What will your job be in 2030?
What is the future of employment? What are the jobs and careers for the future? What can we expect to be doing 20 years from now? What will our children likely be doing when they enter the workplace?
The only certainty is that the jobs and careers of the future will be very different from those we’re in today.
A recent research study commissioned by the British Government took on the task of predicting the future of jobs and careers. The research for this Shape of Jobs to Come report was done by Fast Future.
The list of the top ten predicted jobs for 2030 make for fascinating reading:
- Body part maker
- Nano-medic
- Pharmer of genetically engineered crops and livestock
- Old age wellness manager/consultant
- Memory augmentation surgeon
- ‘New science’ ethicist
- Space pilots, tour guides and architects
- Vertical farmers
- Climate change reversal specialist
- Quarantine enforcer
Any of these on your horizon? Any of these on the list of your children’s career aspiration list?
Given the close identification that many people have with their career, this also raises the interesting question of how job and career will feature in our self-identity in a world where we need to change this aspect of ourselves quite radically several times over the course of a life time.
What is important to take away, however, is that the world of jobs and careers is being changed by a multitude of factors. What we can be sure about is that the jobs and careers of tomorrow and the day after will be quite different from what we have today. So staying plugged into the wider world – and not just the narrow world of our current job and career – is probably a very good thing.
Maybe even more important: because of fast pace of change, the number of jobs and careers anyone will have during a life time of work will only increase. Here’s what Rohit Talwar, chief executive of Fast Future, has to say about the “career for life” idea:
“Students coming out of university now could easily have eight to 10 jobs in their lifetime, across five different careers. Technology is advancing so fast and industries are changing so fast that what looks like a solid job today disappears tomorrow.”
Given the close identification that many people have with their career, this also raises the interesting question of how job and career will feature in our self-identity in a world where we need to change this aspect of ourselves quite radically several times over the course of a life time
This all means that one of the most critical FutureSmart skills will be the capacity to learn, and the flexibility to take on new challenges in new environments.
