Embracing Future Skills: Reskilling for the Age of AI and Innovation

The report identifies the skills that employers consider most critical right now, and those growing fastest in importance through to 2030. Human skills and technical skills are both on the list, and the organisations getting ahead are building both.

1. Analytical Thinking

Analytical thinking has topped the WEF list across every edition of this report. Seven in 10 companies consider it essential. In a world generating more data than ever, the ability to identify patterns, interrogate information, and make sound decisions based on it is the foundation of almost every other skill on this list.

2. Resilience, Flexibility & Agility

Up from third in 2023, this cluster now sits second. Disruption isn’t slowing down, and organisations need people who can adapt their thinking and approach without losing effectiveness. This is less about tolerating change and more about performing through it.

3. Leadership & Social Influence

The biggest mover in the 2025 report, jumping from ninth to third. Leadership is increasingly defined by the ability to bring people along through uncertainty, influence without authority, and build the kind of trust that holds teams together when conditions shift.

4. Creative Thinking

As AI takes over more rule-based and repetitive tasks, the premium on genuine creative thinking rises. The ability to approach problems from fresh angles, connect unrelated ideas, and generate solutions that aren’t obvious is harder to replicate than most technical skills.

5. Motivation & Self-Awareness

Understanding what drives performance, both in oneself and in others, is a core leadership and collaboration skill. Self-awareness underpins most of the interpersonal effectiveness that organisations say they’re missing.

6. Technological Literacy

This doesn’t mean everyone needs to be a developer. It means understanding how technology works, what it can and can’t do, and how to work alongside it effectively. As AI tools become standard in most roles, this baseline matters across the board.

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7. Empathy & Active Listening

The ability to genuinely understand another person’s perspective (and to demonstrate that understanding) drives better collaboration, stronger client relationships, and more effective conflict resolution. It’s consistently undervalued relative to its actual impact.

8. Curiosity & Lifelong Learning

The half-life of specific knowledge is shortening. What matters more is the disposition to keep learning, to stay genuinely curious about new developments, and to be willing to update thinking when the evidence shifts. The 2025 report found 50% of the workforce is now engaged in long-term learning strategies, up from 41% in 2023.

9. Talent Management

New to the top 10 in 2025. As skill gaps widen and the competition for capable people intensifies, the ability to identify, develop, and retain talent is becoming a core organisational capability rather than an HR function alone.

10. Service Orientation & Customer Service

Also new to the 2025 list. In an environment where AI handles more transactional interactions, the ability to navigate complex, human-centred service situations has become more valuable, not less. The distinctly human aspects of service: reading the room, managing expectations, resolving tension, are difficult to automate.

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Two skills that featured in the 2023 top 10, Dependability & Attention to Detail and Quality Control, have dropped out of the list entirely. The report notes both have seen a decline in projected future importance, driven largely by the increasing capability of technology to perform these functions reliably.
AI & Big Data literacy is now the fastest-growing skill across nearly all sectors, with over 90% of employers in most industries expecting it to increase in use. It sits just outside the core top 10 as an emerging priority. Organisations that aren’t actively building this capability are already behind.

“Reskilling is less about learning new skills and more about building the capacity to keep learning.”

The skills gap is the most significant barrier to business transformation identified in the 2025 report. Nearly 40% of employers say it’s holding them back. Upskilling is now the top workforce strategy employers plan to pursue through to 2030.

Most of the top 10 skills are human capabilities: how people think, lead, communicate, and adapt. Technology can support these skills, but it can’t replace them. The organisations that are investing in building both technical fluency and the human capabilities alongside it are the ones best positioned for what’s coming.

Look at the top 10 list above. Pick the two skills that feel least developed in the team right now. Before the end of the month, have one conversation with a senior leader about what building those skills would actually require. That’s where meaningful reskilling starts.