The tech industry courses people are taking online can tell a lot about which IT skills are in demand and what paths to careers look like today.

Udemy is an online learning platform that collects data quarterly about which courses on its platform are most in demand. We’ve dialed in on the tech and IT skills from their Q1 2024 report. Explore these in-demand IT skills to help choose where your tech career should go next.

Top 10 global emergent tech skills

The top 10 global emergent tech skill topics accessed on Udemy are:

• Informatica PowerCenter.
• Microsoft Playwright.
• 1Z0-071: Oracle Database SQL Certified Associate certification.
• CompTIA Security+ certification.
• DP-203: Microsoft Azure Data Engineer Associate certification.
• SAP FICO.
• Data structures.
• Java algorithms.
• HashiCorp Terraform Associate certification.
• Selenium Web Driver.

“Certifications are an incredibly strong currency in the tech community,” said Scott Rogers, senior vice president of instructor and content strategy at Udemy, in an email to TechRepublic. “They’re broadly recognized by companies worldwide who increasingly require certification for key technical roles in cloud computing, project management, and security.”

More than 10 million people enrolled in IT certification courses on Udemy in the last year, Rogers reported.

SEE: Self-upskilling could make you the right fit to fill in the IT talent gap in Australia. (TechRepublic)

Tech skills that cropped up in the top emergent skills on Udemy and are reflective of the tech industry include:

• Git.
• Oracle SQL.
• C#.
• Amazon AWS and AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.
• Python.

“We’ve seen customers leverage Udemy to support certification preparation and help IT professionals significantly improve their chances of passing certification exams,” Rogers said.

English as a second language, sustainability and ChatGPT were also popular topics

One of Udemy’s most popular courses is the TOEIC Tests, a standard for English as a second language appropriate for business. Udemy attributes this to multinational businesses using English as their primary language. Udemy learners were interested in Spanish as well, with that language appearing as sixth on the list of top 10 global emergent professional skills.

The full list is:

1. TOEIC tests.
2. Bookkeeping.
3. Marketing strategy.
4. Supply chain.
5. Business analytics.
6. Spanish language.
7. Information security.
8. Deep learning.
9. Generative AI.
10. Financial analysis.

Environmental, social and governance-related courses were remarkably popular. Overall, Udemy saw a 3,128% year-over-year increase in ESG course consumption. Only one topic grew in popularity more than ESG: ChatGPT. (Interest in ChatGPT-related courses grew by 5,226% in Q1 2023 alone.) ESG-related topics available as courses on Udemy include corporate sustainability, DEI and business cases for corporate ESG.

In-demand tech skills according to LinkedIn, Indeed, CompTIA

Udemy isn’t the only place to find courses on IT skills, and the skills popular on Udemy aren’t the only skills employers are looking for.

LinkedIn listed artificial intelligence and machine learning as the most in-demand IT skills in 2024, followed by data science and cybersecurity. Indeed found that generative AI was the highest-paid field in the industry. The Computing Technology Industry Association lists the following as the top five IT skills in demand in 2024:

• Artificial intelligence.
• Technical support.
• Networking.
• Cloud computing.
• Linux.

Tech is a growing and lucrative field

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were nearly 364,000 open job postings for tech jobs in December 2023. Computer and information technology occupations are predicted to grow faster than most jobs from 2022 to 2032, and the median annual salary in the field was $104,420 in May 2023.