Social media skills continue to dominate employer requirements according to the most recent OMCP report of Online Marketing Skills Demand. However, the rate of occurrence of the social media skill requirements is nearly half of the rate last measured in June of 2016. The greatest growth is in the requirement for marketing data science/big data skills, jumping from 0.72% of full-time marketing jobs in April 2016 to 4.24% in 2017. As forecast in April 2016, marketers who wish to respond to this trend should consider boosting big data analysis and data science skills.
The Online Marketing Skills Demand report analyzes full-time marketing job postings for rates of appearance of keywords that indicate specific skill sets for online marketing. Sample size increased from 213,000 job postings in June 2016 to 493,656 job postings in February 2016. Adjustments in skill-indicating keyword groups change from report to report to continue to represent employer intent have caused up to 18% variance from prior reports in each category.