Flannel-shirt wearing creatives are safe – for now. Designers, Marketers and Writers will benefit from new digital technology and easy access to roles. They’ll get creative with roles, too. Game Designers, for example, have systems skills to show societies how to thrive with new technology.

Salespeople have the originality, flexibility and management skills recruiters will look for in the future. And as urbanisation continues and high-street stores revive, shoppers will want to talk to actual, real people. Bad news for self-checkout bots.

It’s not all about us. With 44% of UK households owning some form of pet, it’s logical that we will need people to look after our furry friends, too. The skills of Veterinary Nurses will be in demand for at least the next 10 years.

As people live longer, we’ll need Doctors, Nurses and Physiotherapists to look after us. But as medicines and living conditions improve, chances are we’ll live our golden years in good health. Counsellors will help us learn, work and stay culturally aware in our 80s and 90s. And Care Workers will rig up the wearable technology to monitor heart rates, blood-glucose levels and sleep patterns.

More and more people are moving to cities to work and live. To accommodate them, we’ll need Electrical Engineers to wire our smart homes, Civil Engineers to design our roads, Software Engineers to connect streetlights to the internet, and Environmental Engineers to power them when oil runs out. But it’s Sales Engineers, with in-demand technical knowledge of the goods and their market, who come out on top in the survey.

As people crave new dining and flavor experiences, the food and drinks industry will boom. Chefs, Bartenders and Baristas tick the most in-demand skills for future employment: with originality, flexibility and management skills.

Automation will impact manual work jobs. But looking at how long it takes that Toyota robot to pour a glass of juice, tradespeople are safe for now. The study shows that skilled tradespeople such as Joiners, Glass Makers and Home Decorators will have work for at least the next 10 years.

Shoppers will pay extra for local, authentic and specialist products and services. That means artisans such as Coffee Roasters, Butchers and Barbers will help revitalize high streets.

Millennials are more likely to hit 24-hour gyms than nightclubs. So, we’ll need Personal Trainers to crunch their cores, Sports Therapists to ease strained hammies and Nutritionists to advise on which protein shakes to gulp down.

The future workforce will need a wide knowledge base as well as specialist skills. That means we’ll need people to teach subjects such as English language, history and philosophy to prep candidates for future jobs.
In the Nesta report, Teachers and other public sector jobs fare well against the threat of automation. Robots can’t get their pincers around interpersonal skills just yet.