From artificial intelligence to sustainable design, find out which sectors and roles are growth areas within West Yorkshire and the type of roles that are likely to be available to young people in the coming years. This can help you when thinking about what the future might hold to support career decision making.
It’s time to bust some myths around automation, understand the changing landscape of different career sectors and get to grips with the skills needed for the various opportunities on the horizon.
Creative skills are among the most difficult to automate. Jobs like artists and musicians are among those with the lowest risk of being replaced by machines. Augmented and virtual reality offer an entirely new medium for creators to work with in fields like filmmaking and gaming. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used to personalise content on digital platforms. AI is now being used to generate repetitive text in articles but this is freeing up reporters’ time and allowing them to be even more creative with their writing.
Useful to know: Expertise in digital technologies is an increasingly important requirement for most creative occupations.
New technologies are changing the way that construction processes are carried out. In general, workers will need a higher level of skills, particularly in problem solving. New digital technologies, such as building information modelling (BIM), automated and robotic equipment and cloud-based collaboration tools are becoming more widespread.
It’s likely that many routine manual roles in construction will be automated over the coming decades, although the need for workers in unstructured environments will remain.
New technologies are changing the way that construction processes are carried out. Off-site construction, using a 3D printer, is becoming increasingly popular, but technology like this still requires the problem-solving skills of the human brain and the ability to fix it if anything goes wrong.
Useful to know: Due to the increased use of mechanical technologies,
workers will need a higher level of skills than previously.
Future algorithms will take on more coding tasks than humans, so you will need problem-solving, social and business skills as well as digital knowledge!
As digital platforms and tools become more important across all industries there is a growing demand for digital experts with specialist skills, such as programmers. People with problem-solving, social and business skills as well as digital knowledge will have the best career opportunities.
In the future, algorithms may be able to produce code more effectively than humans but those with problem-solving skills and digital knowledge will still be in high demand.
Useful to know: Digital skills can quickly become out of date, so it’s important that workers constantly update their skills and knowledge.
There will be fewer lower-skilled manual workers, but higher skilled managers, engineers and technicians to develop new products and processes.
Industrial robots have long been an important part of car manufacturing processes. Car manufacturing is moving to another level with the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, or Industry 4.0, and the emergence of ‘smart factories’, where robots talk to each other over secure Wi-Fi.
Manufacturing will need fewer lower-skilled manual workers such as assemblers and process operatives, but it is worth noting that the industry will require more higher-skilled employees like engineers and technicians.
Useful to know: Digital skills will be increasingly important in manufacturing – for example, cybersecurity skills will be needed to protect automated production systems.
Some legal sector intelligent search systems can now outperform junior lawyers and paralegals; however, in finance, it’s much more difficult to
automate audits/risk management.
In the financial sector, it is expected that general accounting operations can be automated whereas algorithms can lead to faster and more efficient financial analysis and assessments.
Roles like project managers and management consultants will be difficult to automate because they require creativity, problem-solving and interpersonal skills.
In the legal sector, intelligent search systems are able to trawl through documents faster than any junior lawyer, but the ability to present to a room and be persuasive in a point is a human attribute that isn’t going to go out of fashion in a hurry.
Useful to know: Routine office tasks are being automated, but jobs like project managers need skills like problem solving and creativity which are difficult to automate.
Robots are being used in surgery, to measure data and fight diseases. However, most jobs in health and care require human interaction skills making them difficult to automate.
Technology is having a big impact on this sector. Artificial Intelligence is being used to carry out patient diagnosis by using data from millions of patient records and journals but most occupations within this sector require human interaction, such as doctors and nurses.
Useful to know: Having knowledge of technology is useful as robots are being used in surgery and to assist care workers when moving patients.
