Skills in demand

Lightcast Open Skills is the labor-market vocabulary employers use in job postings. These 116 skills each map to U.S. occupations through their O*NET knowledge, skill, and ability requirements — 22 are common skills and 94 are specialized skills. Each page shows which jobs need the skill, what those jobs pay, and how broadly the skill spans the occupation map.

New: see which skills sit in AI's path → — every skill scored by the AI task-exposure of the jobs that use it most.

Most broadly demanded

Skills that map to the most occupations across the labor market.

• Active Listening 893
• Critical Thinking 893
• Deductive Reasoning 892
• Information Ordering 892
• Reading Comprehension 892
• Speech Recognition 891
• Inductive Reasoning 890
• English Language 880
• Complex Problem Solving 869
• Time Management 866
• Writing 850
• Social Perceptiveness 837
• Active Learning 822
• Microsoft Excel 818
• Microsoft Word 756
• Mathematics 713
• Systems Analysis 611
• Microsoft PowerPoint 602
• Instructing 591
• Microsoft Outlook 585
• Visualization 573
• Learning Strategies 566
• Negotiation 476
• Finger Dexterity 445
• Psychology 299
• Depth Perception 253
• Microsoft Access 242
• Chemistry 213
• Microsoft Windows 212
• Equipment Maintenance 201
• Physics 180
• Biology 159
• Equipment Selection 154
• Telecommunications 147
• Microsoft Project 127
• Microsoft SharePoint 126
• Microsoft Visio 108
• Geography 107
• Unix 85
• Facebook 84

All skills

Ranked by how many occupations demand each skill. Use search to jump to one.

Source: Lightcast Open Skills (2023-05) mapped to occupations via the O*NET knowledge/skill/ ability crosswalk. Counts reflect which occupations require each skill, not a direct count of job postings. Pay figures are BLS OEWS national medians for those occupations.