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Analytical thinking remains the top core skill sought by employers, with seven out of 10 companies considering it as essential, followed by resilience, flexibility and agility, and with leadership and social influence.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, released in January, highlights the forces reshaping the global labour market by 2030.
Key drivers identified include technological advancements, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainty, demographic shifts, and the green transition — acting both independently and collectively to redefine jobs and skills worldwide.
Based on insights from 1,000 leading global employers, representing more than 14mn workers across 22 industry clusters and 55 economies, the report examines how these macrotrends influence jobs, skills, and workforce transformation strategies planned for the 2025-2030 period.
Key findings:
- 170mn new jobs are expected to emerge by 2030, fuelled by global macrotrends.
- Demand for roles driven by technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), is surging.
- 39% of the skills required for jobs will transform or become obsolete by 2030.
This article will dive into the survey’s insights on skills transformation, focusing on:
- Core skills projected for 2030, based on current and future significance.
- Skill requirements for growing and declining roles, highlighting key contrasts.
- Key drivers of skill transformation shaping workforce demands.
- Training needs and trends, offering an overview of anticipated reskilling and upskilling priorities.
Core skills projected in 2025-2030
In 2025, the top 10 core skills are as follows:
- Analytical thinking (69%)
- Resilience, flexibility and agility (67%)
- Leadership and social influence (61%)
- Creative thinking (57%)
- Motivation and self-awareness (52%)
- Technological literacy (51%)
- Empathy and active listening (50%)
- Curiosity and lifelong learning (50%)
- Talent management (47%)
- Service orientation and customer service (47%)
The top 10 core skills are complemented by technological literacy, empathy and active listening, curiosity and lifelong learning, talent management, service orientation and customer service.
Skills that reflect the important role of technical proficiency, strong interpersonal abilities, emotional intelligence, and a commitment to continuous learning demonstrate respondents’ expectation that workers must balance hard and soft skills to thrive in today’s work environments.
While the core skill sets are relatively consistent across broader industries and geographical regions, there are notable distinctions within specific sectors and geographies.
Skills on the rise from 2025 to 2030
According to employer expectations for the evolution of skills in the next five years, technological skills are projected to grow in importance more rapidly than any other type of skills. Among these, AI and big data top the list as the fastest-growing skills, followed closely by networks and cybersecurity and technological literacy.
Complementing these technological skills, creative thinking and two socio-emotional attitudes – resilience, flexibility, and agility, along with curiosity and lifelong learning – are also seen as rising in importance. Ranking among the top 10 skills on the rise are also leadership and social influence, talent management, analytical thinking, and environmental stewardship. These skills highlight the need for workers who can lead teams, manage talent effectively and adapt to sustainability and green transitions in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.
Looking toward 2030, several skills stand out as essential for organisational success, with their importance expected to grow significantly:
Core and rapidly growing skills
These skills, already critical today, are projected to become even more vital:
- AI and big data
- Analytical thinking
- Creative thinking
- Resilience, flexibility, and agility
- Technological literacy
Human-centric capabilities remain equally relevant, including:
- Leadership and social influence
- Curiosity and lifelong learning
- Systems thinking
- Talent management
- Motivation and self-awareness
Emerging skills
Positioned in the top left quadrant of projected trends, these skills are expected to see significant growth but are not yet core to most organisations:
- Networks and cybersecurity
- Environmental stewardship
These emerging capabilities signal areas where businesses must proactively build expertise to stay ahead of future demands. By prioritising the development of both established and emerging skills, organisations can better navigate the challenges of rapid technological and environmental transformation.
On the other hand, skills that are core today, but expected to remain stable over the next five years without significant increase in use, displayed in the lower right quadrant, include empathy and active listening, service orientation and customer service and resource management and operations. Finally, the bottom left quadrant highlights skills that are neither critical now nor expected to increase significantly in use over the next five years.
While most of these skills remain important, they may represent areas where less investment is required, allowing employers to prioritise resources toward more rapidly evolving skill sets.
Skill requirements for growing and declining roles
While a diverse set of skills is essential for navigating the evolving workforce landscape, contrasting the skills requirements particularly associated with growing jobs, and those associated with declining ones, reveals windows of opportunity that exist for enabling dynamic job transitions.
These findings underscore the importance of targeted skills development efforts to support workers in transitioning to growing roles as well as to ensure employers can access a talent pool with the skills required for the future of work.
Key drivers of skill transformation shaping workforce demands
Technological change
Technological advancements, particularly in AI, big data, networks, and cybersecurity, are the primary forces driving skills transformation over the next five years. These trends, fuelled by expanded digital access and AI integration, are also increasing the demand for analytical thinking and systems thinking to address complex, data-driven challenges.
Geoeconomic fragmentation and economic uncertainty
Rising cybersecurity concerns and geoeconomic fragmentation are spurring demand for network and cybersecurity skills to safeguard digital infrastructure. Simultaneously, human-centric skills such as resilience, flexibility, leadership, and global citizenship are essential to navigating crises and managing social complexity in an increasingly uncertain world.
Green transition
The shift toward sustainability is driving the need for environmental stewardship, as businesses align strategies with climate goals, including carbon reduction and advancements in energy technologies. These skills are becoming critical across industries.
Demographic shifts
Ageing and shrinking workforces in developed economies are heightening the demand for skills in talent management, mentoring, and motivation. Interpersonal skills like empathy, active listening, and customer service are increasingly vital to creating inclusive, adaptable work environments. These macrotrends underscore the need for organisations to prioritise both technical and human-centric skills to thrive in a rapidly evolving global landscape.
Training needs and trends, offering an overview of anticipated reskilling and upskilling priorities
Global training uptake
- 50% of workers globally have completed training in 2025, up from 41% in 2023.
- Industries with significant training increases:
- Insurance & pensions management
- Supply chain & transportation
- Telecommunications
- Sectors with declining training completion:
- Agriculture, forestry & fishing
- Real estate
Anticipated training needs by 2030
- For every 100 workers:
- 41% will not need training.
- 11% will require training but lack access.
- 29% will be upskilled within their roles.
- 19% will be reskilled and redeployed.
Regional variations
- North America: 67% of the workforce expected to need training.
- Central Asia, Middle East & North Africa: Under 50% projected training needs.
Sector-specific insights
- High training needs by 2030:
- Telecommunications (63%)
- IT Services (62%)
- Low additional training needs: Sectors with declining training completion.
Access constraints
- Limited access to upskilling opportunities is consistent across industries and regions, regardless of training demand.
Here is a summary of the other key findings that were discussed in the report:
170mn new jobs are expected to emerge by 2030, fuelled by global macrotrends.
The report highlights that global macro trends will create 170mn new jobs by 2030, equal to 14% of today’s employment. However, 92mn jobs will be displaced, resulting in a net increase of 78mn jobs.
Key drivers include technological advancements, the green transition, and demographic shifts.
Demand for roles driven by technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), is surging.
Demand for technology-driven roles, such as AI specialists, fintech engineers, and big data experts, is rising rapidly. However, in absolute numbers, roles fundamental to economies are seeing the largest net growth. Farmworkers lead with 34mn additional jobs expected by 2030, driven by green transitions, digital access, and living costs.
Delivery drivers, software developers, construction workers, and salespersons follow closely. Care professions like nursing, social work, and counselling are also projected to expand significantly, fuelled by ageing populations and demographic shifts. Key drivers include technological advancements, the green transition, and demographic shifts.
Infographics / Future of Jobs Report 2025
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