The world is changing, and the types of employment of people are changing as well. Here are some of the professions of the future that may become relevant very soon.
Top professions of the future: climate change and biotechnologies demand specialists
The world produces more waste that cannot be recycled, the planet's climate is changing, and this requires new skills. Specialists whose work will be related to life in the new conditions must help humanity to adapt to these realities.
- Climate engineer
Scientists are not very optimistic about the fact that we can reverse the warming effects caused by temperature changes, but future technologies may give us the ability to somehow manage the climate and learn to live in new conditions. These are the tasks that the climate engineer will deal with. His professional responsibilities will include mitigating the damage from climate change, making carbon-polluted oceans clean again, and creating and using technologies such as artificial trees that will be needed to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
- Waste architect
In the context of rising sea levels, the problem of working with waste in general and polluted water in particular will become urgent. The Tidewater waste architect and engineer are varieties of such a profession, and such specialists are being looked for today.
- Roboticist veterinarian
In 15 years, pet owners will be able to take their furry friends to people that have engineering education rather than a medical one. Roboticists veterinarians will help live animals that may have prostheses or implanted chips and even robotic animals. These specialists will be able to work with artificial prostheses and organs and know how to maintain and replace them.
- Artificial organ manufacturing engineer
Artificial organs save people the bother of looking for the right donor—the doctors can simply grow the liver or heart they need and get the patient back on their legs. And if this process becomes "en masse", specialists will be required who will design "spare parts" for the bodies of people and animals. And future students will study not only biology, but also technology or engineering. They will be able to grow stem cells in the laboratory or create mechanical hearts on a 3D printer.
New division of the labor market—new professions: Which ones are promising
Many experts are confident that the world will never return 100% to offices, and remote working will become a working landscape common element of the future. Such transformations will also need their own specialists. Simultaneously with this, designing houses of the future, packed with smart devices, will become no less important task.
- Remote work manager
During the coronavirus epidemic, the company executives needed to figure out how to manage tens of thousands of employees working from home. If before the pandemic only a small percentage of people worked from home, now it is a common practice.
To help ensure the quality of their work, tech companies such as GitLab, Facebook, Twitter, and Quora have already created a new position intended for resolving remote work issues. As companies have switched to a flexible hybrid work model, when specialists work in the office two or three days a week and the rest of the days are at home, and some of them work completely remotely, more and more companies will need remote work managers.
Such a specialist will have to keep remote workers "in tune" with the office staff, support team spirit and ensure that there is no discrimination between those who go to work from bed to table and those who go to the office by subway. One of the challenges for the remote work manager will be to provide all the technology, software, computers, communications, furniture, and equipment needed so that people working from home have the same opportunities as they do in the workplace. They will also be careful to ensure that the productivity of remote workers is not compromised by the distractions every home has.
- Workspace architect
Currently, many habitual things are being rethought—from using an office elevator to using a habitual open-space environment. And the hybrid model "three days at homу—two in the office" requires a new office layout. The importance of employee wellbeing and the protection of their health requires new skills, and that is what the workspace architect will do.
They will need to clarify issues such as the formulation of requirements for employees to return to the office, control of vaccinations and wearing masks, control of distance and the number of people in the office.
- Smart home designer
Our houses and apartments are already equipped with technologies that simplify our daily life. Smart doorbells know how to recognize friends or strangers at the door. The Samsung Family Hub refrigerator takes pictures of its contents and reminds you which foods to buy according to its owner's diet. A smart home is not something fantastic—it is present to one degree or another in every home, at least due to the voice assistant Siri.
An industry alliance sponsored by Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech companies is preparing to begin certifying smart home devices using networking technology called Matter. The Matter system will allow you to choose an assistant to control the smart home created by the companies participating in the alliance. Such a smart home can have light bulbs, sockets, door locks, sensors, detectors, and blinds controlled by a mobile application. And the task of a smart home architect is to choose the most optimal ones, install, configure and ensure their performance and interaction with each other.
Algorithms and technologies everywhere require controlling them: What professions will be relevant
The use of algorithms in various spheres of human life requires new restrictions and specialists who will understand how algorithms work and study their benefits and harms for people.
- Human-machine interaction manager
Human-machine interaction managers will ensure unhindered interaction between the two participants in the working process. The need for such specialists is already increasing—for example, the demand for robotics engineers has increased by 50%. Likewise, the need for household health care assistants, nurses, and medical professionals will grow, and they will also need to be managed.
- Algorithm bias auditor
Online life, both at work and during leisure, has intensified the almost uncontrolled use of algorithms. However, legislators and politicians are increasingly interested in how these algorithms are developed. So checking algorithms using auditing will ensure that all possible consequences and problems in the future are taken into account.
- Behavioral game designer
In the coming decades, gamification will become even more beneficial in helping people get rid of stress and become healthy. Accordingly, there will be a need for specialists who will create reasonable solutions with elements of gamification to improve human life—from learning foreign languages to improving health.
- Virtual reality immersion consultant
Following the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic, there has been a surge in interest in digital technology activity. Extended reality (XR) that includes virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) is increasingly used by ordinary people and is becoming popular with brands striving for innovations and coverage of the inquisitive audience.
The interest in innovation has resulted in the increase in consumers experimenting with XR in all areas, including "video games, entertainment, social VR, AR on social media, and experimenting with virtual applications" such as trying on clothes, virtual shopping, and panoramic video from their travels.
XR immersion consultants will work with artists and programmers, and software development, training, and collaboration will further popularize AR and VR.
- Voice assistants engineers
Among the trends in the care of the elderly in the future, there will be a need to simply communicate—whether with living people or with specially trained voice assistants. These professionals will spend time with older clients through an online platform that allows listening and speaking to them and controlling how the voice assistants work with people.
Metaverse—new world, new professions
The metaverse that has been much talked about in recent months will require a lot of specialists in such professions that do not yet exist. These include marketers or advertising specialists, cyber security specialists, and specialists who can set up a working environment or run a game within the metaverse.
So far, it is obvious that one such specialty that will be in high demand is the metaverse planner. Their task is to develop a concept of the business presence within the metaverse and determine what services and tasks will be solved by a company that will create its representative office there.
It is not yet possible to imagine all the needs for the unusual professions that will arise over the conditional 15—20 years. We have outlined several of them and are confident that this list will certainly expand.
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