Software developers remain the most sought after tech professionals in the US, according to analysis of official figures.

The number of job postings seeking software developers in January 2019 rose 59% year-on-year to almost 80,000, according to figures compiled by tech industry association CompTIA and based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics findings. The number of open positions for software devs was also up 10,300 from December 2018.

As in January 2018, demand for software developers was higher than for any other tech role, followed by computer user support specialists, with postings up 80% year-on-year, and computer systems engineers, up 32% year-on-year.

As for which type of software developer skills are being sought, recent figures indicate the usual collection of well-established languages are most frequently asked for.

In the US, Indeed found enterprise workhorse and Android app language Java to be the most in demand, followed by web scripting and app language JavaScript, and data science and backend web scripting language Python.

The same languages are being sought in the UK, with figures from IT Jobs Watch citing all three languages as being among those most commonly asked for in job postings.

Alongside these languages, employers typically demand various related skills, according to careers site Dice, with postings often requiring Java developers to be experienced in building enterprise-focused apps using Java EE, in creating server-side Java servlets, in using the Spring application framework and familiarity with the Hibernate framework for mapping Java classes to database tables.

SEE: Hiring kit: JavaScript developer (Tech Pro Research)

For JavaScript, typical skills asked for include the server-side JS environment Node.js, traditional web languages such as HTML and CSS, longstanding web libraries like JQuery, and experience with web app development frameworks like Angular.

For Python, the broad range of skills asked for reflect the the language's versatility. On the web development side, employers commonly ask for experience with the frameworks Django and Flask, while for data science roles common requests are for expertise in using the machine learning-related libraries scikit-learn, Theano, and Keras, as well as a background in carrying out predictive and statistical modelling.

One notable absence among the most in-demand tech jobs was data scientist, which was named the most promising tech job of 2019 by both LinkedIn and Glassdoor, with LinkedIn reporting the number of job postings for data scientists growing 56% year-on-year during 2018.

That contrast may stem from the number of data scientists roles growing rapidly but from a relatively small base or differences in how the US Bureau of Labor Statistics categorizes roles.

Overall, the number of job posting for the IT sector in the US continues to rise, up 3% to 4,627,800 year-on-year in January 2019.

Top 5 IT occupations by job postings in US

Jobs Postings in 2019 Postings in 2018 Software developers 79,000 50,100 Computer user support specialists 19,400 14,300 Computer systems engineer / architects 18,900 12,700 Computer systems analysts 16,300 10,800 IT project managers 15,600 10,600

Image: Nick Heath / TechRepublic. Source: CompTIA

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