‘We are in one of the hottest tech job markets since the dot-com era’: After 2020 dips, tech job postings are up almost 30%

New research from hiring platform Dice indicates that steady growth is happening as tech companies recruit new talent.

According to its Q2 2021 Tech Job Report, tech job postings across the U.S. increased by 16% from Q1 2021, as the historically resilient industry continues to thrive beyond the pandemic. That’s according to Dice’s analysis of more than 1 million posts from April through June of this year. The job market has also seen a 29% increase in tech job postings since the second quarter of 2020.

The findings are similar to the July report from CompTIA showing a two-year low for tech unemployment.

Dice CEO Art Zeile said in a statement that he’s optimistic about the tech hiring trends noted in the report.

“We are in one of the hottest tech job markets since the dot-com era, as evidenced by the upward trend in tech job postings since November 2020,” he said. “What’s most encouraging to me is the sweeping growth we experienced in the second quarter regardless of location, desired occupation or skillset. When pairing the increases in tech hiring with the steadfastly low tech unemployment rate of 2.2 percent, it remains clear that technologists are in incredibly high demand across multiple sectors including tech, defense, healthcare and finance.”

Read the full report

Of the top 50 tech cities by job posting volume, Philly held steady from Q1 at #19. Fellow Technical.ly market DC stayed at #5, while Pittsburgh dropped three spots to #28 and Baltimore fell farther the #43.

Very similar to previous quarters’ lists, the following 10 skills were the most sought by employers for tech jobs:

• Project management
• SQL
• Java
• Python
• JavaScript
• Linux
• Scrum
• Business process
• Technical support
• Quality assurance and control

Project, data and business analysts and UI/UX designers also saw increased demand as companies sought to use consumer data to build new products, per the report.

Here are the top 50 tech jobs by job posting volume, with software developer continuing to lead the pack:

And here’s a look at the fasting growing tech occupations by job posting volume:

Michael Butler is a 2020-2022 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.