Emerging UX Skill Sets: Preliminary Findings from a Textual Analysis of Job Ads

As the technical and professional communication (TPC) field evolves, many college graduates and job seekers with TPC-related training are pursuing careers in emerging fields. UX is one such field, but there has been little attention paid to the skills required for jobs such as UX Designer and UX researcher. As part of an ongoing research project examining over 5,000 job ads from the U.S., this paper aims to thoroughly ground readers in the skill sets required by the emerging role of UX professional. We do so by identifying initial trends in keyword usage across job ads as well as zeroing in on skill sets that seem important to employers looking to hire UX professionals.