The tech jobs on the rise

Welcome to the 20th issue of the Tech Wrap-Up Europe newsletter.

Every fortnight, we'll be sharing interesting stories and expert insights from LinkedIn members.?

In this issue, Sam Shead looks at the tech jobs on the rise and speaks to the head of Samsung's mobile division in the UK.?

See the full rankings and weigh in: What trends do you think will shape the job market this year? #JobsontheRise

Demand for people who can make artificial intelligence software is surging as companies look to capitalise on the benefits that the technology can bring, according to LinkedIn data.?

LinkedIn's annual Jobs on the Rise report, which uses data to rank the fastest growing jobs over the past five years in countries around the world, found that there's an increasing appetite for AI experts across the continent.?

"Artificial intelligence engineer" is one of the 10 fastest growing jobs in the UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Türkiye, according to LinkedIn data.?

The role is the second fastest-growing in Italy, with a growth rate of over 60%, and the third fastest-growing in Switzerland, with a growth rate of over 35%. Google has been aggressively expanding an AI-focused research lab in the Swiss city of Zurich since 2017.?

Henry Ajder , who advises Meta and Adobe on certain areas of AI, told LinkedIn News that businesses are starting to realise that generative AI is likely going to be a critical part of both the future of work within organisations, as well as consumer/client-facing products and services.

"We’ve seen big tech companies pivoting their entire strategy to focus on generative AI, a new class of startups looking to build ‘the next ChatGPT’, and large corporations, particularly professional service providers, working to integrate the technology to boost their productivity and client offering," he said.?

It’s also worth noting that "AI research scientists" typically create the proprietary or novel models, whereas AI engineers are usually responsible for implementing models and ensuring the stages involved run smoothly, Ajder added.?

When it comes to the skills, many of these AI engineers tend to know their way around AI software libraries like Meta's PyTorch and Google's TensorFlow. They also have skills in subfields of AI like deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), computer vision and neural networks, as well as the ability to code with the Python programming language.?

"AI engineers are responsible for developing, training, and maintaining AI models," said Ajder. "This can include adapting/developing models for specific use cases, helping an organisation effectively embed an open source model, optimising existing data sets or data ingestion processes, and helping to fine-tune models to generate desired results."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top locations hiring AI engineers tend to be the big cities, with London, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Oxford and Newcastle upon Tyne having the most AI engineers in the UK.?

Several other AI-related roles can be found in the Jobs on the Rise rankings. In the Netherlands, for example, "machine learning engineer" is the seventh fastest-growing role with a growth rate of over 30%, while in London AI consultant roles are on the rise.?

"AI consultants are certainly riding the wave of AI excitement and businesses’ FOMO," said Ajder. "Many companies want to deploy AI but don’t know where to start or lack the process knowledge to do so effectively. They also may face challenges in understanding whether AI is actually mature enough to generate meaningful value or how to build a comprehensive strategy, from organising their data to managing the AI transition for employees and clients/customers with minimal disruption.

"@Accenture saw a boost from their generative AI work last year. The big three (@Bain, 波士顿谘询公司 , 麦肯锡 ) have all been pouring resources into positioning themselves as leaders in AI consulting. Like their clients, they see AI as fundamentally reshaping how businesses and society operate."

Europe is now home to a plethora of thriving AI companies, which employ significant numbers of AI engineers. The most notable example is arguably London-headquartered Google DeepMind , which has over 1,000 employees in King's Cross.?

Elsewhere in the UK there's startups like Stability AI , Wayve and Synthesia , while France is home to open source AI startup Mistral AI , and Germany has Aleph Alpha and Helsing .?

US tech giants including Meta and 亚马逊 also employ swarms of AI engineers across the continent but it's not just tech companies that want to hire AI engineers these days, smaller businesses in industries from finance to retail are trying to snap them up too.??

Unfortunately, demand is outstripping supply, so these AI gurus don't come cheap. The top AI engineers are able to command six and even seven figure salaries, according to The New York Times.?

One way to address the talent shortage is to get more women into AI as gender diversity in the industry is heavily skewed towards males. In the UK, for example, over 80% of AI engineers currently employed in the role are men, while less than 20% are female. Of those hired into the role in 2023, just over 10% were female.?

Beyond AI, there is also a huge need across Europe for skilled cyber security specialists who can protect corporate and government networks from hackers. As a result, several cyber security jobs are among the fastest-growing roles in almost every country LinkedIn looked at in Europe.?

In Spain, security operations centre analyst tops the list, with a growth rate of just under 70%, while Sweden's fastest-growing job is cyber security engineer, with a growth rate of nearly 80%.?

Other cyber roles on the rise across Europe include cyber security architect, cyber security specialist, chief information security officer, cyber security manager, information technology security analyst, cyber security analyst and chief information security analyst.?

Dr. Jacqui Taylor , a cybersecurity architect, told LinkedIn News that organisations can't afford to be complacent, adding that they need to have a response to monitor, assess, manage and mitigate the increased cyber risk they face.

"Cyber architects such as myself are designing deeptech as an answer to reducing the cyber risk organisations face," she said. "Cyber engineers are the key team members that implement the new cyber architecture we have designed."

Steve T. , a cyber security leader, told LinkedIn News that the rise in ransomware attacks and public data breaches is continuing to push cyber security up the agenda of executive committees and boards. "Nobody wants to be caught out," he said.?

Cyber security workers need both deep technical expertise and finely tuned soft skills, Townsley said.

"With the explosion in attacker techniques, we've seen an array of tools and technologies available to defenders," he said. "Each of these requires specific expertise to design, deploy, tune, and operate. Layer on this the ever increasing complexity of enterprise IT, organisational politics, and a lack of understanding of security risks, and you can see why security professionals need soft skills to navigate this, and to be successful."

While there has been a skills gap in cyber security for several years, lots of people are now getting qualified in security, according to Townsley.?

"I don't expect there to be a gap for entry level roles," he said. "However, for mid-senior level positions it can be really tough to find somebody with the right technical expertise. "

The World Economic Forum ranked cyber insecurity as the fourth biggest risk to the world in the next two years, ahead of interstate armed conflict, pollution and inflation.?

This year, hackers are set to target key pieces of national infrastructure across Europe including hospitals and power stations.?

The UK is at particularly high risk of being hit by a "catastrophic" ransomware attack due to a lack of investment, according to a parliamentary committee report published in December.?

The joint committee on the national security strategy warned that the UK could face a crippling cyber-attack on its critical national infrastructure (CNI), potentially bringing the nation to a grinding halt.

CNI assets are vital for the functioning of society and they include everything from energy and water supplies to transport, health and telecommunications. Attacks on CNI could pose "a threat to physical security or safety of human life", the report said.?

The NHS was highlighted as a particularly vulnerable target due to the health service's reliance on a "vast estate of legacy infrastructure".

三星电子 has been the world's biggest smartphone retailer for 12 years but the South Korean tech giant has lost its place at the top of the pedestal to Apple, according to figures released by 国际数据公司 this week. 苹果 shipped more than a fifth of the world's smartphones (over 234m devices) last year, while Samsung took 19.4% of the market. China's 小米科技 , OPPO and 传音控股集团 took the other spots in the top five.?

In an effort to buck the trend, Samsung unveiled the 2024 versions of its flagship Galaxy smartphone (the S24, the S24 Plus and the S24 Ultra) on Wednesday in San Francisco, while the company held a launch party in East London complete with a drone show. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a lot of chat about AI.?

The new S24 Android phones feature 高通 's latest Snapdragon chip, which can do certain AI tasks on the device instead of in the cloud. Live phone call translations, transcription of voice recordings, video search and photo editing can all be done on the devices thanks to AI software developed by Samsung and 谷歌 .

"S24 ushers in a new era for smartphones" James Kitto , Samsung's vice-president for the UK and Ireland and head of its mobile division, told LinkedIn News.?

"If you remember the smartphone in 2007, it totally changed how we live, work, play and socialise. We genuinely believe that putting mobile AI into devices can be quite a game changer, just like the smartphone was back in 2007."?

Asked if the new S24 phones, which start from ￡799, can help Samsung reclaim the top spot from Apple, Kitto said: "Of course."?

He added: "If you look at the IDC data, what it really tells us is the smartphone market is enormous … and the two driving forces they expect to see in 2024 and beyond … is foldable devices and AI. Samsung has been on the leading edge of both of those." Apple is yet to unveil a folding phone.?

While the smartphone market is indeed enormous as Kitto points out, it has been stagnating and the market suffered its worst year in a decade in 2023 as increasing numbers of consumers hold onto their handsets for longer instead of upgrading every year.?

"We want our phones to last a long time," he said. "It's really important and we have a very strong commitment to our sustainability goals."

"We want to make sure that if we give someone a great phone and they want to keep it for three years, four years, that's totally fine," he said.

Samsung is planning to support the S24 range with seven years of OS upgrades and seven years of security updates. "That's the longest that any manufacturer is offering," Kitto said.

What analysts are saying

CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood

"The Galaxy S24 series devices, together with Google’s Pixel range, mark the dawn of the consumerisation of AI in smartphones. This is a trend that will be echoed by all smartphone makers, including Apple, as they increasingly add a growing number of AI-powered capabilities to their new devices."?

Read Ben' full post here.?

PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore

"Samsung’s launch of its new Galaxy S24 lineup ushers in what will be a whole new super cycle era of AI-powered devices. In stark contrast to previous Samsung events, far more emphasis is being placed on the new AI-powered services provided by the latest version of Galaxy AI than on the phone’s hardware upgrades. This represents a pivotal moment for the industry and signposts a new era in the way smartphones (and consumer electronic devices) are positioned in the market."

Read Paolo's full post here.?

??AI to disrupt 40% of all jobs: IMF. The surge in AI applications and their implications for the workforce is expected to be a hot topic of discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.. Read what people are saying here.?

??Servers heating swimming pools. Swimming pools across the UK could soon be heated by data centres after a ￡200m investment by Octopus Energy into an environmental tech firm called Deep Green. Read what people are saying here.?

???Amazon unveils AI shopping assistant. Amazon has added an AI tool to its mobile app that can answer common product questions for customers. Read what people are saying here.?

??Game ditches pre-owned titles. Game, the high-street video game retailer, has announced the gradual discontinuation of trade-ins. Read what people are saying here.?

??PwC UK boss urges Gen-Z into the office. Kevin Ellis said young staff should go into the office more to get ahead in the era of AI, in which machines are set to take on relatively simple jobs normally given to younger workers. Read what people are saying here.?

James Kitto – James is a VP at Samsung in London and the head of the company's mobile division.?

Seren Y – Seren is a senior manager at Accenture focused on AI and data.

Theresa Hoffman – Theresa is a senior innovation and policy specialist at Microsoft.

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