4 Jobs That Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago

With technology the way that it is, it’s no surprise that the career landscape has changed over the last few years. But the impact these changes have had on available career paths has been intense. There are dozens of jobs available today, that didn’t even exist more than 10 years ago – and some estimate that close to 65% of kids starting school now ‘will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that aren’t on our radar yet’.

To give you an idea of the types of jobs and industries that are likely to continue to expand over the next few years, here’s a quick list of 4 jobs that didn’t exist 10 years ago!

1.  Social Media Manager

Many of the social media platforms we use on a regular basis today began sometime between 2002 and 2007. LinkedIn (2002), Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), and Tumblr (2007) (to name a few), have had a huge impact on how we form opinions on, and discover, new products and services. It has also greatly altered the way we receive, digest, and disseminate information. As such, the Social Media Manager was created.

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Social Media Managers are generally in charge of an organisation’s online presence across its social media networks, often with a strong focus on brand management and marketing principles. The average Australian salary for Social Media Managers sits at just over $55k per year, but can range anywhere from around $40-80k on average.

2. Uber Driver

Uber wasn’t founded until March 2009, and it’s only in recent years that people have begun working for the service as their full-time job. Unlike many of the other roles that have developed throughout the last decade, Uber is one of the few that does not require any specific qualifications or background experience (beyond the ability to both access and drive a car). While it is still uncommon for people to definitively decide on being an Uber driver as their career path, it’s certainly a legit option.

While there’s no set salary expectations for Uber drivers, in Australia and the US, ‘Uber drivers make 75% of their weekly fare total’, with Australian drivers having ‘an average income of $35 to $40 per hour before Uber takes its 25% cut’.

3. App Developer

It’s hard to believe, but the iPhone only came out in 2007. That’s only 10 years ago! For something so many of us use daily, that’s an exceedingly quick rise in popularity and wide-spread use. Around the same time, smartphones began setting the standard for mobile phones, and a boom in their popularity lead to a whole new career path – App Developer.

The demand for apps that could provide anything from games and work tools, to educational support and photo editing, saw a huge rise in the demand for people who could create for this platform. And so the App Developer was born! The average income of an App Developer in Australia is just over $70k a year, making it a viable option for many with a background in tech.

4. Cloud Computing Specialist

The term ‘cloud computing’ was first popularised in 2006 at a Google conference, when Eric Schmidt was describing Google’s approach to ‘software as a service’. Since then, the demand for people experienced in advanced database management, strategy, and engineering (among other things). To be a Cloud Computing Specialist you’ve got to be comfortable working with huge amounts of data – I’m talking petabytes here.

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If you have experience and skills in cloud computing, then you’re looking at earning anywhere from $90k to $170k on average, making this one of the more lucrative fields to have arisen in the last decade.

The career landscape is changing rapidly, and there’s no sign that it’ll be slowing down anytime soon. So while traditional jobs in areas including health, education, law, and business are still going strong (and likely will continue to do so for many years to come), the variety of careers now available is expanding.

While having some form of IT experience is becoming a more sort after trait, interpersonal skills are still highly valued amongst employers. So if you’re wondering about what career to aim for, maybe start thinking a bit more outside the box – you never know what job will be invented next!

Featured image courtesy of Pexels.