JOBLIFT ANALYSES THE UK’S VOICE ASSISTANT JOB MARKET
London, 19th June 2018 – From mysterious laughter in the middle of the night, to recording and sending out users’ private conversations, voice assistants – such as Amazon’s Alexa – have been the subject of contentious debate in the United Kingdom recently. The use of voice-enabled smart devices has become an everyday part of life for huge numbers of UK consumers but concerns around privacy are ever-present. With this in mind, job search platform Joblift has analysed the voice assistant job market in the UK, looking into the top professions and most active employers, as well as noting the lack of emphasis given to security and privacy in job postings.
JOBS ASSOCIATED WITH VOICE ASSISTANTS INCREASE AT SIX TIMES THE RATE OF THE UK’S WHOLE JOB MARKET
According to the research, around 1,940 jobs directly associated with voice assistants have been posted in the UK in the last 24 months. These jobs have seen a huge yearly increase of 70% in the number of vacancies posted – to compare, the UK’s job market as a whole saw a yearly increase of 12%. Largely due to the highly-skilled nature of professions on offer, vacancies in this sector spent an average of 37 days online, six days longer than the 31 days in the whole job market.
PRIVACY IS NOT A PRIORITY: ONLY 1 IN EVERY 10 ADVERTISEMENTS MENTIONS SECURITY OR PRIVACY
Unsurprisingly, the most in-demand professions associated with voice assistants were software engineers (14% of all job advertisements) and data analysts (10%), with interns ranking as the third most requested job title with 2% of all postings. Calling back to the issues surrounding security and the privacy scares associated with voice assistants, the data shows that alarmingly only seven job vacancies stated the words ‘security’ or ‘privacy’ in their job titles, suggesting a low demand for security experts. Furthermore, just 234 job postings mentioned ‘security’ or ‘privacy’ anywhere in their job description. While responsibility for theses issue may lie within other departments, Joblift’s analysis shows just 12% of voice assistant job vacancies have acknowledged or are investing in staff to halt potential threats to personal privacy and security.
AMAZON LEADS THE LIST OF TOP EMPLOYERS, WITH ALEXA ALMOST TWICE AS POPULAR AS SIRI IN JOB ADS
Advertising 379 vacancies, Amazon was the top employer in the voice assistant sector in the last two years in the UK. Additionally, 762 job advertisements mentioned Amazon’s Alexa or Amazon Echo in their descriptions, suggesting that Alexa leads the way when it comes to the most popular voice assistants. Apple ranked as the second most active voice assistant employer, advertising 98 job vacancies over the past 24 months, with Apple’s Siri being mentioned in 389 postings, almost half as popular as Alexa. Interestingly, the BBC comes in third place, hiring 46 members of staff associated with voice assistants. Google then follows, with 41 vacancies advertised in the last two years – nine times less than Amazon. 207 job vacancies mentioned ‘Google Assistant’ or ‘Google Home’ in their job descriptions.
About Joblift
Joblift is a job search platform providing candidates with the most intuitive and frictionless experience during the recruiting process. Joblift applies latest machine learning techniques and big data-based algorithms to offer the optimal match between employer and job seeker. Currently active in the US, the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, Joblift cooperates with over 4.000 partners to incorporate over 10 million vacancies on its platform. Joblift is a highly energetic and entrepreneurial team led by the experienced founders Lukas Erlebach (CEO), Alexander Rausch (COO) and Malte Widenka (CTO), who most recently held C-Level positions at companies such as Zalando, Amorelie and Frontlineshop.