The wheels of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics grind slowly, but they have finally ground out the details on “new occupations” added in the bureau’s 2010 Standard Occupation Classification system.
After creating 24 entirely new occupation classifications, the organization sat back to watch how they performed. After two-and-a-half years, interesting trends emerged regarding the rise of computer specialists.
With employment numbers reaching nearly 168,000 in May 2012, the computer network support specialist category was the largest by far, filled with those who analyze, test and improve a variety of wireless computer networks. Also high on the list were two other new classifications: computer network architects, who design core network systems for their first implementation, and web developers. Nurse practitioner was the largest job category outside of the tech field, and trailed computer network specialists by more than 60,000 jobs.
The news says much for the high growth seen in the U.S. computer solutions market. The rise of mobile strategies, big data, cloud computing and similar trends has led to a corresponding rise in demand for computer network specialists who know what they are doing, particularly “support” masters who can guide clients through problems and offer training.
New computer specialist positions did especially well when it came to income, too. Information security analysts — those who analyze IT systems to implement or upgrade digital security — and computer network architects were both among the highest paid new positions, with mean annual wages of roughly $90,000. Computer network support specialists’ mean annual wages were about $63,000. Among the newly classified jobs, however, computer-related jobs were beaten out by several highly skilled nursing positions, such as nurse anesthetists, who take home $154,000 a year.
Educational organizations and universities have already begun to respond to the growth in the technical specialist positions. The March 2013 issue of the IEEE Computer Society’s Computer magazine offered a broader solution to the growing demand for these specialties: Hire more women. IEEE, a professional organization for technology leaders, cited studies from the National Committee of Women in Information Technology predicting that U.S. universities will only be able to produce 52 percent of the necessary computer science bachelor’s degrees to meet demand by 2018.
The workforce is suffering from a lack of skilled employees, the study claims, and training and hiring more women to fill these roles could help meet the need.
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