The 8 Hottest IoT Job Categories and Skills

Life is good for technology professionals who are involved with Internet of things (IoT) projects: By 2020, the number of Internet-connected "things" will soar to 50 billion—up from nearly 5 billion last year. Also by 2020, nine out of 10 cars will be connected to the Internet, compared with just one out of 10 in 2012. In fact, only .06 percent of machines and devices that could be connected to the Internet actually are now, which means these predictions may understate what reality will eventually bring. In terms of market value, GE forecasts that the "Industrial Internet" (the company's phrase for the IoT) will add as much as $15 trillion to the global gross domestic product within the next 20 years. Clearly, opportunity is knocking. So, to pinpoint the most promising career paths here, Upwork has come up with the following list of the eight hottest IoT job categories and skills niches. Available work for those with the top skills—including data mining, big data, machine learning, security engineering, Raspberry Pi and Apache Spark—has grown at astonishing triple-digit percentages over the past year. Demand for skills such as computer networking, network security, 3D design and Linux system administration is growing at an impressive clip as well. Upwork is a jobs site for freelancers, and the research was compiled through a review of the company's freelance postings over the past year. (Results that reflect at least four-digit percentage increases include newer skills that have grown in demand at an accelerated rate compared with other skills.)