As the job market continues to become more competitive, employees looking for better opportunities are feeling the heat to upskill themselves to stay in demand.
Analytical thinking remains the top core skill that employers are looking at, according to the World Economic Forum's 'Futures of Jobs 2025' report released in January. Seven out of 10 companies, as studied in the report, see this as a crucial skill that employees should have.
Core skills with leadership and social influence, AI and big data, talent management, and service orientation and customer service are also moving up the ladder of importance while skills like dependability, attention to detail, and quality control losing its value, as per the report.
The importance of leadership and social influence, along with resilience, flexibility, and agility, and AI and big data, has grown drastically by 22%, 17%, and 17% points, respectively.
Notable Distinctions Within Specific Sectors
Though the core skills are uniform across broader industries and geographical regions, there are some exceptions within specific sectors and geographies, the report said.
The insurance and pensions management industry gives more importance to certain core skills than the global average. Curiosity and lifelong learning are vital for the respondents in this sector by 83%, compared to just 50% globally.
Similarly, resilience, flexibility, and agility are crucial for the industry respondents by 94%, exceeding the global average of 67%.
The mining and metals industry prioritises environmental stewardship, with 50% of its respondents identifying it as a core skill—2.5 times higher than the global average.
Further, in the telecommunication sector, design and user experience, networks and cybersecurity, and programming skills are observed as vital skills— these are considered as important skills at twice the rate of the global average across firms.
The information and technology services segment placed their highest bid on programming skills.
Skill Evolution
In the next five years, the demand for technological skills are expected to grow exponentially as compared to other skills. AI and big data lead the charts followed by networks and cybersecurity that secured the second spot.
On the contrary, manual dexterity, endurance and precision, reading, writing and mathematics are placed at the bottom of the chart.
As compared to the 2023 report, it is evident that skills including AI and big data and cybersecurity are gaining momentum in many companies while reading, writing, manual dexterity and endurance among others have noticed a fall in its demand in the future.
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