Five New Tech Jobs You Could Be Doing 15 Years From Now
A little exercise, shall we?
Picture your life 15 years ago in 2005, early 2006. How’d you live? Where did you work? What job did you do? How did you do the job? Who were your friends? How did you talk to your friends? How did you entertain yourself? How much did it cost? Now picture your life in 2021. You would easily agree that your life is very different and perhaps easier than it was 15 years ago. You would also agree that 15 years ago, technology was more of a service and support thing, an addendum to other more traditional jobs. A lawyer would use a computer to type and print briefs and send emails and nothing more. Now, technology is the main course, at the top of the market chain, and is a business leader. Did you read that? I said technology is a business on its own now and it even leads other more traditional businesses. Now, just imagine how the next 15 years will be.
Tech will rule the world.
Literally.
Well, almost.
Where there’s been a new tech innovation with staying power, you can expect new job titles and roles to follow. Take cloud computing for example. Today, titles like “cloud architect” or “cloud engineer” (and many variations thereof) abound on the IT job market. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that many of today’s emerging IT jobs – and the related responsibilities – connect to some of the most-hyped technologies and trends. Think IoT, machine learning, data analysis, and more.
So in 15 years, there will be new tech trends and as a consequence, new jobs. We can’t say exactly how the workplace will look like, but we can make a fairly accurate prediction. New research from Citrix attempts to shed light on what the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) means for the IT workforce of 15 years. These new jobs will be designed to support our technology-driven workplace and the changing relationship between humans and machines, Citrix said. For instance, machine learning and AI algorithms are only as useful as the data they’re trained on; consequently, 82% of leaders and 44% of employees surveyed by Citrix believe that dedicated 'Robot/ AI trainer' roles will be needed in the future workplace.
Other new roles predicted for the workforce of 2035 include:
- Virtual reality manager (79% of leaders and 36% of employees)
- Advanced data scientist (76% of leaders and 35% of employees)
- Privacy and trust manager (68% of leaders and 30% of employees)
- Design thinker (56% of leaders and 27% of employees)
Over half of workers thought that full-time employees would be rare in 15 years; just over half of managers thought the majority of high-value specialist workers will work as on-demand and freelance contractors. Perhaps that’s why two-thirds of execs thought the new role of 'Temporary Worker Manager' would exist.
The findings form part of Citrix’s Work 2035 study, a year-long examination of global work patterns to understand the role technology will play in the future of work. The study looked at how businesses across financial services, healthcare and life sciences, telecommunications, media and technology, professional services, manufacturing, and retail are expected to embrace AI, machine learning, and automation, as reported by TechRepublic.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies to reimagine the way things get done, and over the next 15 years, they will face more challenges and disruptions than ever," said Tim Minahan, executive vice president of Business Strategy, Citrix.
"But as Work 2035 makes clear, within this chaos lies opportunity. Savvy companies are using this crisis to begin planning for the 'next normal’. Not just return to where they were, but to embrace new workforce and work models to power their business forward."
In conclusion, not all jobs will be safe as AI-driven processes take hold. As more positions are automated, workers need to keep retraining to stay relevant in the new, dynamic job market.
