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In today’s capitalist world, the value of any job often comes down to one thing: supply and demand. But sometimes, we have no clue just how much demand there is in certain fields.
Curious to uncover them, one Redditor asked users which industries are booming far more than most people realize. The answers were full of surprises, and we’ve rounded up some of the most interesting ones below. Feel free to weigh in or maybe even see this as market research for your next big career pivot.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
HVAC. More areas where you used to get by just fine with an open window and a box fan are getting unbearably hot in the summers.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
But Climate Change isn't real according to some of the most horrible people on Earth.
RELATED:
#2
Storage units. We’re basically paying rent for our junk to live a better life than we do.
#3
Grid-scale battery storage, used to store excess electricity from wind and solar farms for use during peak demand. This industry is huge and is growing exponentially, especially as the cost of batteries continue to drop and demand increases.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
This is a huge one. Or it was until Trump killed the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPs Act. Seriously this list if from 2024 I'm certain of it now.
#4
International conflict. Arms producers don't make money when ordnance is mothballed.
#5
You can really see the “authoritarian-adjacent” industries booming under Trump right now. Private prison giants are making record profits off the mass deportation campaign, with the government paying them to lock up more people than ever. Surveillance and defense-tech companies like Palantir are swimming in multi-billion-dollar contracts. Border security tech, AI infrastructure - it’s all getting huge funding. Whatever you call it - authoritarian, security-state, strongman-friendly - these sectors are cashing in big right now.
KrazyChiMama 3 months ago
Private prisons need to be shut down in my opinion…they’re not doing anything to help the prisoners reform, but setting them up for failure to perpetuate the cycle. Which brings in more profits. I’d say more than half of the prisoners are undiagnosed mental health patients that should be getting treatment rather than being locked up. The whole system is disgusting and needs to be changed.
#6
Remote scams and blackmail.
Investment scams (not counting crypto rugpulls and memecoins, I feel like that's a different area), service cancellation scams, romance scams (pig butchering) / blackmail, pretty much anything that convinces your parents/grandparents to buy a ton of gift cards or go to a crypto exchange terminal.
There are entire buildings full with scam call centers, human trafficking where people are forced into scamming, it's a huge industry now.
#7
In the UK the VPN business is red hot.
WindySwede 3 months ago
I mean you even gotta verify your age to go on wikipedia I read? What's happening to that country? And a politician called everyone using an VPN a predator for not following the law, irregardless of what they did online.. ?
#8
The used car market. I work on the back end in the commercial lending side for car dealerships.
The tariffs (or threat of) on new cars has pushed used car prices towards ridiculous numbers.
I occasionally show up at auctions to gauge market trends and a 2017 VW Jetta with 133k miles hammered at $11k. Plus auction fees and transport it'll be $12k and that's before the dealer has done any repairs or made a dollar of profit.
Pre Covid a 8 year old Jetta would be $2k tops. But people keep paying it. My market share has risen about 40% since January.
#9
Pet cremation.
tiankai:
Pet anything actually. If you know how to source it you’ll make bank selling in western markets.
KrazyChiMama 3 months ago
Eh, I don’t see a problem with this one. We treat pets like family. We do this to our human family, only seems natural we do this for our beloved pets. I had one of my chihuahuas cremated by the same company that cremated my father when he passed. It wasn’t too expensive less than $300 USD with the urn/ornate box included.
#10
Mental health and wellness technology e.g. digital therapy apps, telepsychiatry, and wellness platforms.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
Because the whole world is going insane and all of us are falling apart.
#11
Sports betting.
FreezersAndWeezers:
As a big sports fan, I can’t believe how out of control it’s become. 10 years ago it felt like it was a niche thing that your weird uncle did, now you cannot go anywhere that has sports and not have it be a massive point of discussion. A large group of people, mostly men, are completely incapable of watching a sport now without having money on something or yammering about their parlay
I wish it was similar to cigarettes where they can’t advertise it, or even regulated like alcohol where you can’t show anyone actually partaking/“having fun” in ads. It’s chipping the integrity of sports
#12
The second-hand clothing resale industry.
Everyone talks about fast fashion, but Vinted and thrift stores are quietly driving a huge economy.
#13
Pest control, quietly a 5-11% growth year over year. PE firms are buying the mom and pop shops like crazy, anything over 1m in revenue that shows a healthy business plan.
#14
Mobile games. $92.5 billion made in 2024, half of the entire video game industry.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
And they all suck! I don't get it. I love video games but I'd rather read a book or do a crossword than play a mobile game.
#15
Dead people. There are more dead people than ever.
A family member is a Mortician by education, and though he has since retired out, he made great money doing it.
#16
Travel.
Reddit loves to talk like everybody is living in destitute poverty. But I’ve worked in the travel industry for 15 years and every sector is up right now. Hotel, air, cruise, tour, luxury, Disney, ski, etc. All of it is up.
#17
Utilities. Data centers are so desperate for energy they want thier own nuclear reactors. .
Rali Meyer 3 months ago
Data centers are highly profitable. I had a look at a business plan not long ago. As an investor very interesting.
#18
Any industry that fills the void left by having a partner and friends. People are lonelier than ever. So pets, p**n, entertainment/distractions, dumb**s consumables (looking at you, labubu).
#19
Energy - particularly electricity due to AI demand. Electricity demand has been pretty slow and steady the past couple decades due to better efficiency, but now AI has caused a huge spike.
Jrog 3 months ago (edited)
As already discussed in another thread, the energy demand of AI is on par with the existing alternatives (google etc), and worldwide is pretty negligible. The worst predictions place the worldwide AI energy consumption in 2030 at about 1000 TWh total (+450TWh over 5 years) or about 3% of global energy produced. By comparison the average expected growth from air conditioning alone is three times that.
#20
Pharmaceutical industry. People are getting sick every day and doctors are writing many prescriptions whenever they can, even though some prescriptions are not always medically necessary for patients to take.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 3 months ago
And about 77 Million Americans are going to lose their health insurance.
#21
Vertical farming is booming! It's a sustainable way to grow food in cities, and big tech is starting to invest in it. It’s going to be huge in the coming years!
Captain Kakapo 3 months ago
show me vertical farming that is doing something more substantial than salads, something that can be staple
#22
Private tutoring, SAT/ACT prep. One of the highest profit margin businesses to operate. .
#23
Renting luxury handbags by the week. Entire businesses run on it.
Jrog 3 months ago
I went into a rabbit hole a while ago with this unique, most interesting SCAM. So, it works like this: you pay a rental (30-60€/day, min 3 days) or a subscription (45-300€/mo), to rent one luxury item that is listed at WAY inflated prices on their websites. You are obviously responsible for loss or damages -sometimes there is a boilerplate "insurance" that do not cover anything-, and these companies do not refrain from pursuing reimbursement for any minimal thing. They have huge hidden fees, such as late return, shipping fees or reservation fees, that quickly add up. There have been cases of counterfeit items being rented as good (I think it was Chanel that also took legal action), and being rented out again after they were exposed the first time.
#24
Wastewater treatment. S**t doesn't go away.
#25
Plastic minis and war games
Seriously, Games Workshop brings in more for the British economy than the entire fishing industry. It's actually mad how much people will pay for that stuff when it's so very cheap to make.
Please ignore me and my Skaven army over here. It's entirely justified when I do it.
#26
Electricians are in super high demand.
Jrog 3 months ago
They are in high demand because working conditions are generally bad, pay is subpar, the required certifications cost way too much, job stability is generally low, the job requires long training and comes with innate risks. If any of this changes (hopefully not the training and certifications) the market would be instantly flooded by wannabe electricians.
#28
The Simp/Loner Economy and Virtual Influencers serving it.
Male Loneliness is at its all-time high and ppl have no idea how much money lonely men are willing to pay for their fav influencer to call out their name and say "thank you" on a live stream.
There's even a YT documentary about this in China.
KrazyChiMama 3 months ago
Too many men getting lost in toxic masculinity internet rabbit holes. Get off the web, go out and meet real face to face people! Don’t be a d*ckhole and you might make friends or perhaps a special someone!
#29
AI governance. If you are a policy, legal, security, or ethics person who can get to a “power user” level of AI understanding (like earn a couple of certs, read a few books, and have some basic experience f*****g around with it)- you are set. A lot of jobs are going to be automated- but you will need human beings establishing guardrails for both business and government.
#30
Apparently the matcha industry.
Jrog 3 months ago (edited)
Quite the contrary. The shortage on matcha is not driven by increased demand, but by long-term production issues. The demand grew by just 6-7%/yr in the last few years, that on such a niche market means a puny $3B growth over a decade; looks like a lot but it's the same growth that single companies achieve in other markets, and way less than other niche markets (E-learning grew $100B in the same decade). On the other hand, the production issues are long-term and hardly solvable, driving the raw material prices up and up. Climate change, cost of labor and labor shortages, extreme weather events are here to stay; with the tariffs impact, as well as matcha being already easily replaceable by readily available natural or synthetic alternatives, and it being a non-essential item in a time of economic contraction, the outlook is not good at all.
#31
Education. Institutions keep adding educations but not removing the old ones.
At least here in Denmark the country. Theres the university which adds “molecular and medical microbiology”. Granted they combined two eductations which results in double the students spread out in classes.
And on the masters level only 15 students a year get to study Neuroscience in Beijing. So they add
Then theres the academy for commerce which offers 3.5 years proffesional bachelors. And like someone pointed out in here: they recently added cyber security as its own 3.5 years degree. .
#32
In Britain anything associated with caravanning is currently raking it in, and it's not the stereotype of retired Boomers propping it up, it's gen X and the older millennials.
#33
Trading cards. It's not just Pokemon cards, Magic the gathering has 3 amazing crossover sets dropping this year (Final Fantasy, Spider-man and Avatar the last Airbender)
Every single trading card game is booming. There hasn't been a single unprofitable product put out by any TCG manufacturer this year (except Konami... Yu-Gi-Oh sucks)
These games are even bigger than they were at the beginning of COVID when people were sitting at home with nothing to do. It's insane!
Firstname Lastname 3 months ago
Every time the vendor puts out the trading cards at our local store, a crowd of fully grown men buy hundreds of dollars worth within the first few hours. Then a small child will come in later, looking to find cards to play with, only to be disappointed by the empty shelves.
#34
Non-Destructive Testing. As an Ultrasonic Testing Level 3, I am constantly being recruited. I was able to turn that into a 15k increase at my current company last year. The demand for NDT techs is only growing. No college degree required.
#37
Data industry. Hoooooly sht. I conceived a data company (API Automations) 4yrs ago because I had 7yrs in digital ads and I saw the writing on the wall. So I started selling consented data to whoever would buy it.
Now since DJT removed all restrictions related to copyright, AI and essentially Data, Elon and black rock stole+are selling the GOV data, the marketplace from ALL angles is exploding. Looking at raising 8-figures because the company is in such an amazing position due to criminals making it so.
#38
The appliance and electronics repair and maintenance industry.
Why?
Almost everyone uses smartphones, laptops, and household appliances that break down from time to time.
Instead of buying new, many people and companies choose to repair or upgrade old appliances.
This market is constantly growing due to the rapid development of gadgets and their complexity.
In addition, the popularity of cleaning, optimization, and preventive maintenance services for appliances is growing.
#39
Fencing. I’ve called 3 companies recently for a simple chain link fence and all are booked out 3-4 months.
#40
Cooling industries and technology for AI cooling. Thorium energy research and development, oddly enough biodegradable product items/research, with many countries developing modern cities -> urban planning for sewerage systems and water recycling systems. But if you are looking for jobs in warmer climates with limited water, desalination is real big anything associated with it is being headhounded for specialist.
There's like social media things you can do right now for a quick trend buck. AI babies, AI songs that you create with a popular person with tweaks. Oddly enough with so many people without homes, I kid you now a squatting coordinator to move people into non-occupied homes where you get a large upfront payment for disclosing details. Also, I'm not joking with Ice one could say, a person who takes large sums to hide illegals for a long period of time.
Yeah I have friends tell me about job details almost daily many of them are recruiters.
#41
Sustainable packaging.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 3 months ago
The inserts in boxes that have been polystyrene are being replaced by mycelium packaging. Mushrooms basically. Once done they can be thrown into the garden and will completely biodegradable with no harmful after effects.
#43
In the UK....Foster care. There's a desperate shortage of beds ( after 15 years of reduced social spending and stagnating economy)
Most councils have upped their rates to self-employed local foster carers, the personal tax allowance for foster carers is huge at 18k tax free plus £250 per week added to this for each child you look after. A foster carer can basically work tax free.
There's still a huge shortage. Due to a lack of local placements the local authority turns to the markets. Independent fostering Agencies are making absolute bank. It gets worse. Private children's homes are basically scalping councils for beds.
There was a 'rest is money' podcast on how rich individuals are no longer buying properties to rent for retirement income but starting children's homes, as the profits are so good. So how much are residential homes making? A local authority foster carer might get paid 18-26k a year for looking after a child. An independent fostering agency might charge 50-75k a year for a placement, A private residential home might charge up to 45k a week for a placement ( as stated and sourced from the podcast) A single placement....45k a week.
So if you want lower council tax become a foster carer.
Edit; £45k is in rare and extreme cases, the usual is about 5/6 k per week for private residential homes. Still a huge amount.
#44
Physical retail. Redditors insanely think that malls are dying because of the internet. Malls are dying because we built too many of them and they started competing with each other, and malls are so expensive to operate that the business model doesn't work unless they're basically 100% leased. But if you drive around any dead mall, it's usually surrounded by miles and miles of thriving strip malls, which are just much cheaper to operate.
E: Another thing to note is that converting dead malls for some other purpose is one of the dumbest suggestions you'll ever hear from a human person. There's like one example of this being successfully done and it was a mall from the 1800s that looks nothing like modern malls. It would be cheaper and easier to tear down a mall and build something new than it would to convert them into something useful. I've even seen people suggest cities take them over and operate them as free community centers and I don't understand what world people are living in where they think that's feasible. It requires no specialized knowledge and no expertise whatsoever to intuitively understand that a giant building with giant ceilings and huge open spaces is going to cost a stupid amount of money to heat and cool.
>Just from the stand point of building a community center or other city related spaces (like a library or school) Surely it’s cheaper to retro fit a mall into smaller more economical (heating and cooling wise) spaces, than it is to completely tear it down and rebuild it.
It's not. It is **objectively and indisputably** cheaper to tear down a mall and build a purpose-built building than it is to try to retrofit this massive, mostly empty space for some more practical purpose. This isn't my opinion, it is a factual description of construction costs. If it conflicts with what you assumed before you read this comment, use this as an opportunity to learn and change those assumptions, not to argue.
E2: I am aware of the mall in Austin that was turned into a community college campus. Please feel free to check the replies before you post a comment that six other people have already posted. Also remember that the market for community colleges looking for new spaces in cities where they already exists a dead mall in reasonable shape is obviously incredibly small, and thus not a practical solution for the vast majority of malls. Most of them simply need to be torn down and there's no way of getting around that.
Mike F 3 months ago (edited)
Back in the day the opportunity to go to one single place (the mall) was really desirable. Just pile the kids in the station wagon and head to the mall. You could spend the day there shopping and see a movie or k1ll a few hours in a video arcade. With the advent of the internet and so many things available by shopping online it was the d3ath knell for the local mall.
#45
The darts industry. It started growing during Covid but has exploded in the last couple of years thanks mostly to Luke Littler. It’s now one of the most watched sports on TV here in the UK and is massive across Europe.
#46
AI use to Scam people...
Between the building waves of AI voice and video spoofing real people, We are rapidly approaching the point where people need to meet *in person* to verify that messages being conveyed are real.
#47
I work in credit hire, it’s UNREAL how much money you can make storing damaged vehicles following a non-fault accident, hiring out vehicles (basically instead of a courtesy car) and then charging the at-fault insurers.. i’m talking millions per month. ofc, i’m still on minimum wage tho🤗.
#48
Private prisons that send kickbacks to judges regarding relatively minor offenses.
#49
It hasnt kicked in just yet but personal robotics is about to be huge. The mechanical and electronic obstacles have already been solved. Now it's just a matter of AI training the software so that you can own a $15K robot that does your laundry, feeds the dog, and keeps an eye on the house when you're out.
#50
Mega-Yacht builders, seriously its a booming industry.
#51
Oil and gas, the fact people actually believe we can transfer to anywhere close to 100% electric vehicles is hilarious.
#52
Smaller city tourism.
OKC for instance has increased their Tourism-specific Economic Impact by $1.6 billion dollars in a single year.
Affordability comes into play here, while other destinations are almost impossible to vacation to for the average John and Jane, smaller markets have managed to keep pricing around the same, so people hungering for a vacation are starting to pick smaller destinations over the larger ones.
#53
Wedding and Event venues. I own a mobile bar business and travel around to wedding venues around my area. Some of these venues are booked two years out. Some of them are no longer doing off-season discounts.
#54
Remediation companies. Even if you don’t lose your home to a fire, if you’re near a burn zone your house could get covered in ash and become toxic and uninhabitable. Depending on square footage, many of these cleanup crews charge anywhere from 30-200k per home. In the last year I’ve seen remediation vans driving all over. With climate change I can only imagine how business is going to boom.
#56
Missiles. Everything and anything to do with missiles. Solid state rocket motors. If you are 14-24 and have a hunch you’d be satisfied or even enjoy being a part of solid state rocket engines, this is your moment.
#57
Golf had a huge boom and revitalization across the industry during covid and managed to stay busy even when people started to return to work. In North America, golf courses are one of the largest buyers in electric handheld equipment (at least from what I've seen in the Mid-Atlantic Region) and now we're starting to see robotic mowers take over the industry which helps alleviate the labor issues they've always had and remove a couple of the super expensive diesel wide area mowers from their fleets.
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What do you think ?
Ak_Teren 3 months ago
Hearing aids. People are older than ever before, working in loud professions and/or consuming loud media. Industry has been growing for decades, not nearly enough qualified staff available. If i should lose my job for whatever reason, i'll have a new one a day later. And you can comfortably negotiate because it's an employee market
Ak_Teren 3 months ago
Hearing aids. People are older than ever before, working in loud professions and/or consuming loud media. Industry has been growing for decades, not nearly enough qualified staff available. If i should lose my job for whatever reason, i'll have a new one a day later. And you can comfortably negotiate because it's an employee market
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