‘Expectations will shift dramatically’: jobs move from science fiction to fact

Jobseekers often look to roles in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as safe bets.

Under almost every 10-year scenario modelled by labour economists, they are correct to do so. Projections from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, released in September, show an 11 per cent rise in so-called “Stem” employment, to 11.5mn, by 2032, while the number of non-Stem jobs will increase by just 2 per cent.

These will not necessarily be the jobs of science fiction. Many roles created from developments in technology will be augmented versions of those that already exist, or new roles serving age-old needs in areas such as healthcare, basic infrastructure, or public services.

Wind turbine technician is the hottest role on the BLS list, with projected employment growth of 44.9 per cent from 2022 to 2032, followed closely by nurse technicians, with predicted 44.5 per cent growth. Demand for IT roles such as data scientists, information security analysts and software developers will surge by more than 25 per cent.

Artificial intelligence, already transforming work across many sectors, will have an especially “huge impact” in fields of advanced science, says Adrian Smith, president of Britain’s national academy of sciences, the Royal Society.

Scientists will be able to harness computer power and sophisticated instruments to generate and analyse huge quantities of data and more advanced, sophisticated hypotheses.

“Being part of a team handling vast amounts of data requires a different set of skills to the individual with their own instrument,” Smith says. “The collection and processing of data will be at the heart of science — and increasingly it will involve the use of clever AI algorithms.”

Among the most hyped roles working with AI are prompt engineers. Specialised in large language models and coding, they understand how to command AI to perform tasks or create particular outcomes. And although experts are divided over the need for them in the distant future, most agree demand will increase over the next few years.

Talent site Upwork found searches for “prompt engineering” began increasing from April last year, about six months after ChatGPT was released. Between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the second quarter of 2023, it recorded a 1,500 per cent increase in generative AI-related search results.

“Supervising jobs are going to be more and more sought after, and there is a huge scarcity [of workers],” Adam Niewinski, managing partner at venture capital firm OTB Ventures, says. “There is a special skill set needed for this. It is a very tough logic that you need to follow.”

A growing awareness of AI’s flaws, such its tendency to state inaccuracies as fact or carry algorithmic bias, also demands a range of critical, regulatory and creative skills.

Teodora Danilovic is a prompt engineer at start-up AutogenAI, which uses AI to help businesses write bids for contracts. She says human, rather than technical skills, will be valued to oversee and check AI work.

“We have the contextual understanding . . . the understanding of bias, we have the creativity, the emotional intelligence,” she told the FT’s AI summit last year. “We are able to think of unknown unknowns . . . The AI is very limited in the sense that it can only work on what it’s been trained on.”

AI and other developments are also transforming jobs in white-collar work such as consulting, compliance or law.

Frank Diana, a futurist and partner at Tata Consultancy Services, is exploiting AI’s ability to quickly process big data and catch signals invisible to humans. When a client recently asked TCS to report on how remote work would affect transport use, for example, the consultancy posed the question to AI, then human analysts sifted through what it found.

“AI performs some of the heavy lifting, the human in the loop is able to apply some of their critical-thinking abilities,” he says. “It primarily was a massive time-saver.”

Digital twins — virtual copies of objects, structures or environments that can be used to simulate scenarios that could then apply to the real world — can be applied in a mind-boggling range of fields, says Diana, shaking up roles from urban planning to individualised drug discovery.

Another hot area will be virtual and augmented reality. Apple and Meta, which have both launched headset devices, envision mixed reality, or XR, becoming commonplace in interactions from socialising in virtual spaces, to watching concerts and holding work meetings.

Skills required to design such experiences have traditionally been concentrated in the games industry, and are already in high demand.

“Over the past few years, there has been a talent raid on the games sector, with everything from architecture and manufacturing through to XR companies competing for graduates who come from games,” says Professor James Bennett, director at StoryFutures, a Royal Holloway project centred around training programmes for emerging tech­nologies.

Its research found a lack of experience and technical skills among immersive workers. Shortages are in part due to the rapid acceleration of the sector, says Bennett. “There’s a decent amount of graduates and people enrolling in courses if the games industry was static, but the games industry is growing, the metaverse sector is exploding.”

Chris Marotta, design principal at global digital product studio Ustwo, compares the boom to the smartphone design’s effect on digital experiences.

“If you’re interested in designing the future of how we interact, both with each other and with computers, this area is the place to do it because expectations will shift dramatically.”