Atlas of Emerging Jobs

The pace of change around us is much faster than we can imagine . The branch of mechatronics was practically unheard of only two years ago . Today, students and young professionals of high- tech companies are competing in mechatronics at Russian and global vocational skill contests, demonstrating remarkable achievements in this field . Readers may treat the Atlas of Emerging Jobs in different ways . Some may see it as just a fantasy about what the future professional world may be like . On the other hand, as we all remember, Karel Čapek invented the term “robot” in 1920 and robots are part of our world today . In his From the Earth to the Moon, published in 1865, Jules Verne fantasized about lunar modules, sunlight sails and Moon landings . A hundred years have passed and the writer’s “foretelling” has come true . Some may ask in surprise, “You don’t really believe it, do you?” Others may even be annoyed at the time being spent on the future with so many unresolved issues in the present . Yes, we are earnestly thinking about the future . Our confidence in the value of the Atlas is based on the opinions of thousands of renowned practicing experts who spent a significant amount of time picturing the changes that the world will have gone through by 2020 and by 2030 and articulating requirements to be met by competencies and qualifications the day after tomorrow . The experts who we asked to contribute to the project work in the real sector of the economy, as well as government and social institutions, and keep track of the daily changes in demand for staff . There is already demand for people able to replace three or four specialists, or even a whole department . We are sure that progressive parents and youngsters who can feel the rhythm of modern life will read the Atlas carefully, to see behind the illustrations and the simple presentation of important material messages and challenges awaiting them in the near future . Try showing the Atlas to your children . In it, they may find the future of their dreams . 4 ANDREY SHARONOV Rector, Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO When asked to describe business school learning briefly, I only say one word: change . The primary skill of a contemporary manager or businessman is the ability to adapt to and drive changes . It forms the substrate for professional knowledge and other skills and competencies . This change-based principle originates from the business environment and is having an impact on the entire education system . This Atlas of Emerging Jobs is a vision of changes that may happen in the job market in the coming decades, as seen by experts of Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO and Agency for Strategic Initiatives . It also offers an opportunity to prepare our high school and college students for a world they will enter after obtaining their degrees . The list of new jobs is a result of a joint effort by several thousand experts, researchers and representatives of leading companies . Rather than an attempt to invent a future, it is the product of an in-depth analysis of trends observed in key industries and companies, driven by a desire to understand how the world is changing and what types of young specialists it will need in the future . Using the Atlas First, try not to think of it as a dogma or a work of science fiction, even though the names of some jobs may evoke a smile . The Atlas offers a good opportunity to ponder what kind of education you and your children need, or what you want to become . Business and market requirements are changing faster than new courses, faculties or certified programs are appearing . Fewer and fewer people manage to pursue a single career throughout their lives . What’s in store for us tomorrow? More likely than not, we will have to change occupation more than once, while constantly learning new ones . The future life of a professional will be more like a sequence of specialties that they will have to master in the process . You may find some of them in the Atlas . We will have to go through dramatic changes quite often and now is the perfect time to prepare . Undergoing training and obtaining two or three certificates is not enough to be ready for tomorrow . Learning and developing competencies has to be continuous . Before our eyes, education is expanding beyond academic and vocational establishments, which is manifested in the emergence of public online courses, some of them offered by leading world universities . You can set your own academic path through internships, online courses and practice . While this may be much more difficult than the customary school – institute – postgraduate education pattern, it is certainly more exciting and effective . If the Atlas can convince you that your future and your career could turn out far more exciting than you imagined and, most importantly, depend solely on you, then the researchers’ efforts have not been wasted . 5 GLEB NIKITIN First Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation The Atlas of Emerging Jobs is a unique project that will help us understand which sectors of the economy will obtain new technology and what types of new specialists will be required to apply that technology in the future . By having a peek beyond the horizon, we can see clearly that occupations emerging in Russian high- tech industries in the coming years will require completely new, cross-sector competencies . An important general trend is the increasing complexity and integration of activities performed by skilled professionals . The ability to work in several disciplines will become a competitive advantage of a future specialist . Industry will need specialists with interconnected competencies, able to design and adapt new products, conduct marketing campaigns, and organize production processes . Technical progress will quickly render jobs obsolete, which is yet another challenge and a reason to revise the modern education model, which should take the form of “life-long education” . The Atlas is a kind of beacon for young people mapping their career paths, helping them find a good way to invest their potential . For educational and business institutions, it is a chance to join efforts in developing new training programs and to capture an opportunity to grow proper specialists for the future industry . Changes are accelerating, the complexity of job tasks is growing, and some specialties that seemed part of science fiction only yesterday will become popular and much needed in the future . In this context, the Atlas is an attempt to define the types of knowledge, skills and expertise that will become essential for successful professionals in the new world . The Atlas is a map of opportunities on which a person can chart his own path to an exciting future . 6 ALEXEY REPIK President, All Russia Public Organization Business Russia Member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Chairman of the Board of Directors, R-Pharm In today’s quickly-changing world, new technologies emerge much faster than before . To keep pace with new trends, one needs to track changes carefully, as they directly affect the employment structure and competitive performance of key players in industry markets . This is especially important in the pharmaceutical industry, as the scientific progress of past decades has enabled new pharmaceutical products of a new qualitative level to be created at an increasing rate . This and other similar trends are leading to substantial changes in job requirements in the industry, resulting in the emergence of additional key competencies or even new jobs . Relevant information is gathered and structured in the Atlas of Emerging Jobs, which can be treated as a career guidance tool to help young people choose the right specialty . It is a choice that will determine their success on the job market in the future . The shortage of human capital is very noticeable at any level, whether regional, industry, or corporate . Meanwhile, it is a key factor in any decision on launching an investment project . Training programs for highly qualified specialists should take into account the needs of the business . In this way, we can form demand for staff based on future challenges . I would like to stress that the Atlas does not specify definitively what specialists will be in demand on the job market in the coming two decades . In fact, it should be used to identify the main development vectors of industry competencies as competitive performance drivers for businesses . This may help companies formulate more effective human resources management strategies . 7 ATLAS OF EMERGING JOBS FOREWORD WHAT KINDS OF MAPS ARE THERE IN THE ATLAS? The Atlas is an almanac of promising industries and jobs for the coming 15 to 20 years . It will help you find out which areas will grow intensively, what new technology, products and management practices will emerge, and what new types of specialists employers will need . The rate of change is growing and the complexity of job tasks is rising . Some popular and highly paid IT jobs, such as a social network manager, professional blogger, search engine optimizer or headhunter, were unknown in the early 2000s . What types of knowledge, skills and expertise should one possess to become a successful specialist in the new world? Our Atlas will help you find answers to these questions, as well as schools providing good basic training . The Atlas is a field of opportunities in which you can build your own path to an exciting future . We would like the Atlas to be coherent and useful for readers, and we welcome any comments and proposals which you can send to atlas@refuture.me. HOW THE ATLAS WAS MADE For the first time in Russian history, Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives have united over 2,500 Russian and global experts in a massive research effort entitled Skill Foresight 2030 . The aim of the research has been to identify jobs that are in high demand in 25 industries of the economy . The experts discussed technological changes and socioeconomic processes influencing the structure of practical tasks and built future state maps for industries to identify demand for new competencies and build the images of new jobs . Dmitry Peskov Director, Young Professionals Department, Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects The purpose of the Atlas is not academic research . There is no such thing as scientific research of the future . It is simply impossible . Those who claim to have based their predictions on scientific methods are lying because science always involves experiment and hypothesis testing, which cannot exist in forecasting . A forecast can only be tested after the fact . Our objective is to expose the horizon for parents to choose professions for their children that offer actual prospects and are in demand in the country . This is a self-fulfilling prophecy . We need to create new industries today . However, the process should not take the form of an overly time-consuming “soft” dialogue between the old schools and the few companies willing to invest . Industries must be created quickly . We would like the Atlas to encourage parents to demand that schools teach new professions, take risks and show the government the ones they need . 8 Yulia Khanzhina Deputy Director, Department of Strategic Development, Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation The development of new industries and traditional sectors is bringing about changes in the image of, and requirements for, jobs and types of specialists . What is driving demand for new highly qualified staff? What are the job requirements at our industrial enterprises? What are the key areas in which the government and businesses should apply their efforts to create conditions necessary to train specialists for the future industry? While working on the Atlas, we tried to answer these questions and, essentially, defined trends along which to prepare proposals for the education system . We have compiled the findings of the research into the Atlas of Emerging Jobs . The current edition features an extended selection of 25 industries, with the scope of research now covering entertainment, media and light industry, as well as other important industrial areas expecting major changes . We believe that the Atlas will develop further, becoming more and more comprehensive . FORESIGHT: A WINDOW INTO THE FUTURE? Foresight is a social technology developed abroad over 30 years ago and used extensively in the spheres of business and government . It enables development forecasting for industries, regions and countries . Forecasts can then be used to agree on courses of action to achieve desired future results . BASIC PRINCIPLES OF FORESIGHT: The future depends on our efforts, which means it can be molded . The future is variable: it does not arise from the past but depends on the decisions made by participants and stakeholders . Some things can be predicted but, on the whole, the future cannot be foretold with complete accuracy . We can either prepare ourselves for a future that we want to see, or prepare that future for ourselves . It is precisely these principles that the Atlas of Emerging Jobs uses to depict a future which industry leaders plan to create jointly in accordance with their growth strategies, such as adapting to new markets, releasing new products, finding new applications for technology, etc . The Atlas is just one part of preparing for the future we want, as these plans can only be realized if experts appear who are capable of making them a reality . NAVIGATION THROUGH THE ATLAS The Atlas of Emerging Jobs consists of two parts: he first is dedicated to new jobs . the second is dedicated to endangered jobs . The first part describes jobs that will emerge in the most promising, technologically advanced and fastest- growing industries of the Russian economy in the coming years . Each industry is covered in a separate chapter beginning with an outlook of the industry (a brief overview of its development until 2030) and a description of new technology and trends that are considered the most promising and compelling by experts and employers in the sector . Based on the outlook, sample practical challenges that future specialists will face in the industry are listed . 9 ATLAS OF EMERGING JOBS We have made a list of new occupations for each sector with a brief description of relevant job tasks . The list is not final or exhaustive (other jobs and specializations are very likely to appear), but it is illustrative of the important changes about to take place in the industry in the near future . JOB CHARACTERISTICS PERIODS OF EMERGENCE: “Before 2020” means jobs that will be on offer tomorrow . Developed countries already have many of them (e .g . energy auditor, online doctor, GMO farmer, etc .) These trades will be in demand in Russia in the coming decade . “After 2020” means jobs that will be on offer the day after tomorrow, subject to the favorable development of technology in Russia and internationally . These specialties may seem chimerical today but the first steps in solving these kinds of job tasks (e .g . those in cyber prosthetics, virtual reality design, etc .) have already been made . These are new jobs in Russia, as well as in foreign countries . CROSS-PROFESSIONAL SKILLS These skills are versatile and important for specialists in all kinds of industries . Mastering them enables employees to improve the efficiency of their professional activity in their respective industries and allows them to switch industries while staying in demand . The Atlas also contains a section of recommendations for each industry, explaining: which schools in Russia provide the basic training required to be among the first specialists of the future; which major employers operate in the Russian market and the industries in question and are preparing to implement new technology, thereby driving demand for future occupations; and comments on job markets by industry. The second part of the Atlas describes the future of certain popular jobs in the next 20 years . Technology is upgraded, equipment becomes obsolete, and tools turn into scrap metal . Jobs may also become obsolete or extinct . It is a natural process that has accompanied every change in technological cycles, e .g . taxi drivers replaced cab drivers and postmen were replaced by mail server administrators . However, whereas these cycles took decades or centuries to complete in the past, they do not exceed 10 to 15 years now . Although jobs do not “age” instantly, it is better to know which ones are endangered before you get the “retirement slip” . While trying to choose your future trade, you might be interested in a specialty that will soon become history (e .g . accountant) and be completely unaware of a new and promising sector with new tasks .