Apple’s Swift Ranked as 2nd Fastest-Growing Skill for Q4 2016

List of the top 20 fastest-growing skills for Q4 2016 in the U.S. freelance job market has just been published by Upwork, the world’s largest freelancing website. The Upwork Skills Index ranks the marketplace’s 20 fastest-growing skills being hired for among freelancers, which now account for 35% of the U.S. workforce. According to the latest quarterly index, Apple’s Swift programming language was the 2nd fastest-growing skill in Q4.

Swift

Natural language processing was the fastest growing skill during the last quarter of 2016, with Swift, Tableau, MySQL programming and Machine learning, all of which were also included in the Q3 2016 Skills Index, continuing to see rapid growth in Q4 as well. 

The holiday period caused noticeable spikes in growth for several skills on the list. Sales for the Apple Watch, which is developed using Swift ($AAPL), were at a record high during the holidays; Amazon ($AMZN) grabbed a bulk of surging online sales during the holiday season, causing growth for Amazon ($AMZN) MWS; and Zendesk customer support skyrocketed as companies beefed up support operations to keep up with higher than normal volumes of support inquiries.

Check out the full list of top 20 fastest-growing skills for Q4 2016 below:

  1. Natural language processing
  2. Swift
  3. Tableau
  4. Amazon Marketplace
  5. Web Services (MWS)
  6. StripeInstagram marketing
  7. MySQL programming
  8. Unbounce
  9. Social media management
  10. Angular
  11. JSBusiness consulting
  12. Machine learning
  13. Brand strategy
  14. 3D rendering
  15. Information security
  16. R development
  17. Node.js development
  18. User experience design
  19. Bluetooth
  20. Zendesk customer support
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