This article is written by Jessica Gross. Jessica Gross is a writer and academic consultant. She has recently started ContentWolves.com – a portal to share her posts. She often writes for the travel and health section of Postbloggers.

Many at some point have considered what will be the future of the world of work? It has already been observed that new professions are subject to greater demands for skills and constant evolution, and new professionals are being trained and qualified in different tasks.

This trend will continue to grow in both the tasks and the roles that professionals must play so the latter will be subject to constant training to keep up with the latest developments in their field and to meet the requirements.

Technology and the work of the future

Today, we can see how technology is increasingly covering every field. In the not too distant future, it will play an indispensable role in most professions, production and management processes. Knowledge and skills in technology will be essential.

Although some of the jobs do not require eminently technological training but may be based on psychology or graphic design, the common denominator of all future jobs is their direct relationship with new technologies and their evolution.

For example, in the case of telesurgery, surgical experts will no longer need to be in the operating room to attend to patients. They can operate remotely without having to be there physically, using machines prepared for it. In fact, it is not a profession that does not exist yet, because the first case of telesurgery took place in 2001 between the United States and Europe.

The augmented and virtual reality could also be another nucleus of the professions of the future. For example, augmented reality architects are responsible for mapping the three-dimensional models of a future building.

Fashion designers specialised in 3D printing can create models and specific garments for 3D printing machines, which users can download and manufacture themselves at home.

And precisely in homes, increasingly smart, true ecosystems full of sensors and IoT devices will be created. For the correct development of these smart homes, professionals will emerge in this field.

The jobs that technology will generate by 2030 are hard to predict, but, in the near future, the following 10 types of jobs will be generated (as agreed upon by the most futurologists).

 

Health Assistants

The increase in life expectancy and the ageing of the world’s population will increase the jobs that have to do with health care. To the traditional health workers will be added several others who will have interdisciplinary training, such as experts in robotic medicine, who will be in charge of managing the surgeon robots in hospitals; graduates in medical engineering, who will be in charge of skin printing with 3D printers in reconstructive surgeries from patients’ cells, and pharmaceutical experts in robotics, who will supervise the manufacture of personalised medicines based on the genetics of each person.

Data analysts, data engineers and programmers

Data will be the most valuable product in the coming years – the oil of the 21st century, as many call it – and those who dedicate themselves to its exploration and analysis will definitely have a job. Even today, businesses in various sectors such as banking and catering, are recruiting analysts and data engineers to identify new clients and strengthen their relationship with the existing ones.

The growth of the middle class of China, India and other developing countries will result in an increase of 1 billion consumers in the world by 2025 and a 50% increase in global technology spending by 2030. That will mean much more work for data analysts. Even small businesses such as restaurants should have a data manager who produces profiles of their customers based on their preferences, frequent decisions and personal information.

The data analysts will also track social networks to know exactly what time of day we are reading our Twitter or Facebook, to be able to send us personalised advertising precisely at that moment.

The digital police

As technology is taking over the business and finance sector, protecting companies from cyber-attacks will be a frequent challenge. Just as any company has a security officer at the door, any business must have digitals security guards protecting their data from hackers. According to US officials, China has a specialized government department – the 61398 unit of the People’s Liberation Army, based in Shanghai – to hack into foreign governments and companies.

The “hackers” or cyber pirates are increasingly ambitious. The theft of emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 – attributed by the CIA, the FBI and the NSA to people close to the Russian government, who later passed the data to Wikileaks – destabilised the elections of the most powerful country in the world.

Sales consultants

Thanks to the increased productivity and growth of the middle class, global consumption will increase by more than 23 trillion dollars between 2015 and 2030, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Sales consultants will replace what we now call sellers. Their mission will be educating consumers and creating trusting relationships to earn their long-term loyalty rather than selling a product as soon as possible. One of the main work requirements will be to know how to smile and make others smile and laugh, something that humans will continue to do much better than robots.

The caregivers and programmers of robots

Sales of industrial robots worldwide will increase fivefold from 253,000 units sold in 2015 to almost 1.3 million units in 2025, which will require many engineers and mechanics to give them technical support. It will take engineers from robotics to oiling them to programmers to update their software. The same will happen with virtual assistants and other intelligent machines.

Virtual assistants, such as Alexa or Cortana, will need to answer increasingly complex questions, for which they will need to be fed with answers.

Teachers and instructors

With the increasing automation of jobs, the world will require more and more teachers to educate people in the handling of robots and performing increasingly sophisticated tasks. There will be two types of jobs: those in which robots will supervise humans and those in which humans will supervise robots. And the latter will be the best paid and will require more education.

Spiritual counsellors

The disintegration of families and the growing loneliness of people in the era of digital communications are generating a greater need to hire spiritual gurus to find meaning in our lives. And it will be very difficult for robots or algorithms, even though they have almost all the available answers, to replace the personal touch and the warmth of a spiritual guide. Spiritual retreats and “mindfulness” courses will multiply and those who direct them will not be virtual assistants, but real people, who, in many cases, will invoke thousand-year-old wisdom.

Artists, athletes and creators of entertainment

As the average person is working fewer hours and has more and more temporary and flexible jobs, there will be more time for leisure and more need to hire workers in creative industries such as movies, music, art and literature. The shortening of the working week that we are already seeing in countries like the Netherlands, will generate a greater demand for content to entertain the population.

The creators and designers of commercial content

As online commerce increases and consumers make their decisions according to what they see on the Internet, more creators of visual content, designers and writers of blogs and articles published on social networks will be needed to promote companies and products. The restaurants will hire their own internet designers, writers, artists and videographers to promote their decor and menus.

The specialists in alternative energies

With the growing global alarm about climate change and the reduction in the cost of clean energy, such as solar and wind energy, dozens of careers related to the new green industries will emerge. More and more scientists specialising in renewable energies will be needed, as well as architects and engineers in charge of setting up plants and creating energy-efficient factories, buildings and vehicles relying on alternative sources of energy.