A study by Totally Money has looked into the best skills to learn in order to increase your salary and boost your career opportunities. They have found the coding skill Ruby has the highest earning potential of £78,076. Meanwhile with an average cost of £460, Agile is the most expensive skill to learn and ranks 5th for highest salary earning potential. The skill that is most in-demand is ‘Data’ with more than 30,000 jobs available.
For those looking to increase their skill archive, it’s important to find out how much it could benefit their career. With the cost of learning the skill on top of your time, can students be confident they’re making the right investment?
Totally Money’s survey broke skills down into five. categories – coding, language, creative, business and trade.
Study Shows Ruby Is The Best Skill To Learn For Increasing Your Salary
The table below shows the best skills earning potential.
| Ranking | Skill | Job Industry | Lower bracket salary | Average salary | Higher bracket salary |
| 1 | Ruby | Coding | £57,500 | £72,500 | £78,076 |
| 2 | Java | Coding | £50,000 | £62,500 | £77,500 |
| 3 | Python | Coding | £50,000 | £62,500 | £77,000 |
| 4 | Cloud Computing | Coding | £41,250 | £57,500 | £72,500 |
| 5 | Agile | Business | £45,000 | £57,500 | £72,500 |
Ruby has been revealed as the best skill to increase your salary with an average salary of £72,500. On average a course costs £219.21, ranking as the 8th most expensive skill to learn. Whilst coding proves to be the best category to learn to increase your salary, it comes at a cost. From the top 10 most expensive skills to learn, coding appears 5 times with the average course costing £272.98.
Spanish Is The Most Popular Skill To Learn – But Ranks In Bottom 20 For Employability
Within the research, Totally Money looked at the most in-demand skills through Google search terms.
| Ranking | Skill | Job Industry | Total Monthly Search Volume* |
| 1 | Spanish | Language | 22,030 |
| 2 | Python | Coding | 13,800 |
| 3 | French | Language | 13,050 |
| 4 | Japanese | Language | 10,720 |
| 5 | German | Language | 7,810 |
*This relates to the following terms searched through Google:
“How to learn [skill]”, “Learn [skill]”, “How to [skill]”, “[skill] course”, “[skill] lessons”
Languages Dominate The Most Popular Skills To Learn But Are They Worth It?
Despite Spanish being the most popular skill to learn, German has a higher earning potential whilst also having nearly double the amount of jobs available.
Spanish ranks as 2nd for the highest earning potential out of all languages studied. Although being the 4th most popular skill to learn, Japanese has the 4th lowest salary potential earnings from all skills, behind Russian, Hindi and Gardening.
Agile Is The Most Expensive Skill To Learn – But Is It The Best Skill For Return Of Investment?
An important factor to take into consideration when looking to learn a skill is the cost of a course. For more complex skills, the costs can add up and it becomes a question of whether it is worth your time and money.
Ranking 1st for the most expensive skill to learn, Agile sits at the 5th highest for potential earnings. Lean is also a skill that shows little return of investment compared to others, ranking as the 14th best skill for salary earnings. With Ruby providing the highest salary potential earnings, it sits at the 8th most expensive skill to learn. Therefore becoming a better investment for your career when compared to Agile and Lean.
The table below shows the skills with the highest costs to learn:
| Ranking | Job Industry | Skill | Cost to learn |
| 1 | Business | Agile | £461.64 |
| 2 | Business | Lean | £394.73 |
| 3 | Coding | C++ | £366.09 |
| 4 | Business | C# | £366.09 |
| 5 | Business | Project Management | £322.56 |
“Finding the right skill to learn can be tricky, especially when there’s so many to choose from,” said Henry Keegan, head of search, for Totally Money. “It’s important to take in a number of factors such as the future potential earnings, the cost of learning the skill and whether there is actually a demand for it.”
For more on the survey go here: https://www.totallymoney.com/skill-up/
