By analyzing the profiles of its roughly ten million Canadian users, the team at LinkedIn has created a report on the skills that got candidates snapped up the fastest last year. They also note the most active job markets in the country.

This is calculated by the number of people adding new jobs to their profiles by region and skillset. The ‘most active’ markets are those cities that saw the greatest percentage of users changed jobs in the past year. LinkedIn calculates the most desirable skills similarly by the proportion of users who have that skill and were hired for new jobs within the past 12 months. So based on these numbers, if you’re a mobile app developer in Calgary, your chances of landing a new gig seem pretty good.

The 10 skills that got Canadians hired fastest in 2014
(The percentage indicates the LinkedIn members with this skill who were hired for a new job last year.)

    1. Mobile application development (30.4%) [View jobs]
    2. Software revision control systems (27.2%) [View jobs]
    3. Social media marketing (27.1%) [View jobs]
    4. Economics (26.1%) [View jobs]
    5. Programming languages (Perl/Python/Ruby) (24.8%) [View jobs]
    6. Computer graphics and animation (23.7%) [View jobs]
    7. Software code debugging (23.6%) [View jobs]
    8. Data presentation (23%) [View jobs]
    9. Statistical analysis and data mining (22.7%) [View jobs]
    10. User interface design (22.5%) [View jobs]

10 most active job markets in Canada
(The percentage indicates the proportion of LinkedIn members who were hired for a new job in 2014.)

    1. Calgary (8.6%)
    2. Toronto (7.2%)
    3. Vancouver (7%)
    4. Halifax (7%)
    5. Kitchener (7%)
    6. Montreal (6.8%)
    7. Edmonton (6.7%)
    8. Ottawa (6.3%)
    9. London (5.4%)
    10. Winnipeg (4.9%)

These tend to be very white collar and technical and that likely reflects more on the demographics of LinkedIn’s user base than the overall Canadian job market.

We’ve seen several other studies recently that indicated a high demand for developers and web designers of all stripes. However research done based on online job posting and other sources combined show that many other vocations are sought after right now, such as registered nurses, truck drivers, cooks, and bilingual service providers. (Click on the job type to view available opportunities on Workopolis.)

Read the complete list of the most sought-after skills in Canada based on analysis of online job postings.

Also see:

Canada’s most in-demand jobs of 2014 – and the fastest declining occupations
The 10 hardest jobs for Canadian employers to fill in 2014

Source: LinkedIn Canada

Peter Harris
Peter Harris on Twitter

_______

Follow Workopolis