Monday, September 03, 2007

Boston Market -- September

MonsterTRAK is the student division of Monster.com, the online careers and recruitment resource. Based on the number of entry-level job opportunities posted to MonsterTRAK, one of the five occupations with the greatest demand for young professionals is the following:

  • Computer, Information Technology and Mathematical
According to a MonsterTRAK press release, this category has provided the greatest increase in opportunities over the past year with programming and web design being among the most desired positions.

Development vs. Design


This month's analysis of the Boston job market reveals that Web programmers are in greater demand than Web designers. A keyword search at Boston.com/Monster.com reveals a demand ratio of 3.5 to 1.0 in favor of Web developers:
Web design and Web development are segments of a continuum of technology skills. These skills can be placed into the following five categories:

structure > presentation > behavior > logic > content

In an open source environment the most popular Web skills in each category are as follows:

HTML > CSS > JavaScript > PHP > MySQL

In a closed source environment (Microsoft, for example) the Web skills in each category are as follows:

HTML > CSS > JavaScript > ASP.NET > SQL Server

Here are the demand rankings for these skills in the greater Boston area, based on keyword searches [ relative ranking of number of jobs posted ]:

  • HTML [ #4 ]
  • JavaScript [ #6 ]
  • SQL Server [ #7 ]
  • ASP.NET [ #11 ]
  • CSS [ #14 ]
  • MySQL [ #19 ]
  • PHP [ #22 ]

Here are four additional skills directly related to the five design/development continuum categories:

You can use this demand analysis to identify one technology with the highest demand ranking not currently in your skill set and commit to a goal of improving that skill over the next 30 days.

A Web technology professional who can deliver an end-to-end solution -- from structure through content -- is valued in today's Boston Market.

Notes:

Top 10 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated for September and appears in the right-hand column.

Average Salaries in Boston has also been updated for September and appears in the right-hand column.