It is a fact, with the varying circumstances in the society, that one must have a digital skill. This can be attributed to a number of factors like the growing number of digital companies which require different expertise; and these are not taught in any of the tertiary institutions. Consequently, there are many lucrative digital skills to learn in Nigeria 2024. Recently, job listings requiring digital skills nearly outnumber those requesting university degrees. In fact, 92% of jobs now require digital skills.
Importantly, some of the problems people face while trying to transition or choose a career in tech is the choice of what to learn and how to prosper. On a daily basis, we come across relatively new digital skills which are advertised by different learning platforms. Many learners get distracted by the juicy description of some of these skills without researching extensively on what they entail and whether they are lucrative or not. This article shall therefore dive into the subject and highlight the most lucrative digital skills in Nigeria in 2024. These skills can be learned easily. Just focus, direction and practice are needed to scale through.
Why Digital Skills?
There is also a need to explain in simple terms the reasons why it is necessary to have some of these digital skills. From a well-researched and deeply-explored perspective, here are some reasons why you should consider learning a digital skill:
1. Easy to start: It is no gainsaying that one of the advantages of having a digital skill is that it is easy to start. To succeed in a digital skill or the other requires nothing other than focus and practice. Some of these digital skills can be extensively learned in 6 months unlike the normal university courses that take 4-6 years to study. You can move from a beginner to an expert of a certain field within a year.
2. Huge demand: The demand for digital skills these days has skyrocketed. This is a digital age and unlike what we had about decades ago, many companies need employees who have digital skills. These include companies like software and fintech and also traditional companies- like banks, manufacturing industries among others. This is because the world has become digitalised. Therefore, there is a need to have people who can work in this area in the company with the new and high challenges. Having a digital skill is a veritable way to solving the unemployment problem in the country.
3. Ease of running: Digital skill transcends just taking a course online or about learning coding. It also involves transforming a course you studied in school and digitising it. This explains why we have online tutors, online consultants among other virtual professionals. Having a digital skill means you can work remotely for a company either in the country or abroad. It also means you can work for a company.You can also start up a business or work as a freelancer across various freelancing platforms like Fiverr, Upwork etc.
Here are some of the most lucrative and money-making skills in Nigeria in 2024:
1. Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is the art and science of selling a product or service through any of the digital technologies and online platforms such as social media, websites among others. It has been a popular skill over the past few years. Digital marketing has different niches like social media marketing, social media management, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing, paid advertisement, content creation among others. These niches can be learned together or learned alone. Whichever one you choose, be rest assured that there are several companies looking forward to employing you.
Starting as a digital marketer requires that you learn some basic principles of marketing, understand how social media platforms work and have basic writing skills. Apart from working with a company, as a digital marketer, you can establish yourself as a freelancer and execute projects which fall into your own area of expertise. Digital marketers of entry level and intermediate experience get paid a monthly salary of 150, 000 to 250, 000 naira. You can check the highest paid digital marketing roles here.
You can explore some of the responsibilities of digital marketers in this post.
2. Software Development: This refers to the process of designing, maintaining and testing software applications or systems. It usually involves writing codes to build programmes that solve specific problems or perform certain tasks. The digitalisation of various programmes and processes has made the demand for software developers inevitable. Software development can apply to various domains such as web development, mobile apps and many more.
The learning phase of software development usually involves the learning of coding or programming languages like Python or Javascript. You also need to work with relational databases like MySQL, PostGreSQL etc. An average software developer earns around 215, 000 naira per month.
3. Project Management: Project Management is the discipline of planning, executing, monitoring and closing projects to achieve some set goals within a period, scope and budget. Project managers are in charge of managing resources (both human and non-human) to ensure that the project meets the set goals and objectives.
Becoming a project manager requires a mix of education, practical experience and developing key skills. It can be more suitable for people who have a background in fields like business, management, engineering, or computer science. However, it is not limited to these people if you can take time and learn the necessary skills. A project manager will also need to learn how to use some project management tools like Asana, Trello or Jira. They earn an average salary of 300, 000 naira.
4. Data Analysis: Data Analysis is another lucrative digital skill in Nigeria in 2024. It is the process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming and modelling data to discover useful information, draw conclusions and support decision making. It is an important skill that is needed across industries, it is needed to make informed decisions and drive growth.
The process of learning data analysis starts from understanding the basics (qualitative and quantitative) and the role they perform in analysis. Aside from this, there is a need to learn statistical methods, master data analysis tools like Spreadsheets (Excel or Google Sheets), SQL, Python, R, Power BI etc. Data Analysts are needed across industries with a monthly salary of 230, 000 naira.
5. UI/UX Design: This focuses on creating user friendly, digital friendly and seamless digital interfaces and experiences. UI design focuses on aesthetics of a product like topography, layout, button styles and colour schemes. UX design ensures that the product is functional, easy to use and meets the user’s needs.
UI/UX design demands that you familiarise yourself with design tools like Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch, InVision and so on. UI/UX designers are needed by brands, companies and even start-ups. An entry level UI/UX designer earns around 185, 000 per month.
Apart from these, some other lucrative and money-making skills in Nigeria include writing skills, web development, graphics design and product marketer. The major problem that tech enthusiasts face is the art of intentional learning and getting to lay their hands on real-life projects. All these are taken care of at Nukz Digital Academy.
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