A future-proof job doesn’t have to be high-tech. The pandemic has outlined countless professions that will likely prove to be extremely resilient in the medium-long term and very few of them are the high-tech jobs you might have thought would dominate the future. Forecasting the most popular jobs in the future is difficult to guarantee, but it’s already clear that there will be future-proof jobs across several industries.
- Shipping and Logistics
Elements of shipping are likely to become highly automated (e.g., logistical planning), but there will be some jobs that will always have a place. Shipping work is easy to find by using load boards (e.g., https://www.shiply.com/us/shipping-jobs), which are like public forums where thousands of jobs are posted and accepted every day. The pandemic has proven that when times get tough, shipping is one of the most essential industries. It is likely to be pandemic-proof, recession-proof, and is even proving to be fuel price-spike-proof.
- Teacher
Teachers are the mainstay of the educational system, which is likely to stick around for the entirety of human civilisation. There’s a lot of potential in the AI sphere that will change the nature of teaching forever, but it is unlikely that there will ever be no place for engaged human educators. You can specialize in many different subjects, depending on your interests, and for the moment, the average job role of a teacher includes preparing and deploying lesson plans and helping students to fulfil their potential and achieve their personal goals.
- Graphic Designer
In an increasingly digitalised world, graphic designers produce the core infrastructure of everything digital and graphic. Graphic design has widely been considered to be completely future proof, but the rise of artificial intelligence foundation models like OpenAI’s DALL E has put some of that certainty into question. However far technology develops, humans will always require people with the eye to create and execute design concepts for many different solutions across industries and purposes. The current AI predictions are that AI won’t replace graphic designers but just serve as an advanced tool to accompany professionals and speed up their work.
- HR Management
HR is one of those departments that has seen a lot of redundancy in the past couple of decades, as human resources have relied previously on a lot of paperwork that has been automated (e.g., payslips). However, the profession of HR management also includes roles like recruiting and hiring. The core HR functions are highly future-resistant as they are resistant to automation because they rely on important intrapersonal skills.
- Nursing and Health
Healthcare will become increasingly important over the next century as humanity continues to come to terms with the effects of increased population size and an aging population. Nurses and other jobs in the healthcare industry are a crucial component of healthcare provision to patients. They do essential work in the examination, immunization, monitoring, and miscellaneous medication deployment areas of healthcare. Their job is complex and involves good intrapersonal skills, which tend to be excellent signs of a future-proof profession.
