This article is published in the January 2023 issue.

Analysis of Current and Future Computer Science Needs via Advertised Faculty Searches for 2023

By: Craig E. Wills, Worcester Polytechnic InstituteIn: /

This work uses the same methodology applied over nine years to study where Computer Science departments are choosing to invest faculty positions using data obtained from advertised tenure-track searches for the current hiring season.  While the number of and areas for faculty searches does not necessarily translate into the same for faculty hires, we believe that they provide insight into current and future needs within the discipline. The full report is available at:
https://web.cs.wpi.edu/~cew/papers/CSareas23.pdf

Positions

We analyzed ads from 437 institutions seeking to fill close to 1,000 tenure-track faculty positions in Computer Science.  The number of institutions is a 9% increase from last year at this time (mid-November) and is the highest number of institutions searching in the nine years of this study. The previous high was 409 for hires to begin in 2019.  The number of tenure-track positions sought is up 9% from last year and also at a nine-year high.  The number of BS/BA institutions seeking faculty is at a nine-year high with top PhD and private PhD institutions at nine-year highs in the number of positions being sought.

We clustered the specific Computer Science topics mentioned in ads into 16 areas.  In terms of specific areas, we found that the clustered area of Security accounts for the most with 19% of all sought positions with AI/Data Mining/Machine Learning dropping to second at 18% The area of Data Science is at 12% of positions, but aggregating the Data Science, AI/DM/ML and Databases clusters results in 30% of all hires sought in these data-oriented areas, which is a bit lower than previous years.  The area of Systems/Networking was fourth in the percentage (10%) of positions sought.

cluster

Differences are also seen when analyzing results based on the type of institution.  As was the case last year, positions in the clustered area of AI/Data Mining/Machine Learning have the highest percentages for PhD institutions.  Again, positions related to Security have the highest percentages for MS and BS/BA institutions.  Security is the second-most sought area for PhD institutions while AI/Data Mining/Machine Learning is the second-most sought area for MS and Systems/Networking for BS/BA institutions.