Not sure what you should learn for your career? If you’re thinking of learning coding, you might want to look at mobile apps, at least based on a recent report.
Everyone has different goals in life, but if you needed a reason to consider coding as a next career, you might want to turn to some insights coming out of a biyearly report.
This week, the Progressive Policy Institute is releasing its once-every-two-years App Economy Report, which suggests something you probably already knew without needing a report on: apps are making a dent in our lives in a big way.
The report looks at the impact apps and app development has on Australia on the whole, and unsurprisingly, the results are big.
With smartphones in reach of more people than ever, thanks in part to the ever-falling cost of mobiles in the mid-range and before it, demand for mobile apps is increasing, which in turn means that demand for mobile app developers is going up with it.
In Australia, there are just as many occurrences of job listings for Swift and Kotlin, covering development for the iPhone and iPad in the former, while Android devices are covered in the latter. The frequency of specific coding language terms is higher than their web counterparts, and sees similarly high numbers with the rest of the world.
But it’s the calculation of just how many jobs that gives away development as an ideal possible next career move.
The report estimates a total of roughly 182,000 mobile app developer jobs across both Android and iOS, with roughly 174,000 covering iOS and 166,000 for Android. That’s a sizeable amount of programmers for Australia, which itself has a population of over 26 million people.
The result, according to the report’s writer Dr. Michael Mandel, is that Australia “well-placed to contribute to the next stage of the growing global App Economy” and that the “current App Economy jobs are just the beginning”.
For regular people unsure of what their next career move could be, it may mean learning to code is a total next step, especially considering the growth. As it is, Australia’s app development job listings grew by roughly 60 percent from six years ago in 2017, and is expected to grow some more.
While iOS and Android will likely be the dominant platforms, coding languages for each support multiple platforms as it is.
For instance, starting to learn Swift via Swift Playgrounds doesn’t just open up iPhone opportunities, but also that of Apple TV, Apple Watch, macOS and MacBooks, and even visionOS and Apple’s augmented reality headset set for release next year. Meanwhile, Android’s use of Kotlin and subsequent Jetpack Compose can see apps built not just for Android, but also iOS thanks to multiplatform setups.
Depending on where you are in your career, it could mean your next job is a part of that 182,000 and growing, while any kids learning to code could also be a part of it, too. Just something to think about when you’re wondering “what next” not just for your phone, but also for your work-day.
