Craving candidates that can cut the mustard? Take a number and get in line: Demand for deli clerks more than doubled over the first quarter of 2024, measured by the share of paid job posts on LinkedIn.
As we slice and dice the data further (and mercifully wrap up the deli puns), you’ll find an eclectic mix of jobs with growing demand, including frontline roles like barista, healthcare jobs like optometrist and hospice nurse, and technical roles like customer engineer and security architect.
What are the most in-demand jobs right now?
Whether you’re recruiting for these roles in particular or simply curious about broader labor market trends, read on for the full rankings and reflections on the most in-demand jobs.
This story is updated on a quarterly basis to help talent professionals manage expectations, inform hiring decisions, and understand the changing landscape of the talent market.
Jobs with the fastest-growing demand: frontline roles, sales specialists, and technical services
Continuing a larger trend we’ve tracked across several quarters, four of the top 10 jobs with the fastest-growing demand are explicitly in-person roles, with two in the food service space (deli clerk, barista) and two in healthcare (optometrist, hospice nurse).
Jobs with the Fastest-Growing Demand (QoQ)
Roles with the greatest quarter-over-quarter increase in share of paid job posts, Q1 (January 1 – March 31, 2024) vs. Q4 (October 1 – December 31, 2023)
- Deli Clerk
- Sales Manager
- Barista
- Optometrist
- Inside Sales Specialist
- Customer Engineer
- Hospice Nurse
- Security Architect
- Marketing Associate
- Instructional Designer
While many employers are still pushing to make a return to the office the new (old) normal, the fact that we still see sustained high demand for in-person roles may suggest that candidates aren’t as eager to return — at least, not with prepandemic wages, benefits, and flex policies. Encouragingly, there are some early signs that things have been improving for frontline, hourly, and traditionally low-wage jobs, at least within the U.S.
Sales roles also made a splash over the last quarter, with sales manager and inside sales specialist both landing in the top five jobs with the fastest-growing demand. As the risk of a global recession appears to have fallen significantly, companies may be scrambling to shore up their sales teams.
Finally, demand for certain IT-adjacent roles, like customer engineer and security architect, also grew considerably in recent months. And while it might not be an obvious tech role, instructional designers can also belong in this category — they’re tasked with designing courses and training materials, often specifically for online educational platforms. The increased demand for these learning professionals may be due to their increasingly evident impact: According to LinkedIn’s recent 2024 Workplace Learning Report, 68% of employers with career programs that yielded positive business results offer online learning programs.
Most in-demand jobs overall: sales roles remain on top, along with engineering jobs
While the list above focuses on the biggest increases in demand over the past quarter, the list below details the jobs with the highest demand overall — that is, the highest number of paid job posts on LinkedIn.
As expected, this list tends to change less drastically from quarter to quarter. That said, we do see one dramatic entrance this time: the role of sales manager, which jumped 19 spots and is the only occupation to land on both lists this quarter.
Most In-Demand Jobs (Q1 2024)
Roles with the greatest number of paid LinkedIn job posts, Q1 (January 1 – March 31, 2024)
- Salesperson (no change in rank vs. previous quarter)
- Retail Salesperson (no change)
- Software Engineer (+1)
- Registered Nurse (-1)
- Project Manager (no change)
- Sales Manager (+19)
- Customer Service Representative (-1)
- Full Stack Engineer (no change)
- Business Analyst (+2)
- Data Engineer (+4)
Though demand for engineers seemed to fall for a time, this is the second quarter in a row in which engineering roles make a strong showing. With the addition of data engineer, which jumped four spots to just make the cutoff, there are now three engineering jobs in the top 10 overall.
Final thoughts
The rise in demand for a diverse range of roles, from deli clerks to security architects, underscores the dynamic nature of the current global economy. While the demand for in-person roles and sales positions continues to grow, the resurgence of engineering roles indicates a sustained need for technical expertise.
Familiarizing yourself with the latest trends and insights can help you set realistic expectations and adjust your offers accordingly. And to make things a bit easier, you can check out LinkedIn’s detailed hiring guides with free resources to help you build a healthy workforce.
Methodology
Based on global LinkedIn data on all premium job posts from October 2023 up to and including March 2024. The most in-demand jobs are those with the highest number of job posts in the most recent quarter (January 1 – March 31, 2024). The jobs with the fastest-growing demand are those with the greatest growth rate, with growth rate calculated by the share of job posts in the most recent quarter relative to the previous quarter (October 1 – December 31, 2023). Roles with fewer than 1,000 job posts in either quarter and roles for which the majority of job posts come from a single company were excluded from this analysis.
