Analysis of IT skills demand in the US

By Brian Fabo (SPP CEU, CEPS), Miroslav Beblavý (CEPS) and Karolien Lenaerts (CEPS)

  • Aim: Find out which IT skills companies expect from a "typical" American worker

  • Data: 2 million vacancies in 30 common occupations, gained through web crawling by Burning Glass Technologies

  • Result: About 1 in 4 job ads demands an IT skills, very long tailed distribution

  • Very diverse requirements across occupations

  • Three ideal types: Strong focus on one skill, focus on a combination of skills, no special IT skills requirements

  • Policy implication: While many IT skills are transferable, the optimal mix varies between occupations

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    Pyramid depicts share of ads containing a variety of IT-skills related keywords. Note that all categories were constructed with a set of several keywords and all ads containing at least one relevant keywords count! The interactive chart depicts a relative share of ads in the occupation selected from the dropdown menu. 1 = average in whole sample. Only values >1 shown.

    This visualisation was prepared for the November 2015 CEU Data Stories exhibition by the Jobs & Skills unit of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). CEPS is a leading ​think tank and ​forum for debate on EU affairs. Since its foundation in 1983 it is located in Brussels. Brian Fabo's is grateful for the support from the "Eduworks" Marie Curie FP7 action.