High-tech jobs market across NC is red hot – here are most needed skills

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – From early-stage startups to multinational corporations, Triangle-based employers are hiring at a hot pace, according to sites and data reviewed for WRAL TechWire’s exclusive Jobs Report that is posted each Monday.

As we reported Friday’ North Carolina’s unemployment rate continues to drop.

And here are the 10 hottest occupations for jobs, according to the IT Job Trends report from the NC TECH Association:

TOP 10 Occupations

Occupations Feb ‘21, difference from Feb ‘20

Software Developers: 10,283 +32.0%
Computer Systems Engineers/Architects: 3,235 +37.8%
Information Technology Project Managers: 3,196 +18.2%
Network + Computer Systems Administrators: 3,026 -8.1%
Computer Systems Analysts: 2,794 -0.9%
Computer User Support Specialists: 2,323 -23.1%
Information Security Analysts: 2,229 -6.6%
Computer + Information Systems Managers: 2,084 +21.5%
Web Developers: 1,398 -14.1%
Software Quality Assurance Engineers: 1,041 -11.6%
TOTALS Including All Others: 33,530 +7.5%

Additionally, here are the most needed skills:

TOP 10 Hard Skills/ Certifications Skill Feb ‘21

Analysis 16,292
Innovation 15,149
Testing 11,313
Agile 10,797
Operations 10,526
Databases 10,517
Implementing 10,159
Automation 9,040
Configuring 8,931
Software Development 8,810

Last week’s report covered how the Triangle accounts for over 40,000 open positions on national job search sites, in addition to thousands of openings from local job boards.

North Carolina ranks No. 3 in lowering jobless claims; unemployment rate drops again

The latest IT Job Trends report validates this momentum as it applies to high-tech IT jobs. Over 33,500 IT job openings were posted across North Carolina in February, up from 31,522 listings in January and marking a 50% increase from last May at the lowest point in the pandemic. The Raleigh-Cary metro recorded 12,234 IT job postings last month, leading other areas across the state.

High-tech job openings in NC soar above 33,000 – Raleigh demand surges 36.5%

The top hirers last month were Oracle, IBM, IQVIA, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Red Hat, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SYSTEL and HCL Technologies, per NC TECH data.

Overall, North Carolina’s unemployment rate currently sits at 5.7% as of February 2021. This figure represents only a small drop since January, but it’s still 2.1% higher than February 2020. Still, WalletHub recently reported that North Carolina ranks third in lowering unemployment claims over the last year.

North Carolina ranks No. 3 in lowering jobless claims; unemployment rate drops again

WRAL TechWire’s weekly jobs column keeps readers posted on local job and internship opportunities. Every Monday, we round up the latest information from the region’s top job boards, offering a breakdown of how many jobs are posted, which companies are hiring and for what positions. We’ve also included upcoming job fairs, student-centric resources and a list of Twitter accounts that track local job openings.

Let’s highlight what’s new on local job boards since last week’s roundup:

National Job Boards

National job boards show thousands of opportunities in the Triangle:

Dice.com (5-mile radius filter): 10,211 jobs in Raleigh, 9,994 jobs in Durham and 9,788 jobs in Chapel Hill
Glassdoor: 41,980 jobs in the Triangle
Indeed (using the “exact location” filter): 14,548 jobs in Raleigh, 7,531 in Durham and 2,450 in Chapel Hill
LinkedIn: 40,830 in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, including 18,070 jobs in Raleigh, 8,456 in Durham, 1,835 in Chapel Hill
Manpower: 8 jobs in Raleigh and 4 jobs in Durham and Chapel Hill
ZipRecruiter: 24,827 jobs in Raleigh, 12,050 in Durham and 3, 608 in Chapel Hill

Startup Job Search Sites

Aside from the boards above, job seekers can also find local startup jobs at SimplyHired (268 jobs are available near Research Triangle Park), LinkedIn (1,172 results in and around Raleigh), Indeed (281 startup jobs in/near RTP), and AngelList (job openings in Raleigh, Durham and across North Carolina).

AMA Triangle

AMA Triangle, the fifth-largest chapter in American Marketing Association’s nationwide network, aims to be a go-to resource for all things marketing in the Triangle—serving more than 470 members. AMA Triangle provides professional training, free career webinars and a job board offering free resume placement for marketing professionals. Every month, it hosts a free “Transitions Mastermind” program for job seekers and those seeking advice on career improvement.

NEW JOBS:

AMA Triangle’s job board currently features 71 marketing jobs within a 25-mile radius of Raleigh, 35 results within a 25-mile radius of Durham, and 22 results within a 25-mile radius of Chapel Hill.

Here are the local positions that were added to the site over the last week:

Bandwidth is hiring a VP of revenue marketing and a paid search manager in Raleigh.
In Cary, Verizon is hiring a field marketing manager for manufacturing, energy and utilities.
PPD is hiring a senior marketing operations manager in Morrisville.

American Underground

Durham-based startup hub American Underground regularly posts job openings on its job board. Job seekers can filter their search by skills, position level (c-suite, co-founder, entry-level, mid-level or senior-level), job type (full-time, part-time or intern), job classification (1099 or W2), and work location (on-site, flexible or remote).

NEW JOBS:

Three new jobs were added to AU’s job board since last week’s jobs report:

Durham-based digital storytelling startup Looma is looking to add a story success manager to its team.
Policygenius, a New York-based insurtech startup that established a second headquarters in Durham last year, is currently hiring an HR business partner and a revenue associate.

Here’s a recap of other listings posted in March so far:

Kinston-based private jet company FlyExclusive is hiring a development lead to build a dev group in Durham.
Digital advertising startup Adwerx is hiring a strategic account manager in Durham.

American Underground-based CureMint, a startup with a procurement software platform for dental organizations, is also looking to add new talent to its team. It has openings for several positions (read more and apply here):

Senior software engineer
Mid-level software engineer
Senior product manager
Business development representative
Sales development representative
Marketing specialist

Bio Jobs Hub

WRAL TechWire and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center recently launched a Bio Jobs Hub platform focused on biopharma manufacturing—one of North Carolina’s largest industries, employing over 26,000 people. Typical biopharma jobs include process technicians, maintenance and/or instrumentation technicians, quality assurance and quality control associates, process development scientists and process engineers. This industry also offers competitive entry-level salaries, from $42,000 to $60,000.

Scientists, skilled laborers and recent graduates can use the Bio Jobs Hub resource to find career and training opportunities in their area. Users can search by location, job category/activity and region.

NC’s 3 ‘Engines of Innovation’ – talent, investment, expansion – driving life science industry’s boom

Considering a life science career? Clinical research organizations offer thousands of opportunities across NC

NEW JOBS:

Dozens of biopharma companies are hiring in the Triangle, including large employers like Biogen in Research Triangle Park, bioMérieux in Durham, GSK in Zebulon, Merck & Co. in Durham, Novo Nordisk in Durham and Clayton, Pfizer in Sanford, and many more.

NCBiotech

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s extensive jobs board lists open jobs and internships from local life science companies and research organizations. Users can filter by job category, employment type (full-time, part-time and contractor), keywords, postal code and radius.

NEW JOBS:

Over the past week (since March 22), 30 new jobs were added to NCBiotech’s board, including:

Senior mass spectrometry scientist, lead discovery director, RNA biology director and senior sample management scientist at Ribometrix in Durham
Frankel Staffing Partners is looking for an experienced biostatistician for its client, a North Carolina-based biopharmaceutical firm
CMC regulatory manager, raw materials quality control specialist and bioassay QC specialist at Cellectis in Raleigh
Senior chemist at Alcami in Morrisville
Account director at Antenna Group (remote)
Summer marketing intern at Naternal in Morrisville
Advanced Recruiting Partners is looking for a clinical trial registry and results disclosure lead in Durham, a MDR sterility assurance/biocompatibility administrator in Morrisville and a project specialist in Raleigh
Entry-level chemist or biochemist for MedKoo Biosciences in Morrisville
Morrisville-based senior automation engineer at FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies (which recently announced a new drug manufacturing facility in Holly Springs)
Research technician and scientific program manager at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute in Durham
Senior quality specialist and associate scientist at Alcami in Morrisville and Durham
Postdoctoral fellow at UNC Chapel Hill
Nucleic acids R&D program director and reagent discovery program director at Isolere Bio in Durham
Communications assistant at Galaxy Diagnostics in RTP
Protein production specialist, molecular biologist/biochemist, and technical sales and support scientist at EpiCypher in Durham

NC TECH

The North Carolina Technology Association (NC TECH) has an interactive job board you can use to find your next career opportunity. Users can search by keyword, location, category, type (contract, full-time, part-time or temp to full-time), experience and education level.

NEW JOBS:

Two new jobs were added to NC TECH’s job board since last week’s roundup: Mid-senior cyber security engineer and mid-senior full stack developer at Stern Security in Raleigh.

Here’s a recap of what’s been posted over the past month:

SAP SuccessFactors business analyst at Retail Business Services in North Carolina
Durham-based financial systems administrator at solar energy firm Cypress Creek Renewables
.NET application developer at Western Carolina University, with a remote work option available (For the telework option, candidates must be located within an eight-hour drive of WCU’s campus in Cullowhee.)
Associate account manager at publishing software provider BlueMatrix
Several tech positions at Deutsche Bank’s office in Cary
Project engineer at RTP-based supply chain software provider Optricity Corporation

NCWorks

NCWorks is a statewide job search portal run by the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which has nearly 100 career centers located across the state. Users can filter NCWorks’ database by keyword, location, occupation group or specific occupations, minimum acceptable salary, education level, job sources and date posted. NCWorks also has a mobile app on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The site’s COVID-19 job board lists companies hiring to fill immediate technical and healthcare needs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

North Carolina military veterans, transitioning service members and spouses can find additional resources on NCWorks’ separate veterans portal.

NEW JOBS:

NCWorks reports thousands of available positions. More than 4,000 people added or updated their resumes at the site in the past week.

Wake County-based employers with the most job openings include:

Wake County Public School System (840 jobs)
NC State University (534)
WakeMed Health and Hospitals (522)
Pharmaceutical Research Associates International (500)
UNC Health Care System (432)
UNC Rockingham Health Care (431)
Lenovo (332)
INC Research (226)
Credit Suisse (216)
Gilead Sciences (167)
Allscripts (147)
Food Lion (137)
CVS Health (136)
PRA Health Sciences (128)
Harris Teeter (126)
Wells Fargo (126)
City of Raleigh (123)
Advance Auto Parts (122)
IQVIA (118)
Duke University Health System (111)
SAS Institute (108)
McDonald’s Corporation (105)
Lowes Foods (101)

Raleigh Founded

Raleigh Founded, a startup incubator and coworking space, launched a jobs board and research page in January. You can filter your search by company, company size and industry.

NEW JOBS:

Raleigh Founded’s job board currently lists 154 positions at 25 companies (as of March 28). Here’s what’s new since last week:

Raleigh startup Pendo posted several jobs, including customer success business analyst, two Salesforce developers, security compliance engineer, enterprise customer success manager and commercial customer success manager.
Veeva Systems, a cloud software company, posted two Raleigh-based jobs: Clinical data scientist and senior clinical process development consultant.
Pivotal IT services posted a listing for a remote business analyst.
REVGEN, a business consulting firm, is hiring a sales development representative in North Carolina (with a remote option).
PublicInput.com, a community engagement platform for government agencies, is hiring a sales development representative in Raleigh (with a remote option).

Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster

This isn’t a job board per se, but the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster’s list of job search sources is a helpful resource for job seekers in the clean energy sector. The list has links to career opportunities from the organization’s members and partners.

Work in the Triangle

Work in the Triangle, a Wake County Economic Development program, shares new openings daily through its Twitter feed, @WorkTriangleNC.

NEW JOBS:

The organization runs a weekly #TriangleTuesdays Hot Jobs alert. Last week’s posts featured jobs from Biocair, Seqirus, UNC Health, the City of Raleigh and Wake County, PNC Bank, Duke Raleigh Hospital, Wells Fargo, BB&T, Lenovo, MetLife, SAS, First Carolina Bank, Martin Marietta, NC State University, Red Hat, Wake Med, Blue Cross NC, Coastal Credit Union, Fifth Third Bank, First National Bank, KPMG, RTI International and CreditSuisse. Find more by scrolling through the #TriangleTuesdays hashtag on Twitter.

Upcoming Job Fairs

Wake Tech Virtual Business & IT Career Fair: March 31, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. (online)

This virtual career fair will connect Wake Tech students with local companies hiring business and information technology professionals. NOTE: This event is specifically for Wake Tech associates and college transfer students/alumni pursuing business and IT careers.

NC TECH’s Virtual Tech Job Expo: April 21, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (online)

At NC TECH’s virtual Tech Job Expo, employers can connect and network with professionals seeking jobs and internships in tech. Tickets are free for candidates and job seekers. A live web briefing will be held on April 6 covering the virtual event platform.

Job Resources for Local Students

If you’re a student looking for an internship or entry-level position at a local company or organization, your university has resources to help you get started. Quick links below: