Every January, millions of people start the new year searching for the next chapter in their professional journey, whether that means learning a new skill or finding a new job.

To help, we unveiled the most in-demand skills of the year last week, and this week we’re back to share the year’s Most Promising Jobs. Based on LinkedIn data, these positions come with high salaries, a significant number of job openings and year-over-year growth, and are more likely to lead to a promotion.

Whether you’re interested in sales, design, or marketing, the perfect job for you might just be one of this year’s Most Promising Jobs. Keep reading to learn more about the roles you’ll want to keep an eye on, the most in-demand skills and the courses you need to learn them.

2019’s Most Promising Jobs in the U.S.

1. Data Scientist

Median Base Salary: $130,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 4,000+ (56%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Data Science, Data Mining, Data Analysis, Python, Machine Learning

2. Site Reliability Engineer

Median Base Salary: $200,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,400+ (72%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Linux, Software Development, Python, Cloud Computing, SQL

3. Enterprise Account Executive

Median Base Salary: $182,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,000+ (62%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Salesforce, Cloud Computing, Solution Selling, Software-as-a-Service, Sales Management

4. Product Designer

Median Base Salary: $121,500

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 2,000+ (86%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Product Design, User Experience (UX), User Interface Design, Graphic Design, Adobe Photoshop

5. Product Owner

Median Base Salary: $101,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,100+ (87%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Business Analytics, Agile Methodologies, Business Process Improvement, Scrum

6. Customer Success Manager

Median Base Salary: $88,500

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 2,000+ (80%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Customer Relationship Management, Salesforce, Software-as-a-Service, Customer Satisfaction, Cloud Computing

7. Engagement Manager

Median Base Salary: $130,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,000+ (43%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Program Management, Business Analysis, Business Process Improvement, Analytics, Customer Relationship Management

8. Solutions Architect

Median Base Salary: $139,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 5,800+ (47%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Solutions Architecture, Cloud Computing, Software Development, SQL, Software Development Lifecycle

9. Information Technology Lead

Median Base Salary: $121,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,400+ (141%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9

Top Skills: Information Technology, Technical Support, Business Process Improvement, Business Analysis, Troubleshooting

10. Scrum Master

Median Base Salary: $103,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 2,000+ (67%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 8

Top Skills: Scrum, Agile Methodologies, Software Development, Business Analysis, Software Development Lifecycle

11. Cloud Architect

Median Base Salary: $155,00

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,700+ (88%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 8

Top Skills: Cloud Computing, Software Development, Amazon Web Services, Solution Architecture, Linux

12. Product Marketing Manager

Median Base Salary: $134,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,891 (30%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 8

Top Skills: Product Marketing, Product Management, Digital Marketing, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Product Development

13. Solutions Consultant

Median Base Salary: $110,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 1,126 (73%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 8

Top Skills: Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, Customer Relationship Management, Software-as-a-Service, Business Analysis

14. Product Manager

Median Base Salary: $121,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 10,268 (29%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 8

Top Skills: Product Management, Product Development, Cross-Functional Team Leadership, Engineering, Product Marketing

15. Machine Learning Engineer

Median Base Salary: $182,000

Job Openings (YoY Growth): 709 (96%)

Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 8

Top Skills: Machine Learning, Python, Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science

Top Five In-Demand Soft Skills

Strengthening soft skills is one of the best investments you can make. Even with AI on the rise, nothing will replace human-to-human conversation.

Pro tip: be sure to add these to you LinkedIn profile so that recruiters know what you can bring with you as you move into the next phase of your career.

1. Creativity

Recommended Courses: Creativity Bootcamp, The Five-Step Creative Process, Creativity: Generate Ideas in Greater Quantity and Quality

2. Persuasion

Recommended Courses: Persuading Others, Becoming A Thought Leader, Advanced Consumer Behavior

3. Collaboration

Recommended Courses: Collaboration Principles and Process, Being an effective team member, Business Collaboration in the Modern Workplace

4. Adaptability

Recommended Courses: Strategic Agility, Developing Adaptable Employees, Developing Adaptability as a Manager

5. Time Management

Recommended Courses: Tony Schwartz on Managing Your Energy for Sustainable High Performance, Finding Your Time Management Style, Time Management for Managers

Top 5 Most In-Demand Hard Skills

As our world moves towards a digital future, employers are looking for candidates whose skill sets reflect that shift. Need to brush up or learn a few of these? LinkedIn Learning can help you learn a hard skill that will make you accelerate your career in the years to come.

1. Cloud Computing

Recommended Courses: Learning Cloud Computing: Networking, Learning Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Developers, AWS for Architects: Advanced Security

2. Artificial Intelligence

Recommended Courses: Artificial Intelligence Foundations: Neural Networks, Artificial Intelligence Foundations: Machine Learning, Machine Learning and AI Foundations: Classification Modeling

3. Analytical Reasoning

Recommended Courses: Making Decisions, Decision Making Strategies, Executive Decision Making

4. People Management

Recommended Courses: Motivating and Engaging Employees, Managing Team Conflict, Leading with Purpose

5. UX Design

Recommended Courses: UX Foundations: Multidevice Design, UX Design: 01 Overview, UX Research for Agile Teams

With over 20 million open roles, the perfect job for you is waiting on LinkedIn. Explore LinkedIn Learning to find the right courses, taught by real-life working professionals, that will strengthen (or build upon) your existing skill set.

These insights were developed by LinkedIn Talent Insights analysts Brian Gibbons and Daniel Barnes.

Most Promising Jobs Methodology

To determine the best jobs for career opportunity, we combined data from millions of LinkedIn member profiles, job openings, and salaries. We started by grouping the millions of unique, raw job titles inputted on member profiles and job listings (which have many permutations) based on common job roles. For example, the “Product Manager” job role reflects both members who list an active position as “Product Manager - Retail," as well as any job openings with the title “Product Manager, III.”



We then ranked each job using a weighted score based on five components: salary, career advancement, number of job openings in the U.S., year-over-year growth in job openings, and widespread regional availability. The results represent jobs that had the highest combined score across these five areas.

