Do you see any sign of recovery in the technical writing market? Most of the US technical writers I know are worried about their profession and see little sign that things will change.

Today, WebWorkerDaily reports on the best and worst professions for the upcoming year. “Satisfyingly for readers of this blog, almost a quarter of the best jobs consisted of roles suited to web workers and untethered employees, including software engineers, systems analysts, accountants, technical writers and developers in the top ten.”

You can read the article here: http://webworkerdaily.com/2010/01/08/the-future-of-work-the-best-and-worst-jobs-of-2010/

Reuter’s expanded version of the list of top jobs list reads as follows:

1. Actuary
2. Software Engineer
3. Computer Systems Analyst
4. Biologist
5. Historian
6. Mathematician
7. Paralegal Assistant
8. Statistician
9. Accountant
10. Dental Hygienist
11. Meteorologist
12. Philosopher
13. Technical writer
14. Bank officer
15. Web developer
16. Industrial engineer
17. Financial planner
18. Aerospace engineer
19. Pharmacist
20. Medical records technician

The WSJ breaks out the salaries for these roles here.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_BESTJOBS2010_20100105.html

Technical Writing salary

• Starting – $37,000
• Mid – $62,000
• Top – $97,000

Methodology

To quantify the many facets of the 200 jobs included in its report, WSJ reviewed various critical aspects of all of the jobs, categorizing them into five Core Criteria; Environment, Income, Outlook, Stress and Physical Demands.

http://www.careercast.com/jobs/content/jobs-rated-methodology-2010

How I see it

Personally, I was surprised that the findings were so positive. These do seem rather more encouraging that I’d expected and having Philosopher in 12^th place has also raised a few eyebrows.

I’m not in the STC so don’t have visibility on any findings it might have. Anyone?

I see some recovery in Europe (I know some headhunters there) but the US is getting v hard and the US/Euro exchange rate is really hammering US multi-nationals. They need to re-think the forex strategy otherwise the dollar is in real trouble, and by extension, investment in the US.

How do you see it?

What’s your take on this? Is the market picking up for technical writers?

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