Top Skills Worth Building For Students Who Aspire To Work In Tech

There are plenty of career pathways available for students who are interested in working in tech. The Australian tech market alone made $167 billion last year, with around 870,000 employees working in the sector currently. For those that want to get started in this highly lucrative industry, however, the same question is often asked: which skills are truly in demand in the tech sector?

We’ll be answering this question today, alongside breaking down all the top skills you can start developing to help set you on your ideal career pathway.

We’ll be providing answers to age-old questions like “what is UX design?”, and “can anybody learn data analytics?”. Or better still, “Why are cybersecurity classes so popular, and do we all need to understand AI?” And most importantly, what will the future of tech look like for its employees, and what can you expect to earn once you gain your qualifications?

Continue reading to learn what skills you need to acquire to succeed in today’s fast-paced and incredibly exciting tech industry landscape.

UI-UX Design

User experience design uses a combination of tools, methods, and frameworks to solve real-world problems by creating intuitive and highly usable software solutions. The greatest element to learning UI-UX design that you’ll likely experience as a tech student is the accessibility of these two disciplines. While some of your friends might sign up to boot camps or get work experience in other areas, you’ll be able to teach yourself the fundamentals of user interface design with minimal effort and time commitment. And once you get the right software and start building up your own portfolio, you’ll be able to learn from job feedback and increase your design knowledge simultaneously. 

One of the top reasons to get into UX design is that the market grew by 70% last year alone. An increasing number of tech-adjacent industries are also realising the importance of user-friendly design in all aspects of business. Aside from being in high demand, the UI-UX work process forces you to constantly alter, iterate, hypothesise and improve upon the work you create. Simply put, embracing the endlessness of the design thinking process ultimately makes you a better and more adaptable designer over time. Maintaining this approach of continuous self-development can be a major asset to other fields or disciplines within the tech sector, like data analysis and software development.

Cybersecurity Skills

Cybersecurity analysts possess a range of technical skills, making them highly efficient and an undeniable hot commodity, especially given sharp increases in the rates of everyday and corporate cybercrime. Cybersecurity specialists also often receive significantly higher than average compensation, making this professional pathway just that much more attractive for many tech students. 

But what does a cybersecurity specialist do in their day-to-day professional life with all their many different skill sets and to justify that higher rate of compensation? From developing programs for private networks to designing and implementing cybersecurity protocols for companies, cybersecurity specialists are effectively expected to maintain a strong, ‘jack-of-all-trades’ approach to professional learning and skills development. Their responsibility is primarily to stay one step ahead of black-hat hackers in order to keep their clients or wider company safe from threats online. 

Alongside network and systems security, there are also increasing demands for data analytics skills within the field of cybersecurity, as data harvesting can be a valuable method for identifying major risks online and developing risk mitigation strategies. In essence, if you have an appetite for information and learning, this could be your dream role. 

Data And Analytics

We’ve mentioned data analytics a few times already so far, which if anything goes to show just how valuable this particular skill set is in our rapidly digitising world. As you may already know, there’s been quite a buzz around data and analytics over the last few years both inside and outside of the tech sector, as more industries and business owners have become aware of data’s growing role in the world we live in and more specifically, how we live. 

Like technology itself, this particular tech industry discipline is constantly evolving and developing, making it a fascinating field to enter, especially for young students with an eye for problem-solving and pattern identification. That being said, data analysis comes with its fair share of highly technical concepts and demands for an incredibly high level of technological proficiency. In fact, some data analytics roles may also prefer candidates with coding or programming experience, as analytics experts may potentially be tasked with designing and developing databases for companies.

Don’t let all of these demands deter you from pursuing a career in data analytics, however, as not all roles may require such high technological proficiency. But the ones that do could see you being heavily rewarded! 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Automation

There’s a high chance that many people reading this are considering learning or already know at least one programming language. With the potential applications for AI growing all the time, professional roles that require a proficiency with this particular technological advancement are unlikely to become exhausted anytime soon. In fact, many transnational corporations are investing in AI tech professionals specifically because of this technology’s potential to help create highly adaptable business automation processes.

If you want to forge ahead with building your own understanding of AI, machine learning, and automation, continue to grow your data knowledge, and your confidence in using and developing algorithms and frameworks. All of this can easily be achieved by simply enrolling in some online courses and seeking out academic or professional opportunities that will allow you to put your new professional skills to the test. 

With an increasing need for both machine learning engineers for automation and robotic scientists for improving on organisational operations and production processes, you can quite literally take an interest in building for tomorrow. 

Software development

The ever-expanding umbrella that is software development has a foothold in just about every sector at this point, allowing graduates with a background in software development to enjoy a high number of potential career pathways. Some of these pathways are industry specific, like software development, testing, and object-oriented design work together in the role of a software engineer. Some may be substantially more abstract, or may even require basic software development over this discipline making up most of that role’s daily responsibilities.

Digital marketing is a good example here. Although digital marketing specialists aren’t expected to learn how to code themselves, a basic understanding of HTML and CSS alongside JavaScript can help web marketing specialists maintain greater control and autonomy over designing digital campaigns that use site landing pages.

Regardless of where you’d like to see yourself within the tech sector, it’s a universally excellent idea to start flexing your coding and programming skills without having to push for specialisation or advanced certification in newer coding languages, as Java and Python are still the most prominently used. You don’t need to be the best. You just need to be capable. And that’s the fantastic thing about coding.

Start Building The Skills You Need Today To Ensure Success Moving Forward

If you are interested in pursuing a career in the tech world, you need to start developing your skills now. As we’ve demonstrated, there are countless different areas that you can get into. The first step, however, is acquiring the skills, knowledge, and expertise to get started. Dedicating yourself to your goals and remaining committed to learning the skills required for a career in the tech industry, will help set you up for professional success in the long term.