3 growing global development sectors for job seekers to target in 2023

Those visiting Devex’s job board will find a variety of opportunities across all global development sectors, but we also know that candidates targeting certain industries tend to have more roles to choose from than others, based on an analysis of job posting data since 2019. Job postings in banking and finance, for example, made up nearly 12% of all advertised positions in 2022, more than any other industry. The sector has had a similar share of our board’s job postings in each of the past four years. But only three sectors — environment and natural resources, global health, and innovation and information and communication technology — have increased their share of total job postings each year since 2019, which could be a sign that demand is growing for development professionals with skills and experience in these areas. Here is a closer look at these sectors, including the organizations that have been the most active in each of them and the types of roles they’ve been looking to fill. Environment and natural resources Top organizations: Environmental Resources Management, United Nations Environment Programme, The Nature Conservancy Top locations: United States, United Kingdom, Kenya As development organizations continued to work on addressing the global climate crisis, over 6,500 environmental roles were posted on our board last year. This represented a nearly 11% increase compared to 2019. “Climate scientists and environmental specialists are about the hottest commodity in the nonprofit and the for-profit and government market[s],” said Rodney Ferguson, the president and CEO of Winrock International, during a recent Devex Pro Live event. ERM led the way, accounting for nearly 1,000 of the jobs advertised in this sector. Staff environmental engineers, geologists or scientists, and environmental consultants were among the professionals most needed by the organization. Current opportunities for those looking for environmental roles include a senior specialist on environmental compliance with Chemonics and a green growth expert working on a long-term consulting assignment with UNDP. View all current job opportunities in the environment and natural resources. Global health Top organizations: World Health Organization, UNICEF, World Bank Group Top locations: United States, Switzerland, the Philippines With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and ongoing efforts addressing other global health crises, job postings in this sector have continued to increase. Of the nearly 7,500 jobs posted in global health last year, about 23% were looking for senior-level candidates, which is more than the average of 17% across all sectors. There were also a large number of jobs that were not tied to one specific country, with over 6% of the postings listing the location as “worldwide.” Global health roles currently being advertised include an adviser on noncommunicable diseases and mental health with WHO. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is also looking to hire a senior-level genomics research scientist. View all current job opportunities in global health. Innovation and ICT Top organizations: Environmental Resources Management, UNICEF, World Bank Group Top locations: United States, United Kingdom, India Given that emerging technology and information management is essential across all development sectors, it should not come as a surprise that roles dealing with innovation and ICT saw the fastest growth over the past four years in terms of the number of jobs posted. In 2019, the sector accounted for 7.4% of all job postings, with 7,200 positions. By 2022, its share had risen to 9.3% and 8,500 positions. Popular job titles advertised by the most-active hiring organizations included information management officer, digital development specialist, and database officer and management positions. Current openings focused on innovation and ICT include a database engineer with the Asian Development Bank and a data science manager with Integrity. View all current job opportunities in innovation and ICT.