The Fourth Industrial Revolution, we live in today, has disrupted nearly every industry across the world. Its ripple effects has widely been felt in our daily lives all the way to the global economy, and in the “work” too. For many professionals, work no longer means 9 to 6, commute to the office, or even a designated desk. Technology has allowed companies to offer remote and flexible work terms, including freelance. If you have a knack and expertise in the right areas, freelance works offer a varied opportunities while sharing your knowledge and skills with clients.

Freelance.com, a web-based sub-contracting company for freelance professionals, in its recently published Q2 2019 Fast 50 Report, highlights that jobs related to machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) have posted a spike in demand, and is further set to grow. The report evaluated more than 433,000 jobs posted on the site to analyse the latest trends in the job market and identify the skill sets that saw the biggest movement in demand. The job portal, which connects freelancers with clients, claims to have more than 34 million people from across 247 countries.

According to CEO of Freelancer(dot)com, Matt Barrie, there has been an enormous demand for any skill relating to AI and ML, and is growing continuously. “The second big trend is large companies moving towards a more agile, leaner workforce that addresses their immediate needs. This is evident in the number of administrative skills in this quarter’s Fast 50,” company’s statement cited Barrie.

The report has further highlighted the top 10 jobs that have shot up the scale this year namely, customer service, copy typing, bookkeeping, academic writing, data processing, react native, statistical analysis, machine learning, learning spanish, algorithm and virtual assistant. It has also added skills related to statistics and mathematics, along with mechanical engineering as top trending jobs. “Overall, there’s a heavy tech focus in this quarter’s Fast 50,” the report said.

Here’s a narrative of the trending jobs on Freelancer(dot)com during Q2 2019.

1/ Customer Service

Customer service was the big winner in this quarter’s Fast 50 report, with demand for the skill rising 54.78 per cent in Q2 2019 (from 1,913 to 2,961). Turning to freelancers for customer service allows companies to provide 24/7 support, with freelance customer service agents working across time zones and international boundaries.

2/ Copy Typing

The skill saw demand grow by 50 per cent in Q2 2019 (from 4,744 to 7,116). Copy Typists specialize in transferring handwritten notes into an editable format. Accuracy and speed are the key skills for copy typists.

3/ Bookkeeping

This administrative skill grew 49.19 per cent in Q2 2019 (from 1,047 to 1,562). The job portal maintains that organisations are seeing the value in focusing their efforts on high value tasks while turning to a distributed workforce to handle administrative tasks.

4/ Academic Writing

According to freelancer(dot)com, academic writing is the first outlier on this quarter’s Fast 50. The demand for such skills grew by 42.28 per cent in Q2 2019 (from 2,117 to 3,012).

5/ Data Processing

This skill saw a 38.65 per cent spike in demand (from 10,896 to 15,107). Data processing entails collecting data and translating it into useful information. It’s a task usually carried out by data scientists, and is a vital step in creating machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.

6/ React Native

According to a research firm, Statista, the market for mobile apps is set to grow to 258.2 billion by 2022. React native is a framework developed by Facebook for developing native mobile apps for Android or iOS. React Native skills rose by 37.95 per cent during Q2 2019 (from 1,162 to 1,603).

8/ Machine Learning

AI is being used for tasks as varied as identifying suicide risk to financial forecasting, writing car commercials, etc. According to Freelancer(dot) com, jobs involving ML saw a 36.66 per cent rise in demand (from 2,144 to 2,930).