The Most-Requested Skills in US Job Listings
We read the full text of 363,559 live job descriptions and counted every skill employers ask for by name — each skill counted at most once per listing.
Last updated August 9, 2026 · refreshed weekly · part of the USA Jobs Board market analytics
Top skills across all industries
Top skills by industry
Healthcare 58,836 openings
Patient Care 23,848Teamwork 13,673Registered Nurse (RN) 12,608Leadership 8,008CPR / BLS Certification 7,448Scheduling / Dispatch 5,692Time Management 4,409Teaching / Instruction 3,830Customer Service 3,828Communication 2,977HR / Recruiting 2,508Problem Solving 2,123
Retail 42,633 openings
Customer Service 21,924Housekeeping 13,105Teamwork 8,710Scheduling / Dispatch 6,456Inventory Management 4,470Leadership 4,140HR / Recruiting 3,951Bilingual / Spanish 3,596Problem Solving 2,080Time Management 1,934Food Safety 1,850Attention to Detail 1,759
Engineering 36,265 openings
AI / Machine Learning 10,874Teamwork 6,757Leadership 5,177Cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) 3,732DevOps / CI-CD 2,815Python 2,356Java 2,279Data Analysis 2,219Agile / Scrum 2,209JavaScript 2,099Communication 2,008SQL 1,828
Hospitality 18,553 openings
Housekeeping 5,673Teamwork 4,032Food Safety 3,338Culinary / Cooking 3,221Customer Service 3,105Leadership 2,060Scheduling / Dispatch 1,998Communication 820Attention to Detail 713Bartending / Serving 672OSHA / Workplace Safety 354Time Management 336
Sales 17,742 openings
Sales 4,308AI / Machine Learning 2,667Teamwork 2,579Leadership 2,441Customer Service 2,339Inventory Management 1,815CRM 1,703HR / Recruiting 1,316Communication 906Time Management 861Driving Record 712Salesforce 623
Operations 15,173 openings
Leadership 4,385Project Management 2,928Teamwork 2,754AI / Machine Learning 2,650Customer Service 1,317Scheduling / Dispatch 1,087Time Management 1,082Lean / Six Sigma 1,061Data Analysis 1,036HR / Recruiting 938Communication 840Problem Solving 837
Customer Service 11,650 openings
Customer Service 8,895Housekeeping 6,365Communication 5,514Problem Solving 5,118HR / Recruiting 5,060Teamwork 771Scheduling / Dispatch 726Call Center 699Leadership 539AI / Machine Learning 480Driving Record 439Attention to Detail 304
Transportation 9,904 openings
Customer Service 3,131CDL / Commercial Driving 2,462Warehouse Operations 2,189Driving Record 1,898Teamwork 1,480Scheduling / Dispatch 1,414Attention to Detail 1,049Forklift 884Leadership 879Communication 721Housekeeping 554Problem Solving 381
Finance 9,249 openings
Leadership 2,053Teamwork 1,630Compliance 1,334Financial Analysis 1,299Accounting / GAAP 1,068AI / Machine Learning 898Customer Service 847Excel 766Attention to Detail 655Communication 608Sales 536Data Analysis 467
Manufacturing 8,590 openings
Teamwork 1,100Lean / Six Sigma 946Leadership 894Housekeeping 773Attention to Detail 731Plumbing 661Welding 633CNC / Machining 527Customer Service 524HVAC 500AI / Machine Learning 481Scheduling / Dispatch 478
Methodology
USA Jobs Board aggregates live openings directly from employer applicant-tracking systems across all 50 states — no scraped duplicates, no expired reposts. These reports are recomputed weekly from the full corpus: counts reflect listings live at analysis time, and the language analysis covers the complete text of every job description in the corpus. Word frequencies exclude stop-words, numbers, and legal boilerplate; skills are matched from a curated lexicon and counted at most once per listing.