Five Industries that Need Programming Skills

While it’s clear that computer programmers need solid programming skills in order to build a successful career, there are numerous not-so-obvious jobs out there where programming skills are incredibly valuable.

More than ever, employers are favoring skills over degrees, so now’s the perfect time to look at upleveling your skill set. 

Here are five industries where programming skills and knowledge will serve you well and help you stand out.

Information Technology (IT) Workers

While you may think someone in the IT world would already have a variety of programming skills, that isn’t necessarily true. Depending on their specific role, employees may only know one language, or none at all.

Literacy in programming can lead to a deeper understanding of the technology you use and the impact it has within your organization, which can translate into higher job effectiveness. 

Coding exercises use the left side of the brain, which is responsible for problem solving and logic. Learning programming helps to hone these skills that can be an incredible asset when solving IT problems. 

To get started, beginners can focus on learning the more common programming languages, like SQL and Java. 

Data Analysts

Whether data analysts already have programming skills will depend heavily on what role they play in the analytics process. 

Someone responsible for simply interpreting data may not ever need to program. However, the person who’s running scripts to transform the data or deploying algorithms will need these skills.

For data analysts looking for job growth opportunities, programming skills are an ideal place to focus. The more functions of data analysis you’re able to perform independently, the more you have to offer your employer when they’re looking to fill more senior roles. 

For example, if data visualization is an area of interest, you’ll need to be familiar with languages like R in order to make interactive charts, maps and more. 

Artists and Designers

As a designer or an artist, sometimes things can get lost in translation when they get to the implementation stage. However, when you have programming skills, they can be used as a point of reference in your instructions to developers, which will make the entire process more efficient.

Knowing HTML or CSS gives you the ability to handle more aspects of a project individually — meaning you have more creative control. By gaining a better understanding of the UI and UX process you can create designs that are able to be optimized effectively.  

Engineers

The ability to use Python, a popular coding language, is becoming more sought after by companies hiring engineers.

Python is popular as it has the ability to both analyze and disseminate data. For engineers, it enables them to oversee large industrial projects where there are multiple elements of hardware and software. 

Engineers can leverage their programming skills in Python to develop algorithms to meet the requirements of their setups by leveraging large data sets. 

Also, machine learning continues to be more widely adopted across industries, and with Python, engineers can use the vast library of pre-written code for implementation, and to automate repetitive tasks. 

Scientists

One of the biggest benefits of having programming skills is that they can increase your speed of work. Scientists are spending more time than ever behind a computer and knowing coding languages can help automate tasks. 

Programming skills allow for both regular scientists, as well as data scientists, to be more creative in their solutions because they can work outside the limitations of peers. Analysis can be more specific if you write programs to acquire data from new sources and integrate it with existing data. 

Programming skills can create more effective communication — for scientists working in labs, understanding what programmers are doing and what they need to translate data can make working in tandem that much easier. 

Start Working on Your Programming Skills Today

By choosing to learn some programming skills, you’re doing more than making yourself more appealing to potential employers. 

Programming also focuses on problem-solving, thinking outside the box and being creative in your approach — all skills that contribute to being a well-rounded professional. 

Are you interested in adding programming skills to your resume?

The Udacity Course Catalog provides an overview on programs to help you get started. 

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