What the Top Skills of 2025 Have in Common

Just last month the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Future of Jobs report. An interesting read regardless of where you work, there were very few surprises. With automation and robots on a meteoric rise, the skills of the future will involve using our human advantage to connect better with people, solve problems, and reskill.

And on the note of reskilling, the WEF projects that nearly half of workers will need to reskill in one way or another in the next half-decade. Does this mean that we all have to learn a new programming tool or change careers? No, and in many cases, it doesn’t require any change. Some of the skills we need to learn aren’t to do with technology at all; they are to do with being better at thinking, learning and adapting to an ever-changing world.

Interestingly, the rate the world is changing today is the slowest the world will ever change moving forward. With technology advancing faster than it ever has before, change like we’ve never seen before isn’t only possible; it is confirmed. And as impossible as that is to imagine, change is the only constant moving forward.

But is that what the skills of 2025 all have in common? The fact that change is in the air? Well, partially, yes, but not the similarity I had in mind. What I noticed was even more apparent, was the fact that all of the skills required in 2025 mandate us to focus on one thing at a time. In Canada alone, we’re spending upwards of 3.5-4 hours a day on our phones, get over 100 emails, and countless pings and dings from various devices. Where is our attention, really? When we focus on too many things at once, can we really focus on anything?

Let me rephrase: when we try to focus on too many things, we can’t focus on anything.

And this is where the future lies.

Should we want to be successful in the future (and I suspect we do), it is time that we took a good look at where we are spending our time and how many things we’re trying to do at once.

If we want to be better analytical thinkers (the #1 skill of 2025), can we be texting and answering an email at the same time? Absolutely not.

If we want to actively learn, can we be chatting on the phone or reading an article at the same time? Not a chance.

If we want to solve complex problems… you get the point.

Call me an idealist, but I believe we all have the skills to be analytical thinkers, actively learn, and solve complex problems. What many of us lack isn’t the time or the ability to exemplify these skills; it is the focus and the ability to monotask and develop the muscle.

Questions to ponder: