One of the most pressing concerns for employers, employees, students and teachers today has to do with the future or the nature of future jobs. Because of continuing technological changes, people have been forced to examine what and where tomorrow’s jobs will be and what skills they will require. University graduates of the future will now be taking a step into the professional realm guided by one statistic; that a huge percentage of them will be doing jobs in the future that do not exist today.
Technological innovations have played a significant role in transforming the face of work as people knew it back in the day. Industries have been reshaped to all shapes and sizes as a result of these advancements. Economic turbulence has forced people to come up with alternative ways to make a living, which has broken down barriers and enabled the building of new bridges with unforeseen efficiency and speed. Alongside the retirement of most individuals from the baby boomer generation and the advent of millenials at the workplace, today the workforce is completely different. As the baby boomers continue to retire, they will leave gaps in many industries particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Interconnectivity and globalization have also created new job opportunities and the internet has connected people at great speeds, thereby threatening traditional models of employment. With the dawn and the increased use of artificial intelligence technology in our day to day lives, traditional jobs that were once considered white collar such as doctors and lawyers will no longer be considered the most lucrative. In the future, there will be stimulating and new career opportunities in industries that are still in their formative years today. For future graduates to take advantage of these new career opportunities, they must develop the necessary skills today to future proof their professional lives.
While these new opportunities are tremendously exciting for future graduates, it is also evident that it will be a lot more difficult and bewildering to make career decisions. The next generation of employees is slated to have more complex career paths, which makes it harder still to determine some of the skills that are required for some careers. Jobs that already exist today may be completely reshaped in the next few years, which is bound to add increased levels of complexity to a situation that is already taxing.
Employers must also prepare for the rapidly changing workforce whereby tomorrow’s labor force will require new skills that may leave employers with a labor force that is severely lacking in the vital competencies. The shortage of the right skills may present a problem and may serve as a stumbling block for investors, entrepreneurs and big and small businesses. Long-established models of education may cease to be applicable in some sectors so adjustments will have to be made to bridge the skills gap.
Of course, in the future, the process of selecting your preferred career will still be partly about assessing individual skills, and matching those skills to roles that suit the talent in question. However, to prepare and adequately organize for the prospects, it is also beneficial to have information about lucrative opportunities in the future.
If today’s employers and employees are unable to navigate the shifting changes of the global marketplace, workers of the future may find that they will have to rely on outdated methods of teaching, which will consequently widen the skills gap and create a bridge between the traditionalists and the adapters.
Signs of change are already apparent in developing countries, particularly in Asia, where a new breed of consumers is defining the coming decades and where embryonic signs of the new economy are slowly emerging. To prepare properly, here are jobs for the future that may not exist yet today:
Virtual world designers
In the future, virtual reality will be the ultimate digital platform for socialization. Thousands of people will join the virtual space each day working, socializing or learning. Owing to virtual reality, it will now be easier than ever to explore different worlds online. As technology advances, the worlds will be more interactive, more realistic, and more immersive, which will make it hard for people to discern between what is virtual and real.
Today, the world of virtual reality has already started taking shape, with people investing in top notch virtual reality headsets. Over the next coming years, a new industry will develop aimed at creating, supporting and managing new and existing virtual domains. In the future, virtual reality will be a dominant platform; large enough to take over the smartphone mania.
New job opportunities will develop in the wake of virtual reality’s global domination and companies will start to be on the lookout for graduates that possess the right qualification, personalities and talents to fill new virtual reality positions. Universities and institutions of higher learning will also start to offer courses that can train students as the technology finds its place in the world and as it begins to shape the job markets in various parts of the world.
Ethical technology lawyers
Today, it is more commonplace to see robot use in our daily lives. It is practically impossible today to surf the web without coming across a robotic device that promises to change how you handle day to day tasks. From domestic robot cleaners to self driving motorcycles, the robot is no longer the stuff of fiction movies; it has become an integral part of daily life and a vital element of the global economy. Because robotic technology is already being applied to daily life, one thing is for sure, robots will get better from now on.
Robotic personal assistance will begin to take a central role as the technology becomes more sophisticated. For many, the dawn of the robot will resemble the industrial revolution in numerous ways. It will change the labor force entirely because millions of workers will start to lose their jobs as robots take over. This will force people to leave their once tedious administrative roles for more creative career choices.
The demand for robotic engineers will rise as non human intelligence continues to take a larger portion of the workforce. Sectors that are bound to be affected by the rise of the robot are mainly the manufacturing sector as many manual and some professional jobs will be under threat.
The job of ethical technology lawyers will be to serve as a go-between between the makers of artificial intelligence and the people. One of their main responsibilities will be to negotiate the delicate relationship that will form between robots and people by establishing moral and ethical rules under which the robots and their designers can operate and live. The ethical technology lawyer will be tasked with the duty of preventing a technological Armageddon of the film and movie variety. Harmful robots exist, and ethical technology lawyers will confront the possibility of a robot getting out of control.
It will also be the job of the ethical technology lawyer to convince the skeptical population that the dawn of the robots will be in their best interests, even as robots continue to replace work categories as a result of automation. Without the right ethical lawyers that have the right communication skills, the robot revolution may fail or be forgotten entirely.
Freelance biohackers
For a long time in the past, innovation in the field of science and technology was reserved for academicians and corporate professionals. However, the internet has worked to democratize the sector owing to the overflow of open source software platforms that make it possible to do everything innovative from discovering new molecules to discovering new mathematic formulas.
Because of available platforms, businesses are waking up to the power of crowd sourced projects aimed at solving numerous technological, social and medical challenges that exist today. This has encouraged amateur scientists and innovators to get involved in finding new ways of sequencing DNA or testing blood for pathogens. The internet has provided the perfect space and software for freelance bioscientists to take part or explore projects that corporate research has refused to fund or deemed too exploratory or unprofitable.
In the future, freelance biohackers will enjoy tomorrow’s cutting edge projects, and they will play an essential role in creating the next generation of medications and antibiotics, as well as pave the way for the creation of creatures that have been genetically modified. As technologies continue to press forward, the basic procedures of gene manipulation and sequencing will get simpler and more accessible to ordinary people. In the future, it will also become possible to fix everything from liver disorders to preventing certain genetic disorders by simply targeting certain genes and tweaking them.
As biohackers continue to dominate the world, major pharma companies and universities will start to use the skills of biotechnicians to piece together complex answers to difficult DNA questions that will face the world in the next decades. Biohackers will enjoy more freedom that encourages innovative thinking and the use of unusual approaches to solve major bio issues in society.
Data creative
In the future, homes and businesses will be characterized by a complex web of connected devices ranging from microwaves and refrigerators to smart entertainment centers and energy control devices. These devices will be constantly communicated with us and with each other as a result of modern technological changes that are being experienced already in society.
The internet of things, which also refers to the inter-networking of modern physical devices embedded with sensors or networked connectivity, is already a common scenario in most contemporary homes. Connectivity has enabled the objects to collect and exchange data with their owners through their smartphones. In the future, the connectivity between the internet of things will be so efficient that the devices will enable activities such as the restocking of vital food supplies, to automatically calling for help during emergency situations.
Although the devices are efficient, to a point, they will also present a major headache for the users and their makers. For instance, it will be difficult to institute systems that allow us to make sense of the data that the devices are continuously producing in a manner that makes it possible for people to improve their lives and future versions of the devices. This challenge will give rise to analysts and experts in the industry that will run the infrastructure of the internet of things. There will be a huge demand for data technicians and back end engineers that can collect, analyze and architect the sources of data.
The creatives in this sector will be responsible for the development of immeasurable internet connected devices that will form a connection around the work life, home life, entrainment and health of thousands of people. Data creatives will play a major role in assisting technology companies to develop new and advanced versions of IoT systems and they will act as the gate keepers of the things that work, culturally, emotionally and technologically in the hyper connected world that will be characteristic the future.
The expertise of people in this industry will be instrumental in ensuring that IoT devices are constantly improving and being upgraded to make certain that they address the immediate needs of customers. For people that intend to work in this industry in the future, they need to attain knowledge in engineering, communications, psychology and technology to be able to survive and thrive in this new fascinating and challenging sector.
Space tour guide
In the world today, it is an exciting time to be a space scientist, with thousands of people continuing to hope and push for space travel and exploration. As the scientists and professionals in this industry continue to push the envelope with new innovations, new technologies such as laser-based propulsion systems could make it easier for people to travel close to the stars.
By mid 2020s, travelers will be able to explore new frontiers in space travel and one of the jobs that will have to be created is that of space tour guides. Space tour guides will serve one purpose; to make the journey into space safe, educative and enjoyable.
Although this job category is still fairly new, space tour guides of the future will be tasked with the mission of utilizing their extensive knowledge of space through the information gained from the satellites and information acquired from previous space missions to educate travelers. This will also be useful in allowing the space guides to select the most interesting locations to visit in orbit.
Digital cultural commentator
Today, visual based social media platforms such as Instagram have replaced platforms such as Twitter, which require the use of the written word. In the future, visual platforms are expected to continue dominating social media communications, and masters that can use these platforms well will be sought after in the future.
Museums and galleries will seek out the help of these commentators as a way of reaching larger audiences. These brands will treasure their assistance in helping them build relevant images in cycberspace. Multimedia artists, illustrators, and animators with advanced computer technology skills will become important as organizations will use them to communicate with clients online.
As a way of tapping into this skills gap, universities and other learning institutions are already starting to offer courses in digital media arts and technology. People in this new industry will be able to use social media to bridge the gap between the arts and the public, which will be more digital savvy in the future. The commentators will bridge the gap by using simple images to pass across important and complex ideas. As virtual reality continues to become a dominating sector in the future, the commentators will also be able to build relationships with new generations of consumers who include generation Z audiences.
Digital cultural commentators will have to develop skills in curation as well as require training in history and cultural studies that will allow them to understand and to better communicate the contexts in which the art exist. For an edge in the industry, the commentators will also require an education in marketing, PR and business that will be combined with various social media attitudes and trends to influence consumer decisions.
To prepare for the new normal and to avoid instances where there is a shortage of skilled workers, the future young workforce must be equipped with the appropriate skills required for some of the jobs of the future. Today’s skill set in the current world also needs to be re-equipped as a way of keeping up with the constantly changing world.
For the jobs of the future to grow, it is clear that collaboration between global communities is necessary to ensure that young people are prepared for a future competitive and dynamic workplace. Without the shared effort, it will be harder for some of these future jobs to grow or develop. When all the actors work together, the future for the coming generation of workers looks bright, ground-breaking and sustainable to include jobs that would have been unimaginable 100 years ago.
