What will be the jobs of the future? These 18 positions will probably become a reality in the next 30 years.
There’s no way around it: work is changing. However, regardless of what hundreds of misinformed articles argue about it, work itself is not going away anytime soon, as much as the discussion is worth our time. Work, in fact, is constantly changing, constantly evolving, always incrementally, never all at once, as we create new problems just as quickly as we solve old ones. Case in point: technology has allowed us to “invent” the gig economy, which has led to the creation of a whole new industry of downright terrible jobs.
So if work isn’t going away, but roles are going to evolve due to technology, demographic changes, urbanization, scarcity, climate change… what careers should our kids aspire to once they graduate from Space University? In my day, professional gamers and YouTubers weren’t an option, but now those professions earn millions for young people with enough talent and dedication to fill those roles, and many kids aspire to follow in their idols’ footsteps. Clearly, anything is possible.
With that in mind, here are 18 jobs of the future that will likely become a reality in the next 30 years.
When will IoT move from the realm of high-tech R&D to the realm of low-end stores? In 5 years? In 10 years? Probably less. In any case, when the technology is democratized, someone will have to take charge of answering the following key questions, and more: What object to connect? Does a connected T-shirt really answer a specific need? What data is interesting from a business perspective? What infrastructure will need to be adapted? Built? What long-term business impact is expected? What UX for those connected objects? What about legacy systems? An Edge Computing manager must be able to answer these questions when the board of directors comes knocking.
Imagine Amazon.com was a brick-and-mortar marketplace. How big would it be? How lost would we be? How many salespeople would we need to satisfy everyone? Common sense (and dozens of strategy books) tells us that the biggest advantage stores have over digital channels is their staff. It makes sense, then, that as platforms become more and more ubiquitous, digital brands and platforms would hire personal shoppers/digital store guides to turn an often frustrating online shopping experience into a pleasant ride for those who can afford the service.
Stop me if you’ve heard this: the rich get personalized help and the poor get a chatbot that doesn’t work.
Virtual Reality hasn’t delivered on all it promised (yet). Augmented Reality, however, is hot, and will likely continue to be so. As the experience economy and the concept of gamification gain traction, it’s only logical that we ask our augmented reality experience to have a great story from which one can learn great lessons. This is where the storyteller comes in. This work will allow entities to create both immersive training scenarios (military and corporate) and hard-to-spot marketing opportunities.
VR may not have delivered, but it’s not dead yet. Once we’ve built our storylines (see above), we have to create entire worlds (think Ellen Page in Inception). This role requires many of the same skills required of video game designers, but with a totally different goal. Here too, the training possibilities are endless, but the psychological aspect is also fun to imagine: why kill your inner demons when you can pretend to kill them in the digital world?
Edge computing, digital stores, AR, VR… All of these technologies will create a whole new world for advertisers. That’s how we’re going to roll. And as soon as we get tired of the novelty, we’ll want ad blockers, which will have to be advanced enough to detect ads embedded within reality itself, where only AR glasses could detect them, for example.
“Ad blocker for your refrigerator”… the headlines write themselves.
Companies are increasingly positioning themselves to counteract the failings of governments. This trend is likely to continue, given the increasing proximity between companies and their customers (if its ads are any indication, Zara knows me better than I know myself). In this new corporate world, the ethics officer would play a similar role to the modern CSR director, except that he or she would be taken seriously within the organisation, dealing regularly with CFOs and CTOs.
Trust is about to become a VERY important issue, as we have already begun to see in the age of “Fake News.” So it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to hire someone to make sure customers know they can trust the corporation with their private data, their savings, their secrets, their loved ones… Kind of like PR, but taken seriously. As things stand, I only trust my barber and my waiter, so it’s clear that corporations have a lot of room for improvement in this area.
This role is related to my dream of inventing a system where companies pay for the data used to feed job-destroying algorithms, bringing some justice back to the economy.
A PDR would be a person or company that would legally represent all of someone’s data and invest it in the right databases to make their clients’ best returns. The PDR would be interested in ensuring that no one uses their clients’ data without a legitimate interest or their consent, so their role would be doubly useful. They would also help to put in place a basic framework for data portability, which is increasingly a legal requirement, thanks to renewed antitrust interest.
As I have mentioned time and again, algorithms need to be able to explain their underlying mechanism in simple terms. This is even more important as AI becomes integrated into everyday life, including the judicial system. I think there should be a button next to ads on Instagram that says, “Why are you seeing this?”
This will not happen.
What CAN happen is the creation of a paper that involves digging through the code to find out why that car swerved into a group of preschoolers instead of hitting a pregnant woman.
Good luck.
While a data scientist answers questions that have been asked, a data detective (what a cool name) would generate answers to questions that haven’t necessarily been asked by digging into the data produced by new technologies, such as the Internet of Things. Does not having milk lead to an increase in crime? Does the increase in drones mean a decrease in pigeons being born?
I don’t know, but I’d like (someone else) to find out.
Yes, customer service centers already exist, but with the rise of Big Data, I think some of the more advanced companies might want to stop being reactive to their customers’ problems and start being proactive. Based on customer profiles, their purchasing habits, and the rate of quality problems with a product, guessing whether or not a customer has a problem with a product or service may not be as difficult as it seems.
And calling a day before your oven breaks statistically seems like a lot of untapped revenue to me.
Automation is likely to impact a significant percentage of jobs in the very near future (did I hear 51%?). But there are still many questions to be answered before we fully hand over the reins to robots and algorithms. Who and what do we match? Who do we automate? When? Do we augment or replace? As augmentation becomes ubiquitous, answering these questions will be key in most industries. Economists and sociologists should be tasked with crafting the answers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if consultants took over.
Yeah.
We’ve all noticed it: IT and operations need to learn to communicate better. However, speaking both languages is a rare talent, as is matching business needs with technology/technical skills and hardware budgets. This would be the role of the IT enabler, who should get PMOs out of their miseries. Expect the select few to lead very rewarding financial lives.
Finally, once we’ve decided what and who is going to automate, and both the IT and operational sides of the business have agreed on the path forward, there still needs to be a way to fairly and tactfully inform workers of the new strategy. And, depending on the industry, these workers may not be the most tech-savvy. Or the most understanding. This is where the Worker Champion comes in. To demonstrate that this role is necessary, Google worker cages.
Yes, I am saying that unions should come back. And it is about time.
Urban planners are back in fashion. With the increasing use of smart cars, drones, post-Covid office space optimisation, their help will be much needed. For example, if cars can already park themselves outside the city without a driver, do we need so many parking spaces? If I have the data from all the mobile phones in the city, can I send more, or fewer police or firefighters to an area? The possibilities are endless, but they need to be weighed carefully: the way we design cities today will impact the world for the next 50 years.
As cities grow, evolve and become more IQ-intensive, we will be forced to let go of parts of the past. The preservationist’s job will be to digitally preserve images and plans of roads and buildings, so that our past can forever continue to inform our future.
This function already exists, in fact, but on a much smaller scale: it is difficult to fit an entire building into a museum.
As cars become more automated and connected, will we always have to go to our mechanic for every little problem? Probably not.
If all the talk about digital twins is true, we may soon see many of the functions that are currently customer-facing become more remote. I’d be willing to bet that mechanics are going with the first wave.
As renewable energy becomes more prevalent, it’s likely that every home will produce energy for its own use. However, if someone goes on holiday, that energy could go unused, and could be sold to a neighbour who’s having a party and needs more electricity for the Prince hologram they’re planning to debut.
That’s where the microgrid analyst would come in, making sure that energy is used as efficiently as possible at a much smaller level than we’re currently used to, but with a much larger number of energy sources going to more places.
Other jobs will see a renaissance, such as janitors (more packages, more problems) and craftsmen (with the advancement of certain technologies, economies of scale are not as necessary as they once were).
Others will become increasingly important (healthcare and education). Finally, some will not change, but will be strengthened: personal care, banking, nursing, training, R&D, HR… all of them could be increased, and many have already started down that path.
My children will be born into a complicated world. A hostile world, at times. A world that is getting warmer, more worrying.
We can only hope that they will find their way through this mess and choose a career that will ensure their survival and happiness in the confusing years ahead.
