The World of Work is Changing. Fast.

Chapter 2

Your child might be applying for a job that doesn’t exist yet.

There was a time when a job was for life. You’d get your O-Levels, find something local, learn on the job, stay for decades, collect a clock at retirement, and that was that.

Fast forward to now — and we’re living in a time where AI can write poetry, robots deliver your takeaway, and deepfakes can pass job interviews (yes, really). The world of work is shifting so quickly, even adults are struggling to keep up — so where does that leave our children?

Spoiler: not very prepared, unless we start now.

💡 The Jobs of Tomorrow Haven’t Been Invented Yet

Let’s begin with a stat that should stop us in our tracks:

85% of the jobs that today’s learners will be doing in 2030 haven’t been invented yet.

— Institute for the Future & Dell Technologies, 2017

Yes, it sounds dramatic — but it’s true. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and robotics are reshaping industries at a blistering pace. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), machines and algorithms will soon perform more tasks at work than humans — a massive shift has been seen in just the last 12 months.

In fact, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2030, up to 375 million workers (14% of the global workforce) may need to switch occupational categories entirely due to automation.

The point? The idea of training for one “career” is fast becoming outdated.

🔄 Skills > Jobs

Here’s the big shift: future employability won’t be about training for a specific job — it’ll be about developing flexible, tech-enabled skillsets.

The WEF lists the following as top skills for the near future:

Analytical thinking and innovation
Technology use, monitoring, and control
Complex problem solving
Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility
Leadership and social influence
Emotional intelligence

Notice something? These aren’t just “computer science” skills. They’re a blend of digital literacy and human fluency. But here’s the challenge: if children don’t start building digital confidence and critical thinking early, they’ll enter secondary school already behind — and universities or employers won’t be able to plug the gap fast enough.

📱 Every Industry Is Becoming Tech-Enabled

We often fall into the trap of thinking “digital skills” = “tech jobs.” But the reality is, all jobs are becoming tech jobs.

Think about:

Nurses using AI diagnostic tools
Teachers creating digital learning content
Farmers programming autonomous tractors
Musicians using software to create AI-generated compositions
Retail managers analysing customer data to predict trends

In other words, digital skills are now basic career requirements — not an elite niche.

And yet, the UK House of Lords Digital Skills Committee recently warned that the UK is facing a digital skills crisis, with too few young people gaining the knowledge and confidence to thrive in a tech-led economy.

🧒 So, What Does This Mean for Our Children?

It means the old model of “teach them the basics, and they’ll figure the rest out later” just doesn’t hold up anymore.

We can’t afford to wait until children choose a GCSE subject or start a university degree to introduce them to digital tools, creative technology, or systems thinking. By then, their most formative learning years have passed. And worse still — they may already have internalised the message that tech “isn’t for them.”

Instead, we need to:

Start early — as early as Key Stage 1
Prioritise problem-solving, logic, and creativity alongside core literacy and numeracy
Introduce children to coding, data thinking, and digital storytelling as fun, expressive tools
Build confidence, not just competence, with digital platforms and tools

📣 It’s Not About Jobs. It’s About Readiness.

We’re not training 7-year-olds to become software engineers. We’re preparing them to enter a world that will demand adaptability, curiosity, and digital confidence in ways we can’t even fully predict.

If we don’t, they won’t just be unprepared — they’ll be overwhelmed.

Because while it’s easy to laugh at the idea of “digital employability for primary school kids,” the real joke is assuming they’ll somehow pick it all up later — when everything tells us that later will be too late.

🧠 Take-Home Message

The future world of work is already here — and it’s moving faster than our education system. To prepare children for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet, we need to start teaching them the digital skills, mindsets, and flexibility they’ll need now — not when they’re 16, not at university, but today.