MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 28, 2016) - Upwork, the world's largest freelancing website, today announced that it is releasing a new index for the hottest skills in today's U.S. freelance job market. The Upwork Skills Index will be released on July 7, 2016 and will rank the fastest-growing skills for freelancers today and serve as the first of a quarterly series.
"Despite the challenging economic conditions, skills gaps are more pervasive than ever. Fortunately, technology is providing bridges by making it easier for people to identify new opportunities, learn new and emerging skills and find work," said Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel. "A big part of reducing skills gaps is making more information that people can act upon available. As the amount of work happening via Upwork continues to grow -- now at more than $1 billion per year -- so does the light we can shed on where the biggest opportunities are in the freelance job market."
The Upwork Skills Index calculates growth rates based on freelancer billings through Upwork in Q1 2016 v. Q1 2015. Preliminary data shows that:
- The 10 fastest-growing skills all experienced more than 125% year-over-year growth
- Technical skills continue to top the list, including AngularJS and Java
- As businesses increasingly rely on video for marketing, animation is experiencing high growth
As the largest freelancing website, Upwork's robust database provides a uniquely rich and accurate view of the freelance job market today. "Upwork offers a remarkably detailed look at what skills professionals are providing and what skills are being sought-after, and the data also has tremendous breadth -- ranging from software development to technical writing to increasingly high-end skills like legal and business consulting," said New York University professor John Horton. "Additionally, due to the real-time nature of its marketplace and the structured way the company collects skills usage, Upwork's data has the ability to provide insights that are more recent than any survey data on the job market."
In addition to the Upwork Skills Index, the company frequently releases data insights about today's work trends. For example, Upwork shared data on the Internet of Things (IoT) -- one particular trend seeing tremendous growth -- to identify top skills needed to get IoT done such as circuit design, security engineering and Node.js. Read more here.
About Upwork Upwork is the world's largest freelancing website. As an increasingly connected and independent workforce goes online, knowledge work -- like software, shopping and content before it -- is shifting online as well. This shift is making it easier for clients to connect and work with talent in near real-time and is freeing professionals everywhere from having to work at a set time and place.
Freelancers are earning more than $1 billion annually via Upwork. Upwork is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in San Francisco, California, and Oslo, Norway. For more information, visit our website at www.upwork.com, join us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.