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Pearson Skills Outlook shows employees are preparing for a tech-focused world by sharpening their human skills

Workers are prioritising problem-solving, leadership and teamwork as the best skills to land their future job

Globally, workers are focused on developing their human skills, even as they see a future dominated by technology-driven work and automation, according to a new study from Pearson, the world’s leading learning company. For the latest edition of the Pearson Skills Outlook series, Pearson partnered with Google to examine how and why people across different regions are looking to upskill as they face a rapidly changing economy.

Pearson Skills Outlook: Employee view, the survey of 4,000 workers, revealed that people are most interested in careers in tech and business-related fields such as e-commerce, software services, data science, and financial services. However, they believe that they will need to focus on human skills to land these jobs or advance in their current role. They believe human skills – like problem-solving, leadership, and teamwork – are the most attractive to employers now and in the future.

According to the report, problem-solving, decision-making, teamwork, and leadership are the key human skills that workers are actively prioritizing developing and maintaining to advance their careers. Looking to the future, most skills workers want to train to remain focused on human skills such as leadership; entrepreneurial skills and project management [Tie], problem-solving, language skills, coding/programming, data processing, and artificial intelligence/machine learning [Tie].

The report also signals that in non-English speaking countries, learning English is emerging as a key skill for employees to advance in their careers, according to 85 per cent of Indians and 77 per cent of Brazilians.

“This valuable new research shows that job seekers are prioritizing human skills at a time when machine learning and artificial intelligence are having an increasing influence on work,” said Mike Howells, president of Pearson Workforce Skills. “Human skills are proving critical to personal and organizational success, and workers are motivated to sharpen and develop those skills to stay competitive and advance their careers.”

The study also found that the majority of workers (73 per cent of Americans, 68 per cent of British, 89 per cent of Indians and 70 per cent of Brazilians) also say they prefer to learn via their employer. And an even higher number expect their employer will increase or maintain learning and development opportunities.

In a world where people are living and working longer, and having multiple careers, the Skills Outlook series provides guidance to employers, employees, and job seekers on where they should focus their training, education, and learning. While Pearson’s second Skills Outlook report, conducted in September 2022, examined skilling through an employee’s lens, the first study identified the most in-demand skills from an employer’s perspective.