Why You Should Be Building Technology Skills

Your early twenties are for building skills. 🏗

This is simply because when you’re young, you don’t much to live on (no kids, no mortgage, etc). So instead of focusing on making money, you want to be building skills, figuring out what you’re good at and what you like so that then you can make big bucks doing the right skills. This is why people say ‘The best investment you can make is yourself’.

Now, of all these amazing skills you build, it’s important to include tech. By tech (so technology), we’re talking about IT skills and practical work online. This can range from programming to digital marketing.

Here’s why tech skills are the bomb: 💣

 

1. The use of technology will only increase ↗

The future is technology. There’s only going to be more of it. After attending the Mobile World Congress and seeing robots playing pianos, holograms of people playing in a band and some crazy VR and AR products, my case stands even more.

Future employers will want people with tech skills. People who can adapt to the rapid development of technology and who knows how to use or market a product well. In 2014 a study said that more than 50% of employers required tech skills from their employees. And that was 2014 – imagine now!

As our world becomes more and more digitalised, it’s good to keep up, adapt, and make sure you’re never in position where a robot makes you redundant. 🤖

 

2. You’ll need tech to build a business

If your plan is to start a business in the future, you’ll most definitely need to know how technology works and some tech building skills. Even if you’re a florist, you’ll need a website. And you’ll need to communicate effectively with your programmer so they build a website exactly how you want.

And if you want to build a great business, you’ll hire people who are smart and highly skilled. But you’ll still need to understand what they’re doing and how, so you can manage effectively and build something successful. How can you dream of building a food delivery drone if you know nothing about coding? Or a SaaS software? Or even an app? You don’t need to become an expert, but do learn enough to communicate. 

 

3. You’ll be able to make money flexibly

Here at Financially Mint I encourage building skills that allow you to make money online. This is simply because it gives a huge amount of flexibility and freedom without much experience. These are some examples:

1. Translation
2. Teaching
3. Programming
4. Digital Marketing
5. Design
6. Writing

Since they all involve a computer and working with clients online, I consider them tech skills or related to tech skills. And if you pick two of those skills and get really good at them, making money gets a bit easier. With those skills you can start an online business, become a freelancer and even add them to your CV for potential employers.

By learning these tech skills you’ll have the flexibility of working from home and online. This can be huge for students who don’t have much time, or anyone who wishes to work remotely. And if you’re studying a specific tech skill at uni (such as engineering, computer science, etc), then regard these other skills as diversification and skill exploring.

 

So which technology skills should I be building?

In general, there are 4 ways that you can learn tech skills:

1. At university (studying computer science, etc)
2. Self education (free programming school, blogs, books)
3. Practising online (working for clients, etc)
4. Through a job/internship

As you can see, the different tech skills that you want to be developing really depends on where you’re starting from and what you personally feel more comfortable doing. If you’re 20 and still at university or at an internship (#me), it’s unlikely you’ll know much about project management, big data analysis or quantitative reporting. For this reason, those 6 tech skills mentioned before are great for people who don’t know where to start and have little experience.

Because the truth is, most of the useful tech skills you’ll learn them at a job, or maybe on a very specific course. If you already have some experience and skills, continue exploring so you can figure out which skill you want to be putting more focus on.

Here are some examples of technology skills on demand in the workplace (researched):

1. Programming
2. Analysis of Big Data and BI
3. Information Security
4. Project Management
5. Marketing
6. Design
7. Writing

And there are tons of resources out there to teach you skills online – and many times for free. Treehouse and Codecademy are great online programming schools. Coursera and Udemy have courses on anything you can imagine. The Open University will get you a full bachelors degree and Youtube will teach you about marketing.

So if you want to work in the next 10 years, build a business or make money flexibly, building tech skills are the way to go. And while you’re at it, you may find a specific skill that you’re good at and that you enjoy doing – that’s a career path right there! As long as you diversify your skills and learn how to adapt, you won’t be replaced by robots. 🤖

Which tech skill are you interested in building? 🤔