Are Web Developers in Demand?

Updating, renovating or managing existing websites.

Translating wireframe designs into new code when developing a new website.

Creating a website’s architecture and content.

Publishing a new site on the internet.

Debugging a website (that’s web developer-speak for fixing errors and glitches that are encountered after a new site goes live).

HTML/CSS skills: Web developers use the markup languages HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to create pages. While HTML lays the foundation for the pages, CSS configures the fonts, colors, styles and other elements of a website’s design.

Responsive design skills: A website that is responsive functions well on any size screen, from a desktop to the smallest mobile phone. It’s important to understand how responsive design works and to build sites that automatically adapt to different screen sizes. This also has an effect on search results, as most search engines will actually penalize sites that aren’t responsive.

JavaScript: Knowing your way around the high-level coding language known as JavaScript can enable you to integrate complex features like search bars, videos and interactive maps into your websites to increase visitor engagement.

Analytical skills: Straddling the hard and soft skills categories, analytical skills are important to understand clients’ needs, being ready to respond to changes and to perform technical tasks such as ensuring code has been correctly applied to achieve the desired functionality.

Back-end basics: It’s important to know how the back end, or server side of a website works. You may collaborate with back-end developers or programmers who specialize in APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), SQL and databases, or be required to use those skills yourself.

Search engine optimization: Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of web development to make the site as visible as possible to search engines and, in turn, increase user traffic. It’s important for web developers to know how to configure sites so they’ll show up early and often on search engine results pages.

Communication: Interpersonal communication, active listening and public speaking are all aspects of communication. Listening, understanding, responding and presenting are all things you might be required to do as a web developer. Strong communications skills can help you be more effective in this role.

Emotional intelligence: When responding to challenging situations in the workplace, emotional intelligence can help you retain your focus, keep your cool in the face of professional challenges and respond appropriately and professionally when you encounter unforeseen circumstances, budget crises or difficult situations.

Adaptability: Closely related to emotional intelligence, adaptability is the skill that allows you to modify your approach in response to changes in technologies or project requirements. It helps you to change gears smoothly to a new design theme or process. 

Problem - solving: The ability to anticipate and identify problems and fix them efficiently can be a useful skill for you as a web developer. Strong problem-solving skills enable you to analyze your work, determine the source of a problem, fix a glitch or install an application to enhance a website or application’s performance.

Time management: Whether working as a freelancer or a member of a development team within a large organization, sharp time management skills help you to create schedules and timelines based on project requirements and deliverables and hold team members — and yourself — accountable for finishing tasks and projects on time. 

Web designer: This job involves designing a website’s layout, or its look and feel. Using design tools like HTML, CSS and JavaScript, web designers are responsible for making the design decisions like how text, graphics, images, videos and other elements will appear on the site, and how this will contribute to a positive user experience.

Front-end web developer: While sharing some of the design responsibilities, front-end developers work from the designer’s vision to build the site’s pages. Using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other programming tools, they transform the designer’s sketches and wire frames into code that web browsers can read and display on your screen. They also make sure the site is responsive — meaning it will display correctly on all computer and mobile device screens.

Back-end web developer: While the back-end developer’s work is unseen by the user, it is crucial to a website functioning properly. Back-end developers use a variety of programming languages like Python, Ruby and SQL. When developing mobile apps, they may be likely to use HTML5, Java and C++.

Full-stack web developer: This role is simply a mixture of both front-end and back-end development. Full-stack web developers and software developers must be proficient on both ends and typically have a very high level of experience and technical skill.

UX designer: UX (User Experience) designers study how people use websites and work with developers to make the user experience better, encourage users to stay on sites longer or meet other objectives. Their work involves the use of technologies like heat mapping to plot how users interact with sites.

Proficiency in programming languages.

Strong interpersonal skills.

Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Ability to work independently and manage time efficiently.

Understanding of search engine optimization practices.

Ability to troubleshoot and optimize web pages for security and responsiveness.

Understanding of network diagnostics and analytical tools.