JobStraight · Research
What 2,411 job postings actually ask for
Job advice is mostly opinion. This is not. We fetched complete job descriptions from 77 company boards, read the requirements section of each, and counted which skills employers actually name — then published the method, the sample sizes, and everything we discarded.
Last updated 2026-08-17 · Source: Greenhouse public board API · Free to cite with a link.
What we did
Job aggregators return a truncated preview of each posting — usually the opening paragraph, which ends before the requirements. Counting skills in that text gives numbers that are simply wrong; our own first attempt produced SQL at 5% for analyst roles. So we used the Greenhouse board API, which returns the complete posting body, and read only the requirements section. Postings naming more than twelve distinct technologies were discarded as aggregator listings. Roles with fewer than 100 qualifying postings were dropped entirely rather than published with a caveat.
Marketing
Based on 177 postings. Percentages are the share whose requirements section named the skill.
| Skill | Share of postings | % |
|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | 17% | |
| A/B testing | 13% | |
| Degree required | 12% | |
| Stakeholders | 11% | |
| Looker | 7% | |
| SEO | 7% | |
| Excel | 5% | |
| AWS | 5% | |
| Tableau | 5% |
Product manager
Based on 423 postings. Percentages are the share whose requirements section named the skill.
| Skill | Share of postings | % |
|---|---|---|
| Degree required | 22% | |
| SQL | 16% | |
| A/B testing | 13% | |
| Stakeholders | 13% | |
| LLM | 8% | |
| AWS | 8% | |
| Machine learning | 6% | |
| Agile | 6% | |
| Azure | 5% | |
| GCP | 5% | |
| Kubernetes | 5% |
Software engineer
Based on 1,460 postings. Percentages are the share whose requirements section named the skill.
| Skill | Share of postings | % |
|---|---|---|
| Python | 33% | |
| AWS | 29% | |
| Java | 24% | |
| Kubernetes | 23% | |
| Degree required | 20% | |
| Mentoring | 19% | |
| React | 17% | |
| TypeScript | 16% | |
| CI/CD | 13% | |
| C++ | 13% | |
| Azure | 12% | |
| GCP | 12% | |
| Git | 11% | |
| SQL | 10% |
DevOps / SRE
Based on 128 postings. Percentages are the share whose requirements section named the skill.
| Skill | Share of postings | % |
|---|---|---|
| AWS | 70% | |
| Kubernetes | 67% | |
| Python | 58% | |
| Terraform | 51% | |
| CI/CD | 41% | |
| GCP | 34% | |
| Linux | 30% | |
| Degree required | 28% | |
| Mentoring | 25% | |
| Git | 23% | |
| Azure | 20% | |
| Docker | 17% | |
| Go | 16% | |
| SQL | 13% |
Designer
Based on 115 postings. Percentages are the share whose requirements section named the skill.
| Skill | Share of postings | % |
|---|---|---|
| Figma | 34% | |
| Mentoring | 14% | |
| A/B testing | 10% | |
| Stakeholders | 8% | |
| Degree required | 6% |
Data scientist
Based on 108 postings. Percentages are the share whose requirements section named the skill.
| Skill | Share of postings | % |
|---|---|---|
| SQL | 86% | |
| Python | 84% | |
| A/B testing | 49% | |
| Machine learning | 37% | |
| Degree required | 28% | |
| Spark | 23% | |
| Mentoring | 16% | |
| Stakeholders | 9% | |
| Snowflake | 9% | |
| Looker | 9% | |
| Airflow | 9% | |
| LLM | 8% | |
| Tableau | 7% | |
| dbt | 6% |
Method, and what this is not
Where does this data come from?
Complete job descriptions from the Greenhouse public board API, which returns the full posting body rather than the truncated preview aggregators serve. 2,411 postings across 6 roles met the inclusion criteria, drawn from 77 company boards.
Why are some roles missing?
A role is published only when at least 100 postings qualify. Smaller samples gave figures we could not stand behind: the data-analyst bucket read 68% for SQL at n=37, almost certainly a small-sample artefact, so it is excluded rather than published with a caveat.
How are skills counted?
Only the requirements section is read; the company blurb and benefits mention technologies incidentally and would inflate every count. Matching is word-boundary only, and any posting naming more than twelve distinct technologies is discarded as an aggregator listing.
Does this reflect the whole job market?
No, and it should not be read that way. These are venture-backed and mid-size technology companies using Greenhouse. It does not represent IT services, government or small businesses.
Citing this
Free to quote, republish and build on, including commercially. A link back is all we ask — no permission request and no attribution wording you have to match.
JobStraight, "What 2,411 job postings actually ask for", 2026-08-17. https://jobstraight.com/skills-in-demand/Pay data for the same roles, measured the same way, is in the advertised-salary report.
Use this
If a skill appears in most postings for your target role, it belongs on your resume with an example behind it. If it appears in under a tenth, it is not what is keeping you from interviews.
Check your resume against a job description, rehearse the questions a posting implies, or learn the skills these postings name.