Why everyone should learn how to code

As the workforce continues to evolve, employees have been made aware that the skills they've traditionally relied on may not cut it anymore and they'll need to grow their toolbox. But are they prepared to become amateur coders? 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that there will be a 25% increase in jobs for software developers, testers and quality assurance analysts between 2021 and 2031. This translates to over 400,000 jobs being added to the market in the next five to 10 years. This also means that investing in coding skills will only become more important for employees regardless of their chosen field. 

"Rewind even 10 years ago and coding seemed like such a niche pathway," says Ed Kim, vice president of education and training at educational platform Code Ninjas. "But I think as technology has continually evolved, the need for people who understand how technology merges with other business uses has grown. And I think as a result, the barriers of entry to coding have lowered."

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Already, 58% of U.S. students see coding skills as vital as knowing a foreign language for future career prospects, according to a 2022 survey from KX, an analytics and data management software provider. Over 45% can currently code or are learning a coding language and over half of students plan on learning a computer programming language at some point. And while coding is incredibly valuable for breaking into an evolving tech field, that isn't the only sector that benefits from more people learning how to code. 

Coding, which is the process of creating instructions for a computer to perform a specific task, has traditionally been the most useful for roles such as programming, software engineering and UX design, which still see a high demand for workers despite AI automating certain aspects of the process. However, Kim argues that coding skills can also be useful for the likes of project managers, client facing managers and even educators. 

"[Coding] bridges critical thinking and teaches a number of skills around problem solving," he says. "For any company with employees that have to tackle any problem set or any need for the business, understanding how coding works in general is a good exercise and an upskill that helps people break concepts down in a simpler way." 

Even if there's no immediate professional reason to invest in some form of coding certification or courses, being proactive could help insulate employees as the job market shifts, according to Kim.  

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"Nowadays, it's less about being so niche that you're only useful for one specific job and instead becoming a jack of all trades," he says. "Learning how to integrate your skills with other fields and getting an understanding of how finance works, how technical operations work, how marketing works so that you can better support those functions in your role makes an employee more useful for an organization." 

And while it's too early to say whether coding will become a common required skill, Kim urges employees of all ages to either upskill themselves or even upskill their kids if they're able. 

"There will always be some pathways where you need a niche specialist that can specifically dive very deep into the code and companies will need to bring in an expert for that," he says. "But having a general understanding for interviews and being able to offer that skill set and that mindset is going to be super important as an employee now and in the future."