2012: the year of the Web 2.0 entrepreneur

There’s never been a better time to be a freelance web developer, with an explosion in the number of jobs being posted online for experts in Web 2.0 technologies.

That’s according to figures from outsourcing marketplace freelancer.com, based on the number of online jobs clients have posted to the site.

Key web technology areas all saw big increases in job postings, including HTML (up 193% to 72,571), Website Design (up 94% to 83,931) and PHP (up 69% to 104,597).

More small businesses are also moving into online retailing to counter the likes of Amazon and eBay, with increases in posts involving eCommerce (up 34% to 11,612), Shopping Carts (up 67% to 8437) and online retail platform Magento (up 57% to 5789).

Unsurprisingly, the fastest-growing sector of all was Mobile Phone, with a 216% increase in the number of jobs, to 12,262.

Jobs for developers working specifically with Android were up 163% to 7431, while those for iPhone developers were up 81% to 12,527.

The iPad was also a growing platform, with 5566 jobs, or 126% compared with 2010.

"We believe that the rate of new applications for the iPad will accelerate significantly,” the report reads, "as applications catch up to the tremendous growth rate at which iPads are currently shipping, developers cotton on to the new platform paradigm, and the iPad 3 ships.”

Go here to read the full report.