The level of discussion around the future of work, and the kind of skills that will enable people to thrive is considerable, but the sheer volume of discussion has probably confused as much as illuminated.  What does appear clear however, is that traits that are fundamentally human are likely to remain in demand, with soft skills such as creativity widely expected to be in demand.

This was reaffirmed by the latest piece of research conducted by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC).  The study examined 35 million unique job adverts published between 2013 and 2017, with 39 skills emerging that are likely to be in demand between now and 2030.  These skills were predominantly soft skills, such as team building and communication skills, but top of the pile was creativity.

These, along with organizational and managerial skills, were associated with jobs that will remain in strong demand in the coming years.  Suffice to say, if you can combine these skills together, they will only enhance your job prospects.

Future prospects

Of course, not all skills are equally fruitful, with skills such as customer service and being detail-orientated negatively linked with the prospects for those occupations.  The researchers believe this is largely because these are areas where technology is progressing. Even basic computing skills fall into this bracket, such is the progress made by computers in performing basic functions autonomously.

The researchers were conscious of the apparent ubiquity of creativity as a job requirement, and thought initially that it would be a skill all jobs requested, but that was not in fact the case, with the reality that the majority did not mention it in adverts.  What does appear clear however, is that creativity isn’t a skill that’s confined to occupations that are defined as being creative by official classification.

“One of the challenges we face is how to upskill the workforce to meet the UK’s future needs. In this research, we analyse millions of job ads to work out which skills are needed for the jobs of the future. We find that of all transferable skills mentioned by employers in job ads, creativity is easily the most associated with high-growth occupations. What’s more, the Government needs to think broadly about the value of creativity: the research suggests it is important in jobs as wide-ranging as engineers, manufacturing and business development, not just in roles traditionally recognised as being creative,” the authors say.