Here are top six skills to drive employment in 2024

The journey to the year 2024 is barely 29 days ahead, and many will no doubt propose to hit it big employment –wise in the coming days.

To succeed in the digital world as it is today, certain skills are inevitably needed as businesses are moving toward skills-based recruitment and workforce development, driven by a need to unlock the transformative potential of new technologies.

This certainly raises concerns for jobseekers looking to ensure success in 2024, what skills they should be developing.

Tech experts believe that the skills that will be most in demand in the future are those involved enabling organisations to unlock their huge potential of frontier technology and tools.

The needed skills are either technology skills, or soft skills.

Here are the top six skills that will drive employment in 2024, and probably far beyond.

Generative AI

The advent of generative AIs like ChatGPT has been described as an “iPhone moment” for AI. Almost overnight, just about anyone can use it to create, automate and save time across their professional and everyday lives.

However, qualities and abilities are needed to spot opportunities, develop efficient solutions, manage change, and address ethical implications. These will be among the most valuable and in-demand skills throughout 2024.

Sustainability Skills

Companies and businesses are recognising the crucial need of ensuring they are operating in a way that is sustainable and causes minimum impact on the environment.

Read also: Global skills demand seen boosting informal jobs in Nigeria

Net zero targets are increasingly seen as strategic business priorities, and a commitment to sustainability is often required by smaller businesses looking to partner or work with enterprises and government bodies.

This means that skills around identifying and implementing green solutions are highly prized.

Project Management

Whether you are managing humans or machines, there is a growing need for individuals with the skills to pull together people, technology and problem-solving skills.

Taking high-level oversight, setting strategic objectives and prioritising work and resources is still beyond the capabilities of business AI tools. Those working in these roles, though, have unprecedented opportunities to harness AI to assist in everything from prototyping to research, scheduling, testing and compliance.

Communication Skills

Effective communication is a crucial element of the business skill set. Now more than ever, there’s a need for those who can identify messaging opportunities and bridge communication gaps across organisations.

There will be more roles for those able to interpret insights of data analytics and communicate them in human language to whoever needs to take action.

And as communicating with machines in natural language becomes the norm, organisations need people with the ability to talk to them in the way that gets the best results.

Clinical Healthcare Skills

The world faces a shortage of healthcare professionals, and many tasks on the frontline of healthcare are a long way off being fully computerised.

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals are increasingly able to augment their skills with AI tools. But human qualities like emotional intelligence and empathy will always be critical to their roles.

In developed economies such as the UK, USA, Canada and Germany, among others, healthcare jobs are often relatively well-paid, reflecting the specialist skills, qualities and experience needed to do the job well.

Working in this field has always been seen as a way for hard-working individuals from any background to build a stable career with security and prospects, and experts believe this will still be true in 2024.

Data Skills

The AI revolution is built on data, and understanding how to transform it into value and this is unarguably becoming increasingly important to contemporary business success.

To be ethical and trustworthy for important tasks like improving healthcare and furthering scientific research, AI also needs to be transparent and explainable.

Data science skills are essential here to help us ensure machines use data we can trust to make decisions we can understand.