In July, New Horizons named Boston a “Career Catalyst City” based on the region’s prospects for long-term and sustained growth in quality technology careers. Boston was one of only three cities to earn this designation. The others were Philadelphia and Hartford, Connecticut.
A Career Catalyst City was based on our research, trends and projections, analyzing existing infrastructure such as Boston’s major employers, entrepreneurship culture, support and access to quality education, and the opportunities for training in high-wage careers.
For example, we looked at both public and private assessments of job growth in upper and mid-level technology careers such as network administrators and CTOs. We looked at how many colleges and other training providers existed in the region as well as their completion and attainment rates. We went over what degrees or certifications hiring managers were looking for when posting and filling technology jobs, and what percentage of those jobs required advanced degrees as opposed to those requiring certifications. Altogether, we included 11 different factors in our Career Catalyst City assessment.
Having all these elements in place means Boston will continue to be a leader in not only job growth, but good job growth – growth in high-wage, highly secure jobs. The designation is significant. For Boston, it’s encouraging.
The region’s prospects are rooted in education and training as Boston’s education base is substantial. Harvard is arguably one of the best-known education brands in the world, MIT is among the world’s best technical colleges, and Babson’s focus on entrepreneurship is also renowned.
It’s an unrivaled foundation. But make no mistake, the degree to which Boston’s projected and prospective job growth materializes rests on two other factors:
1. A sustained investment in entrepreneurship and innovation. It’s not just the formal education systems that matter in entrepreneurship. Access to speculative capital, mentors, incubators and accelerators as well as having open eyes for diverse talent are every bit as important. Boston does well in these areas, but the pace must continue or better yet, accelerate over the next decade for the region to reach its potential.
2. Technology training is a pillar lifting up Boston’s technology job outlook and the base of Boston’s formidable, formal education institutions.
The reality is that innovation often happens both relentlessly and unexpectedly. Traditional education pathways such as the four-year degree, valuable as it may be, can be mismatched with sudden or fluid demand. For many technology jobs, formal degree programs often cost too much and take too long.
Imagine, for example, that everyone in Boston suddenly transitioned from driving cars to flying helicopters. If that happened, you may expect that knowing how to fly a helicopter would be a good career choice. But if half the people were buying the Skiorsky S-92 – a fast, sophisticated, twin-engine helicopter – simply knowing how to fly any old helicopter may not be enough. You’d need new training to fly that particular model. And you’d need that training quickly.
In that example, you probably would not start a four-year degree hoping to be ready quickly. Who knows which helicopter will be flying the Boston skies in four years? You’d need to add to your existing knowledge or work experience and apply what you learn to what is current. In other words, you would need to upskill.
That’s how business technology innovation works. Whether it’s cybersecurity or data management or systems integration, what you learned five years ago probably has not kept pace with what needs to be done today. Or, more critically, what will need to be done next year.
Still, the pathways and options can be confusing. Which is why, in addition to digging into the data and looking ahead, New Horizons built ATLAS. It’s the free career tool employing aptitude assessments with experience and credentials to not just recommend matching technology careers but also suggest specific training and certification opportunities that will help people qualify for and get those great jobs.
The point is that having a good education community or a robust entrepreneurship ecosystem isn’t enough to sustain long range technology career growth. You need access to quality, responsive and proven skills training too. It takes all three.
It’s not about reach. It’s about focus. It’s about what Boston needs here and now and in the near term. The Boston area needs Harvard, MIT and Boston University to keep producing great graduates. That’s a given. It needs the investors to keep investing and the innovators to keep innovating.
At New Horizons, we think that’s going to happen, or likely to happen for Boston. All the pieces are there. This is why we expect Boston to be an impressive, supportive, and exciting place to grow a business or a technology career.
To run your skills and aptitudes through ATLAS, our free career matching tool, or to learn how to leverage career training in Boston, visit https://learn.newhorizons.com/boston.
New Horizons Computer Learning Centers have kept businesses ahead of the technology curve for over 35 years, combining the world's largest IT training company with the responsiveness of a local partner. New Horizons is a Microsoft Partner with a Gold Learning competency, Cisco Partner for Learning Solutions, CompTIA Authorized Platinum Partner, and VMware Authorized Training Center.