It’s rather unfortunate that much of the dialogue around the future of work has been on the number of jobs that will be lost and so on. It’s a narrative that doesn’t really provide an accurate reflection of the true state of things (a recent paper from The Turing Centre provides a good overview).
After the hyperbole around the topic has subsided a little however, there is a growing consensus that AI-driven technology will change the kind of work we do, which will require adaptation both of the roles themselves and the skills required to perform them. It will automate some entirely (although not as many as predicted), and the productivity gains will result in new jobs emerging.
It’s difficult to go too far down this path without getting into the realm of science fiction, but one of the more grounded attempts at doing so comes via a recent report from consultancy firm Cognizant, who have suggested 21 jobs that might emerge in the coming years.
21 jobs of the future
The report has orientated the jobs they propose around the two axes of tech-centricity and time. They’ve endeavored to create a mixture of high-tech and low-tech jobs, with some beginning to appear in the marketplace already and some a distant spot on the horizon.
Cognizant have form in this area, and published a similar paper last year, in which they suggested that jobs of the future will revolve around coaching, caring and connecting. This underlined the importance we place on the human touch. In this latest report, they again tap into the deep seams of human emotions to find new bedrocks for this new wave of jobs.
They argue that ethics will play a huge role, both in ensuring that machines behave in a way we’re happy with, and the organizations we work for. They propose jobs such as Algorithm Bias Auditor and Head of Machine Personality Design.
They also believe that security will remain a huge issue in the future, and therefore roles such as Cyber Attack Agent and Machine Risk Officer will potentially come to the fore.
Lastly, they believe that new jobs will emerge that are very aspirational in nature and help us to bring our high-tech dreams into reality. These might include Vertical Farm Consultant and Smart Home Designer.
A changing skills landscape
Suffice to say, some of the roles identified by Cognizant require very different skills than those commonly used in the labor market today. Perhaps the best lesson to take away from the report however is that such is the pace of change in the workplace that skills are now akin to mobile apps, which require constant upgrades to ensure they’re viable.
To date, we largely still operate in an environment where a big investment in training is followed by a long period where that knowledge is commercially exploited. It’s a landscape that is no longer really fit for purpose, and whilst there have been steps in the right direction, much more needs to be done, not least in engaging with people that aren’t currently engaged in adult education, or who aren’t in traditional forms of employment where their employer can support them.
There are numerous issues that underpin the fear many feel at this rapid pace of change, and indeed that fear has been successfully tapped into by the various doomsday scenarios about our future of technology. It’s perhaps no surprise that many of these scenarios provoke a proverbial smashing of the looms to hold back the march of technology, and therefore half our own need to change.
Whether as organizations or individuals, there is a longstanding difficulty in adapting to change. Whereas markets are structured so that those who don’t adapt eventually die off, we cannot accept such an outcome for the individuals among us who struggle to adapt. As such, we need to do much better at preventing such an outcome from occurring. It perhaps goes without saying that this isn’t one of the roles Cognizant imagine in their report, but perhaps it’s the most crucial one of all.
To keep track of the progress of these proposed jobs, Cognizant have created a Jobs of the Future Index, which will monitor the emergence of the predicted jobs from both 2018 and 2017 Jobs of the Future reports by the company. It’s fairly rare for a company to hold their predictions to account in such a way, so that is certainly admirable, and it will be interesting to see whether their predictions find their way into the labor market in any meaningful way in the coming years.
