Coding Schools Emerge in Era of High Demand for Programming Skills

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Coding is hot. Real hot. Like Brad Pitt making you breakfast hot. And with the secret out that computer programming could be the trampoline to launch you toward a better career, new academies are popping up to teach those interested. Katrina Bishop of CNBC reports on the new coding curriculum, as well as how computer programming has become one of the job market’s most desirable skills:

“The U.S. Department of Labor expects the employment of software developers to grow 22 percent between 2012 and 2022, compared to an average growth across all occupations of 11 percent.

And according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s (GMAC) 2014 report, employers in both the U.S. and Europe rank technical and quantitative skills – which include coding – as the third most important selection criteria when it comes to recruitment.”

Bishop features several new coding schools including the London-based Makers Academy, which operates like a 12-week coding boot camp. These services cater to both millennials searching for their first high-paying job and mid-career workers yearning for a change. Schools like App Academy and Code Fellow are so confident that the skills they instill in you will lead to a new job that they base their payment on your career status.

For those who don’t want to shell out for an expensive crash course, the self-taught route remains an option — especially if time isn’t of the essence. Training books and open source tutorials are both pervasive and useful, though the process of self-instruction can be an arduous one. Luckily, the need to self-teach may not be a need for much longer. School children in England will see coding added to their studies later this year. Companies like Google are investing to get American kids interested in programming as well.

To quote Bishop, it may not be long until “coding is the C in children’s ABC’s.”