Earlier this year, Wired magazine proclaimed 2017 to be the year that the Internet of Things (IoT) would die. The security risks, hacking scandals and lack of useful technology meant that the connectivity hype would come to an end, they said. To test this view, job meta-search engine
To test this view, job meta-search engine Joblift analyzed the job market for IoT specialists and concluded that despite Wired’s verdict, vacancies increased, on average, 14 times as much as the whole job market in the UK. In addition, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) dominated job postings, and IoT jobs are almost exclusively situated in the south of England.
See also: IoT and jobs — plenty of great opportunities
There has been an average monthly increase of 14% in the number of IoT specialist vacancies in the UK market in the past year, since July 2016. According to Joblift, 1,336 vacancies have been posted since last June, a small number considering 9,279,742 jobs have been posted overall. However, when looking specifically at monthly growth, IoT vacancies have increased by 14 times more than the whole UK job market, which has had an increase of just 1%.
According to Joblift, 55% of all IoT jobs have been posted in the ICT sector. The Sales and Trading sector follows with 12% of the vacancies advertised since last June, and the Engineering sector with 9% of the job vacancies published, ranks in third place. There has been a lot of discussion about the rise of IoT in the Healthcare sector, however, this data shows that this has not yet materialized.
Joblift has found that IoT specialist roles advertised in this sector in the last year made up a tiny 0.4% of all IoT jobs. In terms of specific roles, Software Engineers are the most sought after IoT positions as these roles make up 19% of the jobs advertised. Developers are the second most advertised positions with 9%, followed by Product and Development Managers with 7% of all jobs published. Echoing Wired’s concerns around the security vulnerability of the IoT industry, Joblift found that security focused roles made up just 2% of the sector.
Security still the focus
However, despite the small number, security positions have seen an average monthly increase of 21%, which is 1.5 times the growth of the IoT industry as a whole.
Interestingly, in terms of location, the IoT industry is almost exclusively focused in the south of England. Nine out of the top ten sub-regions for IoT vacancies are located in the South, with the City and Borough of Birmingham being the only non-southern city and ranking in tenth place. Greater London was home to 28% of all IoT vacancies in the last year, with Cambridgeshire ranking second with 182 posts, and Bristol’s 67 IoT vacancies placing it in third.
When looking into the biggest employers in this sector, these locations appear more obvious. Since June 2016, Vodafone Limited, Dyson and ARM were the joint, most active employers of IoT specialists, each advertising 4% of all IoT positions.
