Ever since we launched the Hottest/Coldest Tech Skills interactive, we’ve received a number of requests to visualize how the “heat” of various skills has changed over time. While calculating this new aspect is pretty straightforward, thanks to our rich record of data trends, representing it in an accurate way required more thought. Specifically, integrating a “trending” visualization for all selected skills quickly resulted in a “spaghetti bowl” of trend lines. In order to add more visual clarity, we took a similar approach to trends as we did with skill labels, clearing out the oldest visualizations as the users added more. We also applied these trending lines to the most “interesting” skills, first. We defined “interesting” as the lines with the most change, either heating or cooling. We could apply these measures globally, to define groups of “most heated” and “most cooled” skills overall. Which skills are heating up the most? The Internet of Things (IoT) and cryptography are on this list, along with 3D modeling tech (such as CAD, OpenGL, and SolidWorks) and cloud data platforms (i.e., Docker, Ansible, and Apache Spark). Meanwhile, generic office skills (audio-conferencing and the like) and accounting skills seem to be cooling off, possibly because of automation. The visualization determines a skill’s “temperature” by analyzing supply and demand. “Supply” is the proportion of job seekers on Dice with a particular skill; meanwhile, “demand” is the proportion of jobs that list that skill. Dice’s data team has normalized those values so that they sit on the same range; by dividing the demand value by the supply for a particular skill, we get a number that indicates how in-demand (or “hot”) a particular skill is. The optional “bee swarm” plot (more about bee swarm) arranges all skill data-points along a single “heat” axis. This lets you quickly discover the hottest and coldest skills. You can also split individual skills into their demand and supply parts. Check it out!
Ever since we launched the Hottest/Coldest Tech Skills interactive, we’ve received a number of requests to visualize how the “heat” of various skills has changed over time. While calculating this new aspect is pretty straightforward, thanks to our rich record of data trends, representing it in an accurate way required more thought. Specifically, integrating a “trending” visualization for all selected skills quickly resulted in a “spaghetti bowl” of trend lines. In order to add more visual clarity, we took a similar approach to trends as we did with skill labels, clearing out the oldest visualizations as the users added more. We also applied these trending lines to the most “interesting” skills, first. We defined “interesting” as the lines with the most change, either heating or cooling. We could apply these measures globally, to define groups of “most heated” and “most cooled” skills overall. Which skills are heating up the most? The Internet of Things (IoT) and cryptography are on this list, along with 3D modeling tech (such as CAD, OpenGL, and SolidWorks) and cloud data platforms (i.e., Docker, Ansible, and Apache Spark). Meanwhile, generic office skills (audio-conferencing and the like) and accounting skills seem to be cooling off, possibly because of automation. The visualization determines a skill’s “temperature” by analyzing supply and demand. “Supply” is the proportion of job seekers on Dice with a particular skill; meanwhile, “demand” is the proportion of jobs that list that skill. Dice’s data team has normalized those values so that they sit on the same range; by dividing the demand value by the supply for a particular skill, we get a number that indicates how in-demand (or “hot”) a particular skill is. The optional “bee swarm” plot (more about bee swarm) arranges all skill data-points along a single “heat” axis. This lets you quickly discover the hottest and coldest skills. You can also split individual skills into their demand and supply parts. Check it out!
Click here to see this visualization in full-screen mode. Last year, Dice launched an interactive visualization, created by Simon Hughes, that broke down supply and demand for various tech roles. In this contex…
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Ever since we launched the Hottest/Coldest Tech Skills interactive, we’ve received a number of requests to visualize how the “heat” of various skills has changed over time. While calculating this new aspect is pretty straightforward, thanks to our rich record of data trends, representing it in an accurate way required more thought. Specifically, integrating a “trending” visualization for all selected skills quickly resulted in a “spaghetti bowl” of trend lines. In order to add more visual clarity, we took a similar approach to trends as we did with skill labels, clearing out the oldest visualizations as the users added more. We also applied these trending lines to the most “interesting” skills, first. We defined “interesting” as the lines with the most change, either heating or cooling. We could apply these measures globally, to define groups of “most heated” and “most cooled” skills overall. Which skills are heating up the most? The Internet of Things (IoT) and cryptography are on this list, along with 3D modeling tech (such as CAD, OpenGL, and SolidWorks) and cloud data platforms (i.e., Docker, Ansible, and Apache Spark). Meanwhile, generic office skills (audio-conferencing and the like) and accounting skills seem to be cooling off, possibly because of automation. The visualization determines a skill’s “temperature” by analyzing supply and demand. “Supply” is the proportion of job seekers on Dice with a particular skill; meanwhile, “demand” is the proportion of jobs that list that skill. Dice’s data team has normalized those values so that they sit on the same range; by dividing the demand value by the supply for a particular skill, we get a number that indicates how in-demand (or “hot”) a particular skill is. The optional “bee swarm” plot (more about bee swarm) arranges all skill data-points along a single “heat” axis. This lets you quickly discover the hottest and coldest skills. You can also split individual skills into their demand and supply parts. Check it out! 
