Freelancer skills with the fastest growth in demand during the third quarter were writing- and marketing-related, according to an analysis by talent platform Freelancer.com. The two individual skills seeing the fastest growth in demand were copy typing and Microsoft Word.

“Artificial intelligence is powering a boom in content creation, particularly focusing on writing, marketing and video production skills,” Matt Barrie, CEO at Freelancer.com, said in a press statement.

Freelancer.com’s “Fast 50 Q3 2023” report is based on global data from an analysis of 277,000 jobs posted on its platform between 1 July and 30 September.

Overall, the five fastest-growing freelancer skills on the platform in the third quarter compared to the second quarter were:

1. Copy typing, up 28.7% to 8,213 jobs
2. Word, up 24.8% to 5,485 jobs
3. Search engine marketing, up 24.1% to 2,881 jobs
4. Copywriting, up 23.8% to 10,817 jobs
5. Ghostwriting, up 23.1% to 7,852 jobs

“Generative AI is superskilling freelancers and their ability to produce extremely high-quality content faster than ever before,” Barrie said, adding that generative AI such as ChatGPT and Bard have “changed the game” when it comes to producing and refining written content.

Freelancer.com also tracked job postings year over year. Based on this analysis, the fastest-growing skills included those in design, marketing and video:

1. User interface/IA, up 101.9% to 3,607
2. Search engine marketing, up 80.4% to 2,881
3. Videography, up 77.1% to 4,809
4. Microsoft Word, up 61.3% to 5,485
5. Video production, up 58.1% to 7,071

The skills seeing the fastest decline in demand on a year-over-year basis were mostly in computer programming:

1. Matlab and Mathematica, down 25.1% to 1,011 jobs
2. AngularJS, down 23.5% to 1,318 jobs
3. Django, down 23.4% to 932 jobs
4. Algorithm, down 22.5% to 1,114 jobs
5. Customer service, down 20.2% to 1,068 jobs