Top 40 most in-demand skill areas on Upwork

With the explosive growth in the business sector and with a new startup launching every other day, there isn’t actually any scarcity of employment opportunities for people, but only the confusion on where to find them. If you have been experiencing the dilemma of choosing which freelancing skill to venture in to get a good earning scope or if you are unable to find a freelancing job—then start with going through the in-demand opportunities on Upwork.

You can learn any of these skills online by enrolling in courses on UDEMY.COM and LYNDA.COM or learn for free on GOOGLE.COM and YOUTUBE.COM.

1. Proofreading & Editing Content: Editing is the process of identifying and correcting grammatical, spelling, paragraphing and punctuation errors in any piece of writing. It is followed by proofreading—which is the concluding stage of editing before you submit. The job requires a language proficient skill set that ensures that the edited work is well-written and ready to deliver to the readers.

2. Business Intelligence: Business Intelligence (BI) includes all plans, technologies, and strategies that are applied by companies with one goal to analyze data and available business information. As companies are busy cashing in the bulks of data they gather—the role of a business intelligence analyst is growing day after day, even on a freelance platform like Upwork, the business intelligence jobs are scaling immensely.

3. Graphics Designing & Brand Strategy: Branding today is all about attractive graphical representations. This craft involves brainstorming, story planning, and the creation of unique audio, visual, and textual graphics. These jobs require specific graphics designing software proficiency. If it is a well-defined plan and is critically devised in the long run—a brand strategy results in the successful development of the client’s brand and directs the company towards achieving all its set goals.

4. Software Development: Automation is the talk of the town these days—what else can relate to this than software development that has accomplished a niche in automating the world through its contribution to any known growing industry. With a strong command over languages like JavaScript, Python, Java, C++, PHP, Swift, C#, Ruby, SQL or others—you can now reach out to the required resource or employer for some interesting assignments and jobs.

5. Legal Writing: A practicing or non-practicing law candidate can utilize his or her skills by taking up such jobs on Upwork. The job involves analyzing company facts, drafting legal files, documents, and notices and handling all sorts of legal activities of an enterprise.

6. Search Engine Optimization: This involves the process of optimizing the backend and the front end of a website thoroughly to bring up to the mark—to rank it on the search engines. The process involves research, competitor analysis, manual link building, and many other steps to accomplish assignment milestones. It is mostly a long-term and ongoing job.

7. Email Marketing: Whether it is a customer service protocol, a monthly reminder to some kind of services, a sales pitch or an event invite, businesses around the world have come to realize the importance of email marketing. With growing competition in the market, email marketing platforms are gaining more audience and hence, employers are searching for people with the skill and experience of working with such platforms.

8. Digital Marketing: With more and more businesses turning to online exposure and representation—the level of competition is raised automatically. The job involves advertising the client’s product or service via digital channels like search engines, social media, email, mobile application platforms, and websites.

9. Project Management: Upwork being one of the reliable choices of employers belonging to diverse fields and demanding variable support—offers project managers virtually and locally to assist in business management. It requires the applicant to be strongly skilled in business management and operations as well as having good experience in leading teams and carrying out full-scale services end to end for a business. So, if you have been working on end-to-end project delivery assignments, management of resources, tasks, timelines, and milestones then this post would be the perfect job to apply for.

10. Content Writing: This is the work ideal for individuals who love to work on creative out of box assignments. It refers to the brainstorming, planning, creation, development, management, and timely delivery of written, printed, visual, or audio content. The goal is always to engage and increase the audience on the targeted platforms.

11. Web Designing & Development: A website involves a lot of work from the backend to give that ultimate look and user experience that makes one impressed. The job of a web designer is to bring together the ideal colour schemes to match the niche market—to plan the layout and inner templates of a website in an artistically impressive way. Then comes the task of web development where these graphical illustrations are actually incorporated into the responsive templates. These jobs require exclusive designing and web language development skill proficiency.

12. Game Development: This industry has seen explosive growth in recent years and game developers are in high demand considering all these facts and many startup ventures are getting invested into by businessmen who realize the growth of this game development industry. In order to be hired for the jobs being posted for this niche—one has to have core knowledge and expertise in game development. Hence, the jobs for game developers are all found to be high-end paid jobs—a perfect opportunity to earn for your skill and retain associations for longer terms with gaming business clients.

13. Mobile App Development: This skill can be regarded as one of the fascinating branches of work in Information & Technology—that is creative yet provides an entrepreneurial opportunity for programmers. This job also required the applicant to stay in touch with the employer for periodical updates, optimization needs, and troubleshooting. Upwork employers do not hesitate to pay a hefty amount to the right candidate.

14. Virtual Assistant: The job is a requirement for a remotely located helper who aids businesses with administrative responsibilities like replying to emails, fixing appointments, obtaining a large clientele, etc. The ideal candidate is required to have strong internet connectivity and a prompt attitude with a good follow-up temperament.

15. Voice Over: A production technique where the voice of a random individual—who reads from a script, is used over the radio, television, movie, theatre or stage presentation. This job requires a strong attractive voice—for which the initial interviews or demo are conducted through the platform.

16. Product Listing: With the boom in the e-commerce industry, product positioning has gained a lot of attention from the investors. E-stores today, demand that their online existence should be with the right branding, interactive imagery & integrated marketing mix. The applicant is required to have trendy creativeness in writing descriptions, integrating the right keyword towards search optimization, and most of all—the ability to assign catchy phrases to the product pitch for increased sales.

17. Audio/Video Editing: If you keep an exceptional aesthetic sense and know how to play around with audio clips and video shots to compile something new and amazing—this is your cup of tea! A few extra talents like text titling, colour modifications, sound titling, sound mixing, etc., can be handy too.

18. Customer Service: Being a critical part of every business, the skill of customer service is one of the most sought after jobs on Upwork. Mastering the art of promptness, politeness, professionalism, and personalization can take you to the pinnacles of customer service. Modern marketing is all about delivering the ultimate goal through a customer-centric perspective that makes customer services a significant job on Upwork. Customer-centric services are highly appreciated globally and are acquired to build up a strong base to help a business grow.

19. Video Animation: Static imagery or graphics is a thing of the past and can never define things as best as animation can. Video animation experts on Upwork offer creation of 2D animation, character movies, business portfolios, logos, GIFs and what not, at a competitive price as compared to the open market. Hiring companies look for strong experiences and high-level expertise in the profiles as they choose their ideal applicant for the job. These are also high-end paid jobs on Upwork.

20. Architectural & Interior Designing: One can use their artistic/drawing/designing skills by creating exclusive construction and building sketches and layouts. If your work is practical and appreciated, you may even see a life-size iconic structure it executed somewhere across the world. One of the most highly paid jobs on Upwork is this one.

21. Digital Photography & Image Processing: Digital Photography requires light to capture, expose, and save images electronically on an image sensor. The job mostly involves product shoots as well as other types of photographic and then photo editing services for businesses. Image Processing is a type of transformation in which the input is an image and the output could be an image or essentials of that image. The job requires proficiency in using software that focuses on pattern recognition and extracts information, enhances the visuals and essences vital information.

22. Social Media Management: This job is mostly paid hourly on the platform. The job requirement is to have the ability to monitor, update design, and curate content to attract the audience as well as participating in social conversations across popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

23. Transcription: If you possess the ability to record audios into text accurately and at a fast pace then this is the job type for you. Usually, this interesting activity revolves around listening to an audio or video clip and typing out everything you hear, word for word! It requires having a basic knowledge of the audio niche topic to understand and write the terms being mentioned in the audio or video.

24. Lead Generation & Prospecting: Be it any type of a business, this is the core focus as the target for higher profitability and growth is being sought. It involves the cognitive approach of evaluation of existing customer base, generating the prospective profiles, and escalating the estimations to devise efficient marketing mixes and sales growth is the fundamentals of era’s marketers. Upwork jobs about this sector of work are usually paid on an hourly and freelancers can make good earnings through these projects as they carry on for a longer period of time.

25. Translation & Subtitling: The process of interpreting from one language to another or rewording for a clearer understanding through written, spoken, and visual content is what translation services are all about. This job comes with the requirement of knowledge of the industry in which the document relates. Subtitling is all about the art of translating audio-visuals into written text to enable audiences of different backgrounds to understand what is being displayed and said. It requires the ability to create content, and incorporate it accurately into the video.

26. Data Entry: While a full-time job may be keeping you occupied, earning a few bucks on the side is never too much of work. Upwork offers a sound arena for those wanting to earn some extra bucks in that free space by converting those PDFs, audios and handwritten files into a smart word or desired formats. Employers who want to save time in trying out those converters that messes up the formatting hire such freelancers as and when required.

27. Quantity Surveying: The construction industry is one of the most thriving industries in the world that has managed to sustain through fluctuating times across decades. This has lead Upwork into becoming a platform that holds immense scope for expert applicants in the fields of quantity survey, construction costing, professional contract building and many other foci as required by the industry players. An applicant to the job about quantity surveying should have expert knowledge about cost consulting, estimations & planning as well as strong abilities to cater to the risk management and calculation and analysis to commercial management tasks. Quantity Surveying is usually end-to-end, high-cost project management and eventual solution for construction need at Upwork.

28. Video Advertising: With the growing emphasis on the visual representation of businesses, there is an increasing demand for hiring teams for creating a strategy, budget, and campaign goals for video advertising. This eye-catching marketing gimmick increases the client’s company engagement with the target audience through its high definition of visual and sound impacts.

29. Accounting & Bookkeeping: Finance enthusiasts know that accounting deals with the in-depth analysis of financial data in terms of understanding, classifying, generating reports, and summarizing. An accounting specific background experience is usually the job requirement.

30. Marketing & Business Consulting: This job requires the strong capability of a candidate to advise clients on managing, strategizing, creating and implementing better production processes, adopting the latest technologies, smart HR, marketing and overall enhancement of their business or organization. The jobs can be short-term as well as long-term both depending on the service nature.

31. Cybersecurity: Cybersecurity is the process of recovering and protecting many devices, networks, and applications from all sorts of cyber-attacks. It is the blend of diverse technologies, methods, and controls with one objective i.e., to prevent systems, devices, and networks from cyber-attacks. As technology is evolving so are cyber-attacks! Since cybersecurity experts protect businesses databases, websites, and devices from present and existing malicious break-ins, there are many software businesses across the globe searching for cybersecurity professionals on Upwork, making it an in-demand job for the freelancers.

32. Data Analysis: Businesses track their progress and strategize after going through the process of data analysis. The applicant for such open jobs is required to be able to derive conclusions to a survey, conduct market research and segmentation, and most of all, deliver business planning that can benefit businesses immensely. Companies that hire through Upwork usually state a detailed requirement for the post that usually has a lot to do with the historical & collected trajectory.

33. Product Sourcing: Product sourcing is a method used by manufacturers and companies to supplement the outreach and sales of their products. The wide world of product sourcing may contain trading companies, third party sourcing, importers, brokers, and dropshippers. With the increase in trade practice of increasing subdivision, selling the skillset required to bridge sourcing steps through personalized negotiation that can save you costs and management time is in high demand from employers on Upwork looking for their product sourcing solutions.

34. UI / UX Design: In the world of graphics and designs where the FMOT (First Movement of Truth) is mostly generated through the cosmetics and outlook of any products. UI also referred to as User Interface OR the outlook and appearance of any product is a highly demanded skill on Upwork. Following which UX Designing OR User Experience Designing steers the SMOT (Second Movement of Truth), user-friendliness which results in reselling, repeat purchase and overall success of any product. Adjoining the skillset required for UI / UX Designing can make you earn those big bucks on Upwork.

35. Database Administration: Database administration is one of that expertise, that are timeless, and always in demand in the market. This job is about ensuring the handiness of data security, monitoring, troubleshooting and utilizing the available crunched version for ultimate growth, forecasting, and planning. With a strong command over Database Administration Tools like SQL, Oracle Database, DB2 or others—you can now reach out to the required resource or employer for some interesting assignments and jobs.

36. Geospatial Technology: The importance of experts in this field is gaining attention due to the increase in business awareness about utilizing specific software to capture significant consumer information through geographical mapping. These spatial analysis techniques involve engaging software proficient in rendering maps that assist in processing spatial data with the application of analytics through databases and information. Obtaining expertise in those mapping and visualization techniques of geospatial data is bound to provide interminable opportunities to the jobseekers at Upwork.

37. Cloud Computing: Cloud Computing is accomplishing intangibility with the right mix of hardware and software to deliver a service typically over the internet. Data storage and recording evolution from traditional paper jobs did not stop with shrinking that all into those e-books you carry but it is now intangibly available over the web at all times, easily accessible from anywhere. The relief in data storage and processing power without direct active management by the user has made cloud computing an in-demand requirement from employers on Upwork.

38. AI & Machine Learning: In the era of machines, Artificial Intelligence-driven systems are seen everywhere, equipped to perform reasoning and tasks as efficiently as human beings would. So, if mathematics, algorithms, probability, statistics back by programming languages like Java, Python and Unix Tools are your inspirations and skills, Upwork has a lot of creative and mind-boggling jobs for you.

39. CAD & 3D Modeling: Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology is used in enhancing the realization, alteration, and optimization of a design. It increases the productivity of an artist and the aesthetics of a design. 3D Modeling is a representation of any surface or object in “3 Dimensional” ways. It helps you visualize any object before it exists and take due curative measures in line with desired aesthetics. Skills in using software like AutoCAD, Maya, Mudbox, and 3Ds Max, etc., for desired CAD and 3D Modeling is in high demand on Upwork.

40. Data Science: Data Science is the art of turning data into words that corresponds and helps you plan ahead. A process of using scientific methods, formulas, and algorithms to organize unsorted primary and secondary data and devise results to achieve objectives and plans. Blend of technical and analytical expertise and ability to use research and data filtering tools and techniques effectively for deriving key business and research decisions—makes data science one of the most sought after jobs on Upwork!

There is always room at the apex of the pyramid of success. Master as many of the discussed skills to your liking and aptitude—buck up your confidence with that go-getter attitude and you're all set to conquer the immense universe of Upwork!