Career Development Blog

You’ve acquired many new skills while serving in the military. Now that you are transitioning to civilian life, wouldn’t it be great to use those skills in a field that is interesting and lucrative? You should be able to take your military experience and use it as a foundation for a new vocation. That’s why so many returning veterans transition into IT careers.

Information technology continues to be a growing field where veterans can apply their skills. It’s been demonstrated that vets excel at IT jobs. Military training generates a talent pool rich in technology and cybersecurity experience. Those skills tend to readily translate to IT careers in civilian life. And demand for IT professionals continues to grow. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that IT will add 557,100 new jobs over the next 10 years, new jobs that pay a median wage of $86,320 per year.

Thinking about a new career? Are you getting bored with your old job? Perhaps you are a recent graduate looking for a way to enter the job market. Or maybe you are in a dead-end position and need some new skills to move into a new career. That’s what career training programs are all about.

Editor's Note: This article was initially published by PayScale.com on December 11, 2018 and can be viewed in full detail here.

Much of the growth in the U.S. economy over the past year has been due to gains in the technology sector, a trend that was reflected in PayScale’s worker survey data. Of the 10 fastest growing jobs in our crowdsourced salary data, half were in technology professions. We saw the largest increase in full stack software developers in 2018, with a 572 percent increase in respondents compared to 2017. There is intense demand for highly skilled tech workers across industries.

While all jobs serve a purpose – the position wouldn't be paid anything if it wasn't valuable – some careers are simply more useful than others. This is especially true in the IT world, where the intense complexity of modern technology has forced certain workers to specialize to an incredible degree. While this specialization certainly takes time and effort, the end result is an individual with the ability to affect real change in his or her workplace.