The Next Future: A Look at the Professions of the Future.

Introduction.

Italy is currently undergoing significant digital transformation and automation processes. Technological innovation and the related qualification of human capital are two inseparable dimensions on which companies must necessarily base their strategy for adaptation and development.

With the pandemic, the world of work also seems to have changed, and the resulting acceleration towards innovation and the adoption of new technologies has highlighted the need to develop new skills, especially digital ones, to re-qualify workers and respond to the lack of new professional skills in the market.

According to the ESI (European Skills Index), in 2020 Italy ranked 25th out of 31 countries for skills matching, which refers to the ability to match the right skills to the right position, and last for skills activation, i.e. the skills necessary for transitioning into the workforce.

We will therefore witness a job market increasingly marked by hyper-qualified professionals and increasingly vertical skills, generating tens of millions of new jobs on a global scale while simultaneously retiring some obsolete professions.

Therefore, to offer a brief overview of what awaits us in the future, we will list both recent professional figures, present on the market for a few years but among the most requested, and professional figures still “unknown” but relevant in the near future.

Let’s start… let this brief journey into the “Future” begin!

Strategic skills required by the job market.

It is important to highlight the three types of strategic skills required by the job market that will be worth investing in the future.

Interpersonal skills. Also known as soft skills, they refer to all the attitudes and abilities that are not specific to a particular profession but to the personal abilities of the individual in effectively addressing problems and managing possible difficulties. Specifically, we are talking about problem-solving skills, managerial flexibility, results orientation, optimization of collective energies, the ability to evaluate and make decisions.
Cognitive skills They are all the abilities through which an individual perceives, records, maintains, retrieves, manipulates, uses, and expresses information. These skills are involved in any task we face, from the simplest to the most complex: project skills, analytical and synthetic aptitude, hierarchical organization of information and priorities, customer and person orientation, validation of results.
System skills Also known as hard skills, they are essential to qualify a future collaborator: a broad basic culture, advanced language skills, specialized vertical training experiences, professional background useful for technically or managerially managing technological and digital systems.

But let’s try to outline possible scenarios.

What are the 10 strategic evolutionary factors?

Each person’s life will involve at least two or three different professions
Many of today’s jobs will disappear, while some current professions are destined to disappear
Adaptability will be the key to the future because everything is constantly changing in the global market
The market trend is towards ever-increasing specialization: finding an area to specialize in is therefore the key to success
Artificial intelligence and automation are transforming the world of work. The developments and main trends on a 10/20-year timeline predict “technological centrality”
By 2030, robots will replace approximately 800 million jobs worldwide related to manual, physical, repetitive, and automatable jobs.
For every old job that disappears, a new one is created
Due to the misalignment between traditional university systems and professional development, most jobs in the future will not require a university education
Inconsistent demand and supply due to a lack of training on future professions
The three main “commodities” of work will be: speaking English very well, knowing new technologies, and being able to read a balance sheet.

What will be the most in-demand professions in the future?

There are multiple professions that are strongly evolving, some of which are already present but characterized by an extremely dynamic evolutionary charge that suggests they will play a leading role in the job market. Here are some of the professions that will be among the most in-demand until 2030:

Artificial Intelligence Specialist: Artificial intelligence is the area of computing that is dedicated to creating intelligent machines that work and react like humans. In the last five years, the demand for these specialists has grown by 74%.
Cybersecurity Expert: An expert in cybersecurity is responsible for preventing cyber threats, calculating risks, mitigating the effects of attacks, and intruding sensitive data. It has seen a growth of 30%.
Broadband Architect: They are competent in the latest network innovations in terms of formats, applications, and tools that are useful for information and communication online.
Category Manager: They are responsible for a certain category of products, from their purchase to their sale, with the fixed idea of maximizing the category’s sales.
Cloud Architect: They design and build cloud environments that best fit a company’s business needs. They help manage the digital transformation process of companies.
Energy Manager: The strength of the energy manager is the ability to communicate with the operational structure and top management. Their goal? To create a real company policy of energy optimization.
Growth Hacker: They are responsible for designing and developing growth strategies for their company. Using computer engineering, marketing, and social media communication.
Plant Manager: They are responsible for monitoring the operation of company facilities. It is a figure of great responsibility that ensures efficiency and high productivity for companies.
Scrum Master: Part project manager, part talent scout, the Scrum Master is a supervisor who has no command roles, but rather coordination roles to increase the efficiency of project development.
Among the most relevant professional figures in future perspectives, the Blockchain Specialist will certainly be a protagonist, ranking first in the list of emerging jobs in the LinkedIn 2020 report.

This is a rapidly growing technological field, which by 2025 will have an estimated economic value of one trillion (a thousand billion!) dollars and will involve up to 65 million workers!

Professional blockchain specializations.

This market will give rise to various types of professional specializations in the field of blockchain:

Blockchain Information Security Analyst Expert in blockchain and cryptography, prevents and counteracts threats to the impenetrability of the technology.
Blockchain Data Analyst Integrator of blockchain and big data.
Blockchain Developer Expert in writing code and building data structures for blockchains.
Blockchain Designer Designer of websites, portals, and web platforms with functionalities that integrate blockchain applications.
Blockchain Engineer Responsible for creating and implementing digital solutions for companies using blockchain.
Blockchain Quality Engineer Responsible for quality in the development environment, framework, automation testing, manual testing, and dashboard.
Blockchain Marketing Specialist Develops marketing plans, researches markets, develops social and media strategies using blockchain.
Blockchain Project Manager Creates blockchain applications with the task of planning and supervising the project execution.
Specialist Blockchain Recruiter Analyzes and evaluates a candidate’s blockchain skills.
Blockchain Lawyer Expert in Smart contracts, ICO GDPR, and legal issues related to blockchain projects and fintech.

Numerous future jobs will also emerge as expressions of ongoing strategic changes, to respond to new needs and oversee new areas of business. As a result, many “traditional” figures will be destined to disappear or drastically reduced. Indeed, 49% of human activities in the world today will eventually be automated. According to the McKinsey report, about half of the currently employed workers could easily be replaced by robots.

This is true even in Italy, where the replacement rate would be around 49/51%, or 11 million people may have to give way to a machine in the coming years, especially those whose work is characterized by simplicity and repetitiveness: cashiers, replaced by automatic cash registers, order takers, replaced by tablets, travel agents, replaced by virtual operators on the internet, drivers, replaced by self-driving cars, financial advisors, replaced by algorithms for managing financial portfolios, industrial production technicians, replaced by 3D printers… and so on: lumberjacks, meter readers, postmen, typographers, telemarketers, military pilots… and many others!

What will be the professional figures of the future?

At the same time, new types of jobs will emerge. What will be the professional figures of the future (that we have probably never heard of before)?

Data Detective Analyzes a company’s organizational data, processes responses based on information generated by IoT endpoints, devices, sensors, biometric monitors, traditional IT infrastructure, mesh, edge, and new generation neural networks.
Ethical Sourcing Officer Helps the company achieve its ethical goals, i.e., social responsibility and sustainability, in relation to company supplies (energy, components, machinery, raw materials, …) that serve production or business development.
Master of Edge Computing Is the professional excellence profile in the field of edge computing and Internet of Things technologies. Will be responsible for creating, maintaining, and protecting the ‘edge’ computing environment.
Walker/Talker Is the figure who, through a connection platform similar to Uber, responds to requests for company or conversation from people, such as the elderly who feel lonely and want to talk and be listened to.
Wellness Commitment Counselor Is the remote personal trainer who can regularly provide coaching and consulting sessions to improve a person’s well-being and follow their progress through the use of wearables.
Genomic Portfolio Director Managerial profile in a biotech company, particularly active in the genetic editing sector, with a role of synthesis between the commercial and product development sides.
Chief Trust Officer This professional will work in a company that deals with traditional trading and cryptocurrencies.
Personal Data Broker Are data the new oil? Well, personal data brokers will deal with data exchanges and commercialization on behalf of clients, coming up with new ways to make them profitable.
Personal Memory Curator A personal memory curator would assist elderly clients in combating memory loss by reconstructing parts of their memory in virtual environments for them to “live in”.
Augmented Reality Journey Builder Tour Operator Halfway between technical and artistic, they design and supervise the production of the next generation of “virtual trips”, those made with Augmented Reality.
Highway Controller Autonomous vehicles, drones, flying taxis, will all be part of traffic. It’s the new “urban guard”, communicating with the city’s space control center, monitoring automatic management systems for road and air space.
Cyber City Analyst A cyber city analyst ensures the safety, protection, and functionality of a city in its digital aspects, ensuring a constant flow of data and keeping all technical equipment functioning.
Digital Taylor Digital tailors will go to clients’ homes (or offices) to perfect the fit and finish of their clothing ordered through e-commerce.

And also…

Body Part Maker They will produce limbs or tissues in the laboratory to rebuild the human body.
Nano-Medic They will create micro-implants for health monitoring or self-medication for the sick.
Bioinformationist The scientist who will combine genetics with the development of medicines and clinical therapies.
Geomicrobiologist They will study how microorganisms can provide new drugs or fight pollution.
Cloud Controller They will verify the ability to reflect solar radiation from clouds above our heads.
Technology Recycler They will be responsible for disposing of or recycling obsolete technology.
Vertical Farmer They will cultivate crops on multi-story buildings in cities to reduce soil exploitation.
Time Broker They will deal with how to pay people with time instead of money.
The jobs of the future will certainly have a positive impact on people’s lives. The most in-demand new professions give us a great responsibility: the possibility of making a concrete contribution to the world we live in, leaving it better than we found it.
We live in times of constant change, full of threats but also multiple and intriguing opportunities. We inhabit a world in which continuous discoveries and innovations alternate and integrate, trends change rapidly, and new great scenarios are outlined, painting new realities. It is up to us to understand how to adapt to change and be protagonists of the future.