The Future Is Yours: The Freshest IT Jobs for Tech Grads in 2017

Tech graduates entering the workforce in 2017 can expect an abundance of job opportunities in IT, especially in cybersecurity, data science and cloud architecture. And there’s phenomenal potential in those specialties, too, with companies experiencing a surge in growth.

Security

Cybersecurity offers more than the pleasure of hunting cyber criminals. According to Forbes, if you work cybersec for an international firm, you can expect as much as $380,000 annually – if you live in a tech-heavy city. As of 2016, Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco area offer the highest pay rates, with a $209,000 average salary for a Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO, position. The further you get away from the tech epicenter of the U.S. salaries decline, but not by much. New York City CISOs earn an average $240,000 per year and Washington, D.C., CISOs average about $225,000 per year.

Industry experts project worldwide spending on cybersecurity to hit $1 trillion between 2017 and 2021, so the money isn’t going anywhere – and neither is cybercrime. With increased focus on mobile devices, ragtag armies of cyber mercenaries and the billions of vulnerable pieces of hardware connected to the Internet of Things, or IOT, positions in cybersec come with long-term job security, too.

Data Scientist

Based on the number of available jobs, career opportunities and salaries, Glassdoor ranked data scientist the No. 1 job in America in 2016 – thanks to big data. By 2020, the digital spectrum will hold an estimated 44 zettabytes of data, or 44 trillion gigabytes. Smartphone usage, the cloud and social media make up a big part of this projected increase. Also by 2020, 6.1 billion people will have smartphones, the cloud will account for at least one-third of all data storage and 53.1 percent of all Americans will use Facebook.

Data scientists earn between $62,953 and $126,182 annually as of 2016 and have a median income of around $93,000.

Cloud Solutions Architect

Cloud architects do more than design cloud environments and data systems – they maintain them throughout their life cycles. Thanks to Amazon Web Services, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area offers the most cloud-computing jobs as of 2016, with Massachusetts’ Dell EMC and Silicon Valley’s VMWare ranking second and third, respectively.

Cloud architects earn an average $122,501 per year, while senior architects earn $132,369 per year. The future of the cloud and the need for architects is solid, but the more diverse your certifications the better your prospects.