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We’re always on the lookout for new and emerging trends in the jobs market and whether they could offer exciting opportunities for job hunters. The metaverse is a current buzzword and getting a lot of air time after Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, but does the metaverse offer a new sector for jobseekers?
We take a look at the number of metaverse job openings currently out there, as well as asking what the metaverse actually is. We also uncover which sectors are hiring for metaverse experts and we take a look at other trending tech roles.
What the heck is the metaverse?
You’ve likely heard the word ‘metaverse’ being bandied around recently, but what does it actually mean?
The term is fairly broad, referring to technologies related to virtual reality and augmented reality. The metaverse can also reference the digital economy where users can create, buy and sell goods in a connected online universe, for example buying a virtual item like a car in one virtual world and being able to use it on another virtual platform.
The biggest usage so far is within gaming, but other industries are also investing in this area such as property listing firm MoveStreets and entertainment companies like ITV’s Metavision Studios.
How many metaverse jobs are there?
January 2022 saw 250 advertised vacancies for metaverse positions, up from 116 in December, and 102 in November. The number of metaverse vacancies has grown fivefold in three months from just 47 jobs in October, the month in which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranded his company to ‘Meta’ and announced a $10bn project to build a parallel ‘metaverse’ universe.
Although the re-branding of Facebook to Meta has catalysed a rise in openings, the first metaverse posting was in June 2016, showing the concept has existed for several years albeit as a niche rather than mainstream term.
On a sector level, opportunities are currently clustered in IT, with the tech sector accounting for nearly two-thirds of all metaverse opportunities. PR, Advertising & Marketing, and Creative & Design are the next largest sectors hiring for metaverse experts.
Metaverse opportunities range from openings for UI and animation designers, to developers, UX designers, writers, and data scientists.
The trend is also evident in the US, which saw 1,892 metaverse jobs on offer in January 2022, up from 697 three months prior in October.
Trending tech roles: Crypto and cybersecurity
Two further areas have also seen rapid growth in job postings. The number of job vacancies mentioning the keyword ‘crypto’ has risen sharply, accounting for 1,520 advertised vacancies in January 2022, up from 1,175 in October and +465% higher compared to 269 a year ago. Similarly, there were 3,298 ‘cybersecurity’ vacancies in January 2022, up from 2,712 in October and +139% from 1,382 a year ago.
If you’re passionate about gaming or keen to work on the vanguard of tech, why not consider taking a metaverse job. Search our millions of job vacancies here.
Read more: 20 jobs you can do without a degree and how much they pay
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