The future of skills: being human
Owen Henkel, Director of Pearson Affordable Learning Fund, looks at the key findings of the report ‘Future of Skills: Employment in 2030’.
The power of skills: investing in your future
First, we reviewed what the literature says about long-run trends impacting on the UK and US labour markets. Then, armed with this information, we asked experts to debate the future of 30 occupations and label whether they expected them to rise or fall in demand by 2030. In addition, they were asked to state how certain or uncertain they were in making these judgments.Finally, we fed these results into an algorithm that generated predictions for all occupations. Specifically, we exploited a rich data set of 120 skills, abilities and knowledge requirements.As a result, our model not only predicts which occupations are most likely to grow or decline, but which skills are most likely to be in demand as well, and skills are something that, whatever job you're in, there's something that you can do about. If you invest in the right skills you can leave yourself in a better place to benefit from the opportunities of the future.The rise and fall of occupations
First, let's look at our predictions about employment. The graph below shows the results of thousands of simulations predicting that a specific occupation will employ more (or less) than it does today. The x-axis estimates the probability that each occupation group will experience higher relative demand, and the y-axis shows the number of predicted jobs in that occupation for each simulation. Thus the areas on the right of the distribution are occupations where we expect rising demand, those on the left are expected to decline.A fifth of occupations will shrink
The model forecasts that only one in five workers are in occupations that will shrink. This figure is much lower than recent studies of automation have suggested. Occupations related to agriculture, trades and construction, which in other studies have been forecast to decline, exhibit more interesting and heterogeneous patterns with our research, suggesting that there may be pockets of opportunity throughout the skills ladder.One in ten workers are in occupations that are likely to grow
These jobs are in sectors such as education and healthcare, where the overriding effect of technology is likely to be an improvement in outcomes, not a reduction in workforce. Therefore, as trends such as demographic change raise demand for these services, the prospect for employment is also likely to rise. Finally, the model forecasts that seven in ten workers are in jobs where there is great uncertainty about the future.Skills for the future
This uncertainty suggests that results aren’t inevitable, raising the prospect that individuals in different occupations can improve their labour market chances if they invest in the right skills. Which leads us to what makes this approach really interesting: the ability to identify specific skills most likely associated with employability. Below is a list of the 20 skills most associated with job growth and employment. What’s striking is the strong emphasis on higher order cognitive competencies, such as creative and critical thinking.Developing uniquely human skills
So, while the advance of automation and artificial intelligence may feel like a losing battle to some, individuals will need to focus on developing the uniquely human skills identified in this research.This underscores a deeper point: while disparaging the liberal arts has become a blood sport in some quarters, our results suggest that they will be more valuable in the future, not least in tech-based parts of the economy where the democratization of tools means a technical degree is no longer a decisive barrier to entry. This means that education systems will need to support better understanding, teaching practice, and assessment of the granular skills that will be in greater demand, moving beyond generic definitions of 21st-century skills.Educational institutions for their part will need to provide support to educators as they are asked to teach these new skills. This could require significant retooling of teacher education or faculty incentives in educational institutions.About the author
Owen Henkel is the Director of Pearson Affordable Learning Fund (PALF), which invests ‘patient capital’ in independently run, for-profit, education start-ups using innovative approaches to improving learning outcomes and increasing access, at scale. By investing in new educational ventures, Pearson helps to increase the quality of education for millions of learners and identify what’s next in education. He will speak in a plenary session at the 38th COBIS Annual Conference – Vision 2030: The Future of International Education.Join us at the 2019 Festival of Global People and the Relocate Awards which reward the best and most talented in the world of international assignments, talent management and global mobility.
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