This weekend’s Academy Awards marked a milestone for the changing entertainment landscape: the streaming giant Netflix was awarded its first-ever Oscar for a feature film.
And it may feel as if everywhere you look, people are streaming TV, music, movies and more. In fact, young people (ages 18 - 29), in particular, now primarily rely on online streaming services for watching TV, and more than 30 million people in the U.S. alone are paying for streaming music subscriptions. It’s a trend that’s likely to continue and is good news for anyone interested in entertainment and technology as their next role.
To get a sense of how streaming services are impacting the entertainment industry, we took a look at some of the biggest players in the space to identify where we’re seeing employment growth, where the talent is located, and how skills among these professionals are changing.
Tech-Focused Entertainment Companies Have Become Big Players
Streaming entertainment companies are experiencing strong growth: Spotify, Pandora, Hulu, and Netflix have been hiring rapidly over the past five years, adding hundreds of employees to their workforces.
Legacy companies are experiencing growth as well. Companies like The Walt Disney company have been investing in their IT and engineering departments -- up 1% and 3% respectively in the last year alone, according to LinkedIn Premium Insights.
Talent is flocking to more tech-based entertainment companies. Among the companies we looked at, employee count at streaming companies have grown more than 150% in the past five years.
Silicon Valley is a Growing Center for Entertainment -- Especially Music:
The San Francisco Bay Area’s music industry has experienced impressive growth over the last five years. The Bay Area saw a 64% increase in its number of music professionals since 2013, and is now the third largest hub for the music industry behind New York and Los Angeles, moving ahead of both London and Paris.
Seattle, another major technology hub, saw 98% growth in their number of movie/TV industry professionals between 2013 and 2018. While Los Angeles is still the undisputed home of the movie industry, high tech cities are making gains.
The Road to the Entertainment Industry Takes Many Forms
One of the most common career pivots for entertainment professionals is coming from the internet industry, which can likely be attributed to overall investment in these functions by entertainment companies. Even further, computer science majors are making up one of the largest populations in the industry.
If you’re not technical, don’t worry. Marketing is actually the leading function of professionals in the music industry, while operations dominates television. Additionally, social media and marketing skills have become some the most prominent skills for workers in entertainment over the last five years.
Whether you’re in it to uncover the next great act or support the next wave of entertainment innovation, we’ve got jobs across a variety functions and experience levels for you to explore.