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Journeys rarely follow a straight line, and 2024 was no exception. The numbers tell the story - 2024 saw a continuation of the most difficult job market for junior tech talent in over 20 years, making job placement a formidable challenge. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story of 2024, two major grants secured near year’s end represent a pivotal investment in our graduates and our mission. These grants will allow us to expand support for existing graduates and create new opportunities for our graduates and the broader community.
The weak tech job market, particularly for junior talent, that was such an issue in 2023 and which we discussed in last year’s Community Impact Report, continued through 2024. Job openings for software developers and data analysts were at much lower levels than during most of the prior several years (excluding the latter part of 2020 during the initial COVID-19 months).
The chart below clearly highlights what’s been happening in the tech job market, both locally and nationally over the past few years. The chart reflects job postings nationally (the dark blue line and the scale on the left) and locally (the red line and the scale on the right side of the graph) for the types of jobs our graduates typically search for. One thing that’s clear when the two graphs are overlaid is that talent demand locally followed very closely the ebbs and flows of national tech talent demand.
After reviewing the 2023 job market, and estimating that demand would not increase in 2024, we made adjustments in early 2024 to our planned student enrollment levels to reduce the number of students in an attempt to better match the number of graduates with the jobs available in the job market. Among the changes we made were eliminating two planned cohorts of our full-stack Web Development bootcamp (i.e. around 50 students) and completely shutting down our Software Engineering with Java/AWS Specialization program (which at one time was expected to have 75-100 students in 2024). We also planned for somewhat smaller cohort sizes, particularly for software developers. We did not make reductions in our data programs since placement levels were continuing at roughly the same level as in the prior year. We also did not estimate that demand in 2024 would continue to decline for much of the year.
There are a few additional items that aren’t shown directly on the chart but which the chart helps to make understandable, including the following:
One important adjustment that we made going into 2025 was to again reduce planned student numbers so as to try to align the number of planned graduates with the job market. We again looked at the number of graduate placements in the prior year (i.e. during calendar 2024) and adjusted planned enrollments for 2025 such that, after allowing for the usual attrition associated with non-completion of programs and historical placement rates, we would not put more new talent into the market than could be absorbed assuming no improvement in the job market. Those adjustments include eliminating two more cohorts in the full-stack Web Development program as well as putting a cap on cohort sizes.
Just as the job market in tech was weak for the second year in a row, prospective student demand was also weak for the second year in a row. The tech job market’s weakness accounts for some of the student demand issue but also the confluence of multiple economic issues (inflation, resumption of student loan payments, overextension on credit cards, etc.) was a substantial drag. All of these issues add up to lots of uncertainty, and uncertainty does not help individuals make decisions to change careers.
We continued to try to offset at least the negative financial factors. We continued to self-fund, even in our own stressed financial situation, as many Opportunity Tuition and partial scholarships as possible. We also rolled out our Access Scholarship program which further reduced the tuition burden for regular tuition full-stack software development applicants. We were also blessed with the continuing support of partners such as Ingram Charities and other local foundations, who prefer to remain anonymous, whose donations helped carry the load of supporting financially disadvantaged students. We saw so many more applicants than usual needing financial support and we were successful in providing support to the highest percentage of students ever - 74% vs. last year’s 61%.
All of the above makes it sound like 2024 was pretty bleak. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a difficult year, because it was. But it wasn’t all dark and the outlook moving forward has much promise, even if there is uncertainty.
Let’s start by shifting the framing on the job market - even in the toughest job market in the tech world in at least 20 years our graduates still are finding their first jobs in tech. It’s a difficult job market, the searches are harder and longer than in years past, but there are jobs out there and our graduates are finding them. As the metrics below illustrate, we also continue to open doors to tech careers for many adults from underrepresented groups with 57% of this year’s students from one or more groups underrepresented in tech.
We also continue to support our Seekers (graduates still searching for their first tech job) with various forms of programming, including our weekly “lunch and learn” sessions, placement support, job postings, free continuing education courses, etc. We do not give up on our graduates in their effort to find a tech job and launch a tech career - as long as they don’t give up, we’re here to support them.
And that’s an area where there is very good news looking ahead to 2025 and 2026. In the fourth quarter of 2024 we were blessed with the award of two significant grants. One, from a private foundation based here in Tennessee, gave us significant funding to dedicate to: a) researching how the skills and competencies needed to launch a tech career may be changing based on changes to employer needs and technology changes (e.g. generative AI to mention one factor), b) mapping the skills and competencies needed to progress a career from junior to intermediate to senior levels, and c) develop curriculum for our bootcamps and for new professional development classes that we can offer to our students and the broader community.
The second grant, from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, helps pay for our ProTech program. ProTech allows us to deliver the new programs stemming from the work mentioned above, including allowing us to deliver continuing education classes for free during 2025 and 2026 to our Seekers, to laid off tech talent, and to others who have secured the training to start a tech career but are unable to find that first job in this difficult job market. This allows us to extend our reach and impact on the community in ways we have long dreamed of and hints of exciting opportunities on the horizon, headwinds or no.
Below we go into more details on our impact metrics for 2024. Thank you for your interest in and support for Nashville Software School.
Our placement rate for graduates from July 2023 to June 2024 who were placed by Oct. 15, 2024 was 48% (as reported to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission based on the state fiscal year). This placement rate is well below our historical average and clearly reflects the reduced number of junior tech jobs available. Just how few jobs were there?
The chart below shows the number of tech job postings from January 2020 to December 2024 on the national (dark blue line and scale on the left) and local (dark red and scale on the right) levels and only includes job postings for the types of jobs our graduates typically land. This includes software developers, data analysts, data scientists, and related positions. To give an overall picture of the hiring market for these roles and our graduates, it includes all experience levels, and not just the entry level positions we train our graduates for. We’ve highlighted the last three Tennessee state fiscal years, the time period our placements rates are measured, showing the number of advertised positions that correspond to placement rates for NSS students who graduated and found work inside that block of time.
In the state fiscal year 2021-2022 (shown in light blue), our graduates experienced short job search times and we had a placement rate of 91.3%. Even though the Nashville market had not yet returned to its pre-pandemic high point, there were lots of junior-level jobs for our graduates.
At the beginning of state fiscal year 2022-2023 (show in light orange), job postings began an 18 month slide. This led to our placement rate dropping to 68%. With fewer jobs available and layoffs from tech companies across the country adding to the available talent pool, we began to see job search times increase. In 2023 we ramped up our support for our Seekers and began reducing the number of cohorts and graduates per year to better align with what we were seeing in the job market
The downward trend in job postings continued for the first six months of the state fiscal year 2023-2024 (shown in light red) until it hit its current bottom in December 2023. There was a slight bit of positive movement in the first half of 2024, but the number of job postings was still below the pandemic-driven low point at the end of 2020. With even fewer jobs than the prior fiscal year, our placement rate was 48%.
It’s important to remember, our placement rate is a snapshot in time. Reported outcomes are locked in as of early October, so even if every student in a cohort is subsequently placed, our reported stats (which by regulation are the only placement numbers we are allowed to use) are never updated to reflect eventual 100% placement. We believe that it’s better for Tennessee to have a standard for reporting outcomes (many states don’t) than not, but we also think it’s important to understand the data and what it means and doesn’t mean (gee, you’d think we taught data analytics or something!).
We will also continue to work with the graduates still seeking their first job in tech–as we’ve always done–and thanks to support from a local foundation and a state grant, we’re ramping up our efforts even further. Our recently announced ProTech initiative will provide additional classes for these graduates so they can continue to learn and code while in their job search. (You can learn more about how placement rates are calculated by THEC in this blog post.
