Future skills

While Australians know the way they work is changing, they are less clear on the skills they need to adapt to new kinds of automation. Does every Australian need to be proficient in a coding language? What will older workers need to know to remain employable? Is it more important for early career workers to develop a technical specialisation or to develop enterprise skills such as communication and leadership? This report helps Australians navigate the major shifts in the future of work by answering three critical questions: What skills do we need to succeed in the future? When during our working lives will we need to learn these skills? How can we adjust work and learning practices to acquire the skills we need? To understand how skill requirements for the Australian workforce are shifting, the report analyses recent changes in more than 300 jobs, more than 2,000 work tasks and more than 500 skills required to complete these tasks. We examine how tasks are changing in our economy, and the skills workers are using more often in response. More importantly, this report translates what we know about the jobs of the future into what it means for the skills of the future. It assesses in detail how much time, in hours, every worker in this country has spent on education and training over their lifetime – and how much these investments in skills will likely need to change by 2040. This approach offers unique insights into the amount of training and education required for each Australian occupation today and in the future. The result is a comprehensive picture of the actual size of the reskilling challenge in this country.