Since the coronavirus pandemic struck the United States earlier this year, engineers and technologists have remained in high demand. Dice, a leading technology career hub which connects employers with skilled technology professionals, analyzed the job positions and skills that rose highest in demand between February and March of 2020.

According to the results of the Dice Tech Job Report*, the need for technologists is more critical than ever, as technology plays a key role in making this unexpected transition to a remote workplace a smooth and successful one.

Why techies are critical employees

Source: Labor Insight Jobs (Burning Glass Technologies)

The shift from businesses operating from their headquarters to a remote workplace had employers— almost overnight—examining their remote frameworks. Technologists were needed just as quickly to execute critical components to expedite the widespread conversion.

Here are some examples of how businesses pivoted to maintain communication and operations between employees and clients:

• Meetings became video calls (Zoom being one of the most popular)
• Conferences turned into webinars
• Conversations shifted to instant messaging

To keep business flowing as usual, engineers and tech professionals were needed to work behind the scenes to meet the demands of a changing world and workplace. Here are a few job titles of the tech professionals needed to make all of this happen:

• Engineers
• Cloud architects
• Systems administrators
• Cybersecurity experts
• Application designers/developers

And, here are two critical components that tech professionals addressed to keep the remote workplace running smoothly:

• Ensuring remote frameworks and infrastructure are secure
• Ensuring employees had reliable connectivity to work from outside the office

Where the jobs are 

Source: Labor Insight Jobs (Burning Glass Technologies)

Technology, or tech giants, consulting agencies and government contractors top the list of tech employers who were hiring during the first quarter of 2020, according to the Dice report. This is great news for Vaughn College students who are currently pursuing engineering degrees, as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and the Boeing Company fall among the list of the top 25 tech companies listed in the Dice report.

Read about Vaughn graduate Atif Saeed ’20 who started a job at Lockheed Martin this summer working as a mechanical engineer.

Engineers and tech professionals may be interested to learn that between February and March of this year, online retail giant Amazon increased its technology job postings by 110 percent—looking specifically for software developers and network engineers. This comes as no surprise since consumers used Amazon as an alternative to shopping at grocery stores and other essential retailers during the lockdown. Walmart increased its technology postings by 64 percent in March—in addition to the 150,000 employees they pledged to hire—and specifically sought to hire software developers and project managers.

Source: Labor Insight Jobs (Burning Glass Technologies)

According to the Dice report, different states showed varying growth, depending on how each state reacted to the COVID-19 lockdown. In New York, for example, the state was quick to enforce a stricter “stay at home” order, compared to other states that were slower to require that non-essential employees work remotely.

Shift in job postings due to pandemic

Cybersecurity engineering jobs topped the list of having the most uptick in job postings, according to the Dice report. Cybersecurity engineering job postings surged by 20 percent during February and March of this year, as businesses took a proactive approach to combating pandemic-themed phishing and cyber-attacks. System engineers were also in demand, having placed at 11 percent, and showing a clear indication that companies were concerned with maintaining their network and computer infrastructure.

Discover a futureproof career at Vaughn

The job outlook for the engineering and technology fields remains bright, and will remain so, despite the recent surge in demand during the pandemic. If your passion lies within these futureproof fields, then now is the time to capture this opportunity by earning your engineering and technology degree from Vaughn College.

Discover all that is possible. Apply today.

*Source: Dice Tech Job Report