It's an understatement to say we're in the Digital Age.



The first true programmable computer was called Colossus. It was made in 1944 to help decode military ciphers. Made out of thousands of vacuum tubes and filling a room, Colossus was operated by teams of people working in around the clock shifts. Today a smartwatch has more processing power than Colossus.

At the time of the moon landing, NASA used several IBM mainframes costing $3 million apiece. Today a single smartphone has more pure computing muscle than those mainframes.

Such incredible progress in a short 72 years. Hardware innovation has slowed from leaps and bounds to incremental improvements. However systems, data and application software development has been spurred to increasing sophistication and capability.

This has translated to an explosion of never before known fields of study and technical careers. In the last two years, the most in demand careers according to Linkedin have been technical in nature.

Global 2015 - 19 out of 25 jobs are technical careers

1. Cloud and Distributed Computing Engineer/Manager
2. Statistical Analyst & Data Miner
3. SEO/SEM Marketer
4. Middleware and Integration Developer
5. Mobile Developer
6. Network and Information Security Engineer
7. Storage Systems and Management Engineer
8. Web Architecture and Frameworks Developer
9. User Interface Designer
10. Data and Data Warehouse Engineer/Administrator
11. Algorithm Designer
12. Perl/Python/Ruby Developer
13. Shell Script Developer
14. Mac/Linux or Unix Systems Administrator
15. Virtualization Engineer
16. Business Intelligence Analyst
17. Java Developer
18. Database Management Administrator
19. Software Modeling and Process Designer

Global 2014 - 20 out of 25 jobs are technical careers

1. Statistical Analyst & Data Miner
2. Middleware and Integration Developer
3. Storage Systems and Management Engineer
4. Network and Information Security Engineer
5. SEO/SEM Marketer
6. Business Intelligence Analyst
7. Mobile Developer
8. Web Architecture and Frameworks Developer
9. Algorithm Designer
10. Perl/Python/Ruby Developer
11. Data and Data Warehouse Engineer/Administrator
12. Mac, Linux and Unix Systems Administrator
13. User Interface Designer
14. Digital and Online Marketer
15. Computer Graphics Artist/Animator
16. Java Developer
17. SAP ERP Systems Engineer
18. Shell Script Developer
19. Game Developer
20. Virtualization Engineer

There are jobs but demand outstrips supply worldwide. Universities cannot generate enough computer science and information system graduates with businesses competing for top prospects.

Governments are waking up to the potential economic effects of the knowledge gap. In the United Kingdom, the curriculum was changed to expose children as young as five to basic computer programming. The Estonian government offers full scholarships to undergraduates pursuing technical degrees. In the USA President Obama has announced a plan to provide $4 billion in funding to increase computer science related instruction at elementary and high school levels.

Fortunately the Internet has made knowledge more accessible and widespread. The popularity of online courses has soared. YouTube is populated with instructional videos in a dizzying amount of topics. Education credentials are undergoing changes from diplomas to skill-specific professional certifications.

Computing careers are hotter than ever. If you don't have the skills now but have a strong interest and aptitude for technology, you owe it to youself to explore the industry. It's growing and expanding. More not less jobs will be created in the future.

Those with the right skills will have the most opportunities anywhere in the world. Why not join the digital workforce?