link to see the original, I’m adding something different here.
Keep in mind that these are the top 100 in-demand freelancing skills, not necessarily the highest-paying or most satisfying.
Development
.NET Core, TypeScript, Android, System administration, Kubernetes, Firebase, DevOps, Selenium, Microsoft Windows Azure, Database design, C development, Docker, GitHub, Redux for JavaScript, ASP.NET, PostgreSQL administration, Salesforce app development, Python, MongoDB, Bootstrap, Network security, Elasticsearch, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Platform, Postgre SQL programming, Embedded systems.
No surprises here; developers still lead the pack. ECommerce depends on technology, so we still need people to build and maintain this stuff. The only thing that really changes is the list in this ever-fluctuating buzzword soup. One mild surprise is to see Microsoft turn back from an operating system company into a developer-tools company.
Content
Landing pages, eBooks, Presentation, Technical documentation, Product descriptions, Google Docs, Instagram marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO writing, English grammar, Media relations, Romance writing.
Hooray for my team! But there are several appalling hits here. “Landing pages” = SPAM, 100% of the time, so that’s out of the question and obviously gaming the algorithm from spammed job listings. “eBooks” is weird; I barely see people asking for eBooks compared to ten years ago and was under the impression that they were yesterday’s news. I’m happy to see Instagram marketing finally pull ahead of SEO, as people slowly begin to realize that it’s not 1998 anymore and something else counts for traffic besides search engine algorithms. Romance writing is never going away, thanks to 50 Shades of the Death of Literature Forever.
Business administration
Sourcing, LinkedIn recruiting, Interviewing, Project scheduling, Accounts receivable management, Accounts payable management, Business planning, Agile project management, Administrative support, Squarespace, Startup consulting, Budgeting and forecasting, Product design.
This is the part that should give us all a worry. Hardly any of this is the kind of thing I, for one, would want to outsource. “Business planning”? Listen, if I can plan a business, what do I need the client for? You’re really going to outsource accounts receivable and just hope that guy is showing you the true numbers? Most of this section involves outsourcing the H.R. department, so in other words, they need to hire people to hire people.
eCommerce support
Technical recruiter, Slack, Google Tag Manager, Amazon Web Services, Customer retention marketing, Salesforce Lightning, Lead generation, Asana, Shopify development, Magento 2, Link building, Appointment setting, Zendesk, Google Analytics, Amazon S3.
Boring stuff, boring list, none of this is a surprise. At least half of it is the kind of thing you can pick up as a side skill.
Skilled trades
Electronic design, Bank reconciliation, Interior design, AutoCAD, Certified Public Accountant, Circuit design, eLearning, Architecture, Bookkeeping, Financial accounting, Accounting, Tax preparation, Audio editing.
Some of these are a little unexpected, because while I’m aware architects, accountants, and interior designers frequently work on a freelance basis, I never imaged they’d venture onto UpWork. Don’t you get your own office and business cards for these trades?
Graphic design
Sketch, Video post-editing, Adobe Premiere Pro, 2D animation, Motion graphics, Infographics, Architectural rendering, Animation, 3D rendering, Branding, 3D design, Adobe After Effects.
The main concern in this list is how small it is. The web is more of a visual medium than ever. Is everybody just ripping images off the web willy-nilly now? All that video content out there is just being posted without edits?
Data science
Research, Data visualization, Data scraping, Usability testing, Data entry, Web scraping, Data mining, Internet research, Virtual assistant.
While this section isn’t surprising, it is glum. The Internet has gotten so huge and untamed for us that we have to hire professional Googlers. That used to be a joke in my old webcomic.
What have we learned?
We’ve learned that the job market has shifted tremendously in the past couple of decades. Tons of skills that used to be stable careers are now freelanced off the wind. I, for one, would hate to be trying to pay off a student loan on an UpWork income, but some of these require degrees – at least, one would hope.
We’ve learned that the center of business itself is starting to shift over onto the web. Look at all the online SaaS business administration tools there are now. We knew online commerce was eating up the brick-and-mortar storefront, but now online business is eating away at downtown office space too. We all called for telecommuting so long that now half of the jobs are telecommuting, even the ones where that’s a questionable idea.
We learned why I quit blogging about Linux except in small doses.
We also learned why I dropped out of graphic design unless we discover a new race of space aliens who are willing to pay actual money for it.
We learned this list has to be faulty somewhere. “WordPress” does not appear once in the list, but it powers 1/3rd of the web and somebody has to run it. Several terms are redundant in it too.
