Top Skills and Jobs Predicted for 2025
It’s never too early to start planning for the future, especially when it comes to your career. Whether you’re just getting started, thinking about a change, or trying to ensure you stay up-to-date in your current industry, it’s important to understand the priorities and trends of the future. As far off as it may seem, it’s no longer unrealistic to start thinking about 2025.
While skills that are directly job-relevant will always be important to continue to learn and develop, the 2020 pandemic brought an increased emphasis and importance on skills of self-management and personal development that is unlikely to go away anytime soon. This means potential employers will be looking increasingly at your ability to manage your time effectively and efficiently, and demonstrate self-motivation to continue developing your skillset(s).
This insight is based on the Future of Jobs Survey conducted in 2020 by the World Economic Forum, which discovered the Top 15 Skills for 2025 are:
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Active learning and learning strategies
- Complex problem solving
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Creativity, originality and initiative
- Leadership and social influence
- Technology use, monitoring and control
- Technology design and programming
- Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility
- Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation
- Emotional intelligence
- Troubleshooting and user experience
- Service orientation
- Systems analysis and evaluation
- Persuasion and negotiation
The same survey found that employers expect redundant roles to decline by 6.4% by 2025 and emerging professions to grow 5.7%. This means an estimated 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labor between humans and machines, while an estimated 97 million new roles may emerge that are better adapted to withstand the division.
The Top 10 roles in increasing demand are:
- Data Analysts and Scientists
- AI and Machine Learning Specialists
- Big Data Specialists
- Digital Marketing and Strategy Specialists
- Process Automation Specialists
- Business Development Professionals
- Digital Transformation Specialists
- Information Security Analysts
- Software and Applications Developers
- Internet of Things Specialists
The Top 10 roles in decreasing demand are:
- Data Entry Clerks
- Administrative and Executive Secretaries
- Accounting, Bookkeeping and Payroll Clerks
- Accountants and Auditors
- Assembly and Factory Workers
- Business Services and Administrative Managers
- Client Information and Customer Service Workers
- General and Operations Managers
- Mechanics and Machinery Repairers
- Material-Recording and Stock-Keeping Clerks
Whether you’re concerned about your job security and potential displacement or not, it’s never too early to develop new skills or diversify your experience. While these predictions are based on current data and the most recent trends, it’s impossible to know what the future will bring – or what jobs may be developed as others are eliminated. Every opportunity currently available was once a “futuristic” job that few ever dreamed possible or realized would exist. As long as you continue to learn, be flexible, and continually develop both technical hard skills and the interpersonal soft skills, your career path will be long – even if your path is different than you originally planned.