Online staffing platform Freelancer.com reported the number of jobs on its platform rose 17% in 2020 to 2.1 million jobs compared to 2019 with 1.8 million, with the increase coming amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The Sydney-based company reported the job category with the fastest growth in demand was for those with skills in Flutter.
CEO Matt Barrie said the freelance online job market continues to flourish despite the global challenges.
“Towards the very end of Q1 2020 was the start of a deluge of demand and in Q2 to Q4 2020, the number of users that joined our platform, including freelancers and employers looking for freelancers, surged enormously,” Barrie said.
Covid-19 fueled increased growth in freelancing, but Barrie said growth was also spurred by individuals with a strong desire to start their own freelance enterprises.
“These are promising times and positive signs for the gig economy,” Barrie said.
Looking at the fastest-growing jobs for 2020, Freelancer.com noted eight of the 10 fastest-growing were in app development and website development.
Top of the list was Flutter, an open-source user interface software development kit released by Google. Developers use Flutter to develop applications for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia and the web from a single codebase.
Other coding languages in demand included Firebase, Wix, RESTful API and Typescript
Freelancer.com listed the fastest-increasing jobs on its platform for the full-year 2020 compared to 2019:
| Name |
Job Count 2019 |
Job Count 2020 |
% Increase / Decrease | |
| 1 | Flutter | 2,136 | 8,971 | 319.99 % |
| 2 | Google Firebase | 1,908 | 5,365 | 181.18 % |
| 3 | Wix | 1,011 | 2,320 | 129.48 % |
| 4 | Data Analysis | 1,619 | 3,500 | 116.18 % |
| 5 | RESTful API | 1,579 | 3,362 | 112.92 % |
| 6 | Physics | 1,529 | 3,138 | 105.23 % |
| 7 | Full Stack Development | 1,957 | 3,889 | 98.72 % |
| 8 | Typescript | 1,267 | 2,428 | 91.63 % |
| 9 | iOS Development | 5,075 | 9,484 | 86.88 % |
| 10 | API | 4,177 | 7,705 | 84.46 % |
| 11 | Aws Lambda | 1,000 | 1,798 | 79.80 % |
| 12 | Kotlin | 1,430 | 2,550 | 78.32 % |
| 13 | Web API | 1,350 | 2,354 | 74.37 % |
| 14 | Word | 21,131 | 36,808 | 74.19 % |
| 15 | 16,028 | 27,811 | 73.52 % | |
| 16 | React.js | 12,237 | 20,791 | 69.90 % |
| 17 | React Native | 6,824 | 11,560 | 69.40 % |
| 18 | Docker | 1,664 | 2,789 | 67.61 % |
| 19 | 360-degree video | 1,047 | 1,747 | 66.86 % |
| 20 | Computer Science | 2,248 | 3,729 | 65.88 % |
| 21 | MongoDB | 2,348 | 3,886 | 65.50 % |
| 22 | Vue.js | 3,692 | 6,087 | 64.87 % |
| 23 | Mathematics | 11,047 | 18,211 | 64.85 % |
| 24 | Metatrader | 5,614 | 9,253 | 64.82 % |
| 25 | Chemical Engineering | 2,184 | 3,530 | 61.63 % |