Future Skills

CHAPTER 3TECHNICAL SKILLS

Don't skip this chapter thinking it's all about IT or engineering-type skills. It's not. “Technical skills” spans the huge variety of “hard” skills that are necessary for many jobs. With the rise of automation, we could potentially lose these vital technical skills as more tasks are given over to machines and fewer people choose to learn technical skills. And if we lose technical skills among the human workforce, we risk losing them forever within the space of a generation.

So while we all know the nature of work is changing, and workplaces will undoubtedly become more automated, there's still enormous value in technical skills. In fact, in the complex, hybrid workplaces of the future—where tasks and goals are accomplished through a blend of machine and human power—technical skills will become more valuable than ever.

What Are Technical Skills?

As you can probably tell from the previous two chapters, technical skills around coding, AI, and data science are already in high demand. That demand will continue to grow. Yet the term “technical skills” stretches far beyond technology and IT fields.

Technical skills are, in essence, the “hard” practical skills needed to do a job successfully. If you're an accountant, your professional accountancy skills are technical skills. Same goes for a plumber, nurse, truck driver, lawyer, teacher, hairstylist, project manager, carpenter, and so on. These all require knowledge and skills that are particular to that ...