These are the skills that employers will look for in 2018, according to LinkedIn

Leadership and cloud computing top the soft and hard skills respectively, for employers who are hiring.

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, has identified top hard and soft skills that companies are looking for in 2018. According to a press release from the company, leadership is the top soft skill employers are looking for.

Cloud Computing and Data Analytics are the most in-demand hard skills second time in a row. This is the second consecutive year of ‘Top Skills report’ which published its first edition last year focussing only on hard skills. The company’s blog has stated that the jobs related to this skill include Cloud architect and Platform engineer, which offer up to $135,000 and $120,000 respectively.

Methodology

The report has been prepared using LinkedIn data and survey results. The soft skills list has been prepared after surveying 2,000 business leaders, 57 percent of whom say that soft skills are more important than hard skills today. Following leadership, are traits such as communication, collaboration, and time management. (Communication managed to move up by two ranks as compared to the 2017 list.)

LinkedIn has also provided learning courses that teach those skills, which is free for all of January 2018.

New entrants in hard skills

In hard skills, cloud and distributed computing has retained the top spot for two years in a row. It is followed by statistical analysis and data mining, Middleware and Integration Software, Web Architecture and Development Framework, and User Interface (UI) Design. (Statistical Analysis and Data Mining moved up three notches from last year’s list, taking over as the second most in-demand hard skill. ‘Web Architecture and Development Framework’ and ‘User Interface Design’ slipped one and three ranks respectively.)

For figuring out the top hard skills, LinkedIn grouped skills into different categories. The press release states,

For example, skills like “Android” and “iOS” would fit into the “Mobile Development” category. Then we looked at all of the hiring and recruiting activity that happened on LinkedIn between January 1 and September 1, equaling billions of data points, and identified the skill categories that belonged to members who were more likely to start a new role within a company and receive interest from companies.

This year’s list also witnessed new skills emerging as popular amongst employers such as Middleware and Integration Software, Software Revision Control Systems, Data Presentation, SEO/SEM Marketing and Mobile Development, the press release adds.