Top 5 List of Top Ten Lists about Drupal Talent & Careers in the U.S.

As trainers, feeders of the Drupal Talent pipeline, and researchers of strategies to attract and build the numbers and excellence of Drupal talent across the world, we spend a lot of time finding and training people in the ways of Drupal. Through resources, Mike Anello's many sessions and trainings at Camps and Cons, and through our flagship Drupal Career Technical Education program, we pursue our passion to teach more people Drupal. We think we have the training side of this down, but like the Drupal Community's general shortage of talent, it’s finding more people that is the challenge.

Why is that? And why aren’t there people coming in droves to this opportunity-rich, community-based vocation? We think it has a lot to do with a lack of the right information getting to the right people. Here at DrupalEasy, we fill a lot of (sometimes too much) time observing and noodling the various paths people take to find Drupal, aspects of Drupal as a career and reaching those who could benefit. We think if Drupal opportunities were presented more broadly, a bit better, and were more accessible to those who are not aware (especially those who historically have not embraced IT careers,) the floodgates (or at least a stream) might start to bolster up the Drupal talent pipeline.  

Drupal's foundations are really quite inspiring.  A vocation built on sharing - open source, an engaged community and building and developing the means upon which our societies connect, build relationships, find information, and buy & sell. The story is also quite practical; well-paying jobs a-plenty. According to Indeed.com, the average salary for "Drupal" ranges from approximately $59,980 per year for Web Designer to $110,572 per year for Full Stack Developer. 

In addition, the US Department of Labor Occupational Outlook, which provides official salary, job growth statistics and job descriptions for just about any career you might want to pursue, has some pretty convincing numbers as well. According to the DoL, Software Developer, Applications positions have a 30% growth rate, rank in the top 10 for job growth in the US, and have the third highest estimated salary! For web developers in particular, the DoL puts job growth at 15% over the next 8 years, which they cite as much faster than average. To put it in perspective, electrical engineerin job growth is predicted to be 7% – less than half of that of web developers.  

So with all of this opportunity, where are all the aspiring Drupal developers? Apparently somewhere they are privy to neither the Drupal narrative nor Web developer job stats.  We have several ideas, some big, others not too difficult, on how to overcome our shortage of talent, as we outline in List #5 to provoke some thought and perhaps follow up from those who feel the pain of the Drupal talent shortage.  We'd love to hear from you. 

But perhaps we can all give small efforts a go to see where it might improve things on a smaller scale; beginning with awareness we can build within and on the fringes of our personal and professional networks. So, in the spirit of spreading the word about how great the opportunities are in Drupal, we thought we would compile a few easily shareable lists you may want to dole out to those around you. We'd also love for you to share with us your lists (and ideas) that may make Drupal a bit more accessible to those who may become a part of this engaging community. 

#1  Top 10 Drupal Talent-Starved States

If you live in one of the 10 states listed below, especially near the major metropolitan areas, your outlook for finding a Drupal job is pretty positive. Likewise if you are looking for talent in these places, we feel your pain. The list includes the highest number of open positions we found on Indeed. (To be fair, if you live in Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Dakota or Wyoming, the chances of finding a commuter/non-distributed position in Drupal is pretty slim, considering we could not find a single open position in any of these states using a pretty comprehensive list of job search sites.)  

1. California: 270

2. New York: 233

3. Virginia: 130

4. Maryland: 118

5. Massachusetts: 106

6. Pennsylvania: 95

7. Texas: 85

8. Washington: 60

9. (tie)Florida: 55

10. (tie) Illinois: 55

[*Source, Indeed.com, as of January 29, 2018. (Indeed has the greatest number, therefore the most complete list, of Drupal job openings. It also provides the tools to ensure accuracy. The other sites support these rankings, ]

# 2 Top 10 Jobs Sites to find Drupal Positions (by number of Drupal jobs and ease of calculation!)

We went on a job finding expedition earlier this week to see where people looking for Drupal jobs or just gauging the opportunities have the best shot. Indeed.com won by shear numbers, but also because they make searching, and compiling information like these lists the easiest. The list includes the site and the number of Drupal and Drupal related jobs in the United States as of January 29, 2018. 

1 Indeed; 2,015

2 Glass Door; 2,012

3 Simplyhired;1,798

4 Monster; 1,164

5 job.net ~500

6 ihiretechnology; 491

7 Justtechjobs; 273

8 Dice; 259

9  CareerBuilder; 135

10 DrupalJobs; 80

*Of note:  I tried not to use sites that compile listings from other sites, like Ziprecruiter, but many sites now share listings. Also, if you are looking specifically for a federal government job, try USAjobs.gov

#3 Top 10 Drupaliest Companies in the US

For those who wish to get into larger organizations (by Drupal size standards of course) with lots of Drupal people to associate with throughout the day, the companies who have the greatest number of employees registered on Drupal.org, and have headquarters or major facilities in the US are listed in order of Drupaliness, which means according to the number staff members on Drupal.org.

1. Acquia; 618

2. FFW; 231

3. CI&T; 220

4. Cognizant; 117

5. Phase2; 92

6. Pantheon; 86

7. Booz Allen Hamilton; 74

8. Appnovation; 69

9. Epam; 68

10. Mediacurrent; 67

[Source Drupal.org: Organizations using Drupal: United States which shows the number of employees who are on Drupal.org.]

# 4. Top Ten Articles to Guide Aspiring Drupal Developers

OK, so we’ll preface this by again explaining that we spend a lot of time thinking about, researching, interviewing, writing and presenting a lot of materials on Drupal careers and jobs. That said, you’ll see quite a few entries below with our fingerprints on them. Not sure how to shed the cloak of shameless promotion, but avoiding it does not seem like a good reason to leave out helpful information (we’ll take whatever sneers you'd like to offer.) The list was compiled from a variety of Google searches using several key words and variations, and based on our impressions of the credibility and helpfulness of the information.  If you have any additional materials that we missed and you’d like to share, please let us know and we’ll add it to our Career Resources Page.

1. How Do I Start a Career in Drupal? DrupalEasy Academy Resources page

2. Why Become a Drupal Developer? Drupal Partners, August 2015

3. How Do I get a Job in Drupal?; OSTraining’s March, 2015

4. Become a Drupal Developer, Drupalize.me

5. What Does it Mean to Be a Drupal Developer?; Promet Source, August 2016

6. How to Become a Successfull Web Developer; Mobomo, August  2016

7. How to Become a Successful Web Developer, Zyware; 2015

8. 6 Steps for New Drupal 8 Developers; Web Omlette

9. What Skills should a Drupal Developer Have? ValueBound, February 2017

10. Drupal Career Resources; DrupalEasy Academy

# 5. Top 10 ways to grow Drupal Talent

This one is for all of us, especially the folks on the #3 list, who, we noticed are among many of the companies tallying up the numbers for states on list #2. Since we started Drupal Career Training, we have met with dozens of people, educational institutions, workforce boards, other Drupal training companies and all sorts and sizes of companies about the Drupal talent shortage issues, the lack of diversity issue, and the "lack of experience" issue for those new to Drupal. We feel like if just a few in the community, together or independently, start any of these initiatives, it will go a long way in ensuring that the 15% growth in web developer positions is not lost on Drupal in the future. The only resource for this list is the collection of ideas we have heard, discussed, conceptualized, written into white papers and schemed up during DrupalEasy lunches. If you have another idea, or want our help getting one of these concepts going, let us know.

1. Collaborate with other companies, especially in the states that made the #2 list, to reach out to regional workforce agencies to get them involved in finding and underwriting training for potential Drupal hires.

2. Develop geographic mentoring networks for those considering and new to Drupal through the local users’ groups.

3. Take on Interns (Contact DrupalEasy for well-trained candidates or find them at local meetups.)

4. Develop a Drupal community scholarship fund for under-represented groups to use one of the many Drupal Training organizations to get skilled up in Drupal.

5. Partner with Not-For-Profits to fund Drupal training, mentoring and internship programs for women, minorities, veterans, and other underutilized populations.

6. Promote Drupal as a career in your local and non-Drupal community outreach. 

7. Reach out to contacts at local colleges about adding Drupal to their curriculum (DrupalEasy’s state licensed Career Technical Education program is an option.)

8. Host/sponsor beginner information nights at Meetups.

9. Share these lists to spark interest and action.

10. Contact DrupalEasy to help with these or any other ideas you may have!

The Spring 2018 session of DrupalEasy's Drupal Career Online training begins on March 26th, with two more free informational webinars about the course in February and March. Registration is also open for the Spring Session of Mastering Professional Drupal Developer Workflows with Pantheon, which starts on February 28th.