One of the most important ways of measuring the importance of a process improvement methodology is to establish its importance in the jobs market. What percentage of jobs refer to either six sigma or lean six sigma? What job categories refer to the terms? Are there importance increasing or decreasing?

Thanks to job websites like indeed.com and others, it is relatively easy to take an objective look at the importance of lean six sigma and six sigma. This exercise was undertaken in June 2010, the exercise will be repeated from time to time to see how trends develops. If you have any suggestions on improving the analysis, just send an email and we will take on any good improvement ideas.

The following data is from Indeed.com.
How many jobs posted with reference to lean six sigma? - 5,217 Jobs

What are the common job titles associated with "Lean Six Sigma"?

• Quality Manager (54)
• Master Black Belt (49)
• Quality Engineer (41)
• Manufacturing Engineer (40)
• Functional Transition Coordinator (38)
• Black Belt (38)
• Location Manager (37)
• Process Engineer (31)
• Production Supervisor (29)
• Airport Location Manager (28)
• Performance Improvement Manager - Supply Chain (26)
• Guardium Software Operations Engineer (24)
• Operations Supervisor (23)
• Plant Manager (23)
• Performance Improvement Senior - Supply Chain & Operations (23)

What type of companies are hiring lean six sigma professionals?

• Hertz (123)
• Ernst & Young (118)
• Merck (116)
  
• GE Energy (109)
  
• Unlisted Company (107)
  
• 3M (98)
  
• IBM (94)
  
• Booz Allen Hamilton (90)
  
• GE (75)
  
• Ryder (63)
  
• Medtronic (59)
  
• Lockheed Martin (58)
  
• Northrop Grumman (57)
  
• Ingersoll-Rand (53)
  
• General Dynamics Information Technology (50)

What are companies paying for lean six sigma experience?

• $40,000+ (4722)
  
• $60,000+ (3202)
  
• $80,000+ (1839)
  
• $100,000+ (876)
  
• $120,000+ (368)

When we rerun this exercise for the term "six sigma" without the term "lean" we get the following results.

How many jobs posted with reference to six sigma? - 13,019 Jobs

What are the common job titles associated with "Six Sigma"?

• Project Manager (123)
  
• Quality Engineer (122)
  
• Principal Consultant - BABW (any WellPoint location) - 43882 (106)
  
• Process Engineer (94)
  
• Continuous Improvement Manager (Business Consultant) (61)
  
• Director Business Systems Implementation (54)
  
• Sr Solution Strategist (49)
  
• Business Analyst (48)
  
• Solution Strategist (47)
  
• Plant Engineer - Morrow (46)
  
• Manufacturing Engineer (39)
  
• Quality Assurance Manager (39)
  
• Quality Manager (37)
  
• Mechanical Engineer (34)
  
• Director, Diagnostic Laboratories Quality Management (34)

What type of companies are hiring six sigma professionals?

• Bank of America Corp. (894)
  
• GE Technology Infrastructure (459)
  
• Volt Information Sciences (338)
  
• Raytheon (312)
  
• GE Industrial (266)
  
• Unlisted Company (243)
  
• Wellpoint, Inc. (218)
  
• UnitedHealth Group (211)
  
• GE Capital (205)
  
• Honeywell (196)
  
• THINK ENERGY GROUP (142)
  
• CA Inc. (133)
  
• NORTHROP GRUMMAN (120)
  
• Kforce Technology Staffing (116)
  
• BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (102)

What are companies paying for six sigma experience?

• $40,000+ (11490)
  
• $60,000+ (8387)
  
• $80,000+ (4325)
  
• $100,000+ (1964)
  
• $120,000+ (872)

Checking out Google search trends and blogs:

We can also gauge the level of internet chat related to Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma by looking at Google searches and blogs. On June 17th, the Google keyword tool shows a total of 673,000 average monthly searches for "lean six sigma". This figure can be used with Google insights which shows the trends in search for "Lean Six Sigma" and "Six Sigma". The Six Sigma values were filtered so that the term "lean" was not present in the search query.

Finally, are people talking about lean six sigma and six sigma on the internet? When we look at the blogs, we get the following charts describing the trends for references to lean six sigma and six sigma respectively.

The six sigma graph was filtered to remove references to "lean".

The data shows that lean six sigma and six sigma are an important part of job requirements. However they are only part of the requirements. They complement the project manager, the quality engineer, the business analyst etc and may provide the edge that is needed in tough times. We can see the interest in lean six sigma and six sigma present in a range of industries, manufacturing, service and healthcare.

We can see from Google trends and the blog postings that lean six sigma and six sigma are part of the regular conversation on the internet. Both six sigma and lean six sigma charts suggest growth in the level of blog postings. If you have suggestions on improving the above, send us, look forward to hearing from you.