Hardly a day goes by without a news report on robots either taking over our jobs or revolutionising our lives. I recently attended The World of Work Conference at Henley Business School where the message was loud and clear: THE ROBOTS ARE COMING and we all need to adapt and ready ourselves for this new world of work.
It is inevitable, technology gives birth new career paths and along the way some jobs disappear as machines can do them faster. According to the BBC, approximately 35% of current jobs in the UK are at risk. Nesta have put together a handy quiz which assesses the probability of a robot taking over your job. While Transport for London is embroiled in a row with Uber, driverless cars pose a threat to the whole industry (ok..I'm saying this for dramatic effect).
Truth is technological innovation has given birth to new industries. In May this year, the Tech Trends Report, now in its 10th year, provided a fascinating insight into emerging technologies that are on a growth trajectory. They identified 150 trends across a wide range of sectors from Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Bitcoin to Genomics. The one that caught my attention was the development of Invisibility Cloaks. Researchers at Queen Mary - University of London are experimenting with electromagnetic and audio waves, tiny lenses that bend light and reflective materials to hide objects in plain sight.
In a report by Microsoft 65% of school students in university today will take up jobs that don’t exist yet. So what does all this mean in practical terms? If you are embarking on your graduate career, I think it is important to stay focused on sectors and trends with potential for future growth. This awareness will make your career progression easier and potentially offer greater job security. In his book 'What to do when machines do everything' the message is clear - work on developing personal skills such as empathy and creativity (essentially the stuff robots aren't good at - yet). Below are the top 10 skills needed in 2020 (that's round the corner).
Over the next few weeks we are going to blog about careers in emerging industries such as Big Data, Synthetic Biology, Robotics and Regenerative Medicine. So stay tuned....!
Respond
