Future-proof your skills #1: an overview of the future of work

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With all the buzz around AI and ChatGPT, no doubt you’ve considered how technology is going to affect the future of your work. Future-proofing your skills and the skills within your organisation will become the key advantage that will give you the edge over your competition.

We’ve consulted recent research to bring you insights on what our job futures look like and what skills are and will be in demand as we shift further down the line of automation across industries.

Overall, the good news is that Australia is facing a lower risk of job loss due to automation as compared to other OECD countries (36% against 46%) (OECD). On the other hand, World economic forum predicted that 50% of workers globally will need to be reskilled by 2025. While Australia may be at a lower risk of losing jobs to automation, there is still a significant percentage of jobs that could disappear. Which is why the Australian National Skills Commission emphasises that reskilling will be the key to success for future work.

So which skills will be in demand in the future as we face escalating automation? Across all research, locally and internationally, we found three groups of skills that were consistently mentioned:

Digital literacy, or the ability to work with technology

Higher-order cognitive skills, such as problem-solving and critical thinking

Social skills, including collaboration, leadership, influence, and communication

There is no question that digital skills will be essential for future work. Randstad, a global HR consulting firm, identified artificial intelligence/machine learning, cloud computing and big data as the top 3 in-demand skill clusters. A similar finding was reported by the Australian National Skills Commission that placed data and digital skills as the fastest-growing emerging skills, with software orchestration/automation, artificial intelligence and data analysis appearing at the top. Not only have these skills been in demand, but they have also started to permeate occupations outside the tech industry.

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In addition to digital skills, there will be an increased need for higher-order cognitive skills, such as complex problem solving and critical thinking (National Skills Commission, 2021; World Economic Forum, 2020). Complex problem solving enables people to navigate constantly changing environments and achieve goals that are not well-defined. Given the current pace of change, this skill will be essential for people to tackle modern business problems. In turn, critical thinking, a capability that allows people to analyse, interpret and evaluate information and then form a judgement, will be essential to making sense of the world proliferated by AI-generated content and information.

Finally, we come to the skills of social influence and communication. These are the skills people need to collaborate with as well as lead and influence others. McKinsey, a global management consulting firm, estimated that Australians will spend 43% more hours using their social and emotional skills in 2030 than they did in 2016. A similar prediction was made by the National Skills Commission that placed communication skills in the top 2 skill clusters with the largest projected growth till the end of 2025.

While some might find these statistics surprising or contrary to what they expected in the digital and data-driven work environment, there are some good reasons for these skills to grow in importance. Research that looked into the automatability of skills showed that communication and collaboration are one of the hardest skill clusters to automate. Furthermore, the need for these skills will not go away because they help us satisfy the fundamental psychological need of relatedness that makes us seek connection with other people. Finally, skills like leadership are not only harder to automate, but are also essential for business to drive digitisation and automation in the first place (PWC).

In our next posts, we’ll dig deeper in the drivers of change and what you can start implementing now to address your potential skills gap – both individually and at an organisational level.

If you’d like more information on the future of work, you can watch our Future Skills webinar here.

Or, if you're all about 'show me the data'; view our Future Skills Guide here.