Is it too soon for a post 2025 post? Well, we think now is a pretty good time to start preparing your to-do list! 2025 sounds like the year of action, and if your resolution is to grow, then you’ll probably need to start by learning. But it’s pretty daunting out there, and lots of new tech is popping up every day. And that doesn’t include soft skill trends either! Wondering where to start?
If only you could get a sneak peek into the future and get a list of the top 10 skills for 2025…
Skills that wouldn’t go obsolete; in fact, their demand would only grow. Skills that could offer you a lucrative career with a relatively small learning curve.
If only…
Sadly no prizes for guessing correctly, but that’s exactly what you’re going to get from this blog! Get ready to add a few items on your New Year's resolutions because these are some skills you cannot ignore if growth is your goal for 2025:
1. Artificial Intelligence
AI has taken over marketing, content creation, videos, copywriting, pictures, mail, coding — almost everything! So, if you haven’t yet explored AI, you’re sleeping on career progression. It’s the first skill we recommend for a good reason! Start simple with productivity tools and picking up the most common AI tools that can simplify your professional journey. For instance, if you are a writer and ChatGPT feels like a threat, it’s time to do some learning about how to utilize its potential in research and brainstorming. For designers, Midjourney can cut a lot of planning time if they learn prompt engineering well. Skeptical about AI in general? Look at ethics and compliance skills for AI and help shape our future for the better.
And honestly, there’s a good chance that an AI tool already exists to make that job easier for you!
2. Data engineering
Artificial intelligence works because of data sets. It requires data to finetune its outputs and get more intelligent, efficient, and unbiased every day. Learning data engineering prepares you for the present and the future. We’re talking data collection, storage, and analytics. Data is a vast realm of skills you can get into today and reap the fruits of that labor pretty quickly. Data analytics, prediction, and engineering are likely to grow in prominence, and while many industries feel threatened by AI, this one is clearly not going anywhere. In fact, the more AI grows, the better.
3. AR & VR
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) — you've probably already heard these terms tossed around over the last ten years. One imposes virtual on real life (AR), and the other makes the virtual world as immersive of an experience as possible (VR). Think of apps that allow you to try clothes on or star-mapping software that lets you point a camera on to the night sky while your screen detects names of the celestial objects in real time. Those are both examples of augmented reality, imposing virtual information on real life.
Virtual reality is when you’re playing a game on your screen, and the headsets utilize an interface that makes it seem as though you are in the game. AR/VR has huge applications in the entertainment, healthcare, fashion, and beauty spaces. While it does require more than a basic knowledge of programming and some highly specialized interface and web development tools, there are near infinite applications for it, particularly in training.
4. UI/UX
Maybe you want to start by learning a new hard skill that doesn’t require existing intensive knowledge of programming languages and APIs. Most businesses today have at least a simple website or app, if nothing else. To ensure these apps and websites resonate with their consumers, they need to work on two very important things: user experience and user interface. That’s where UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) comes in.
Some things that are helpful to have already are consumer insight, designing skills, and some coding and development knowledge.
Skillcrush is your trusted learning platform for all things tech, from web development to design. Check it out!
5. Teamwork
This one’s never going out of fashion. Skills for 2025 or skills for 2050: as long as people have to work together to make something happen, recruiters are going to look for performers who can perform well in a group setting. No matter how suited someone is for a job, if they aren’t easy to work with or don’t collaborate well, they’ll have a hard time advancing in their careers. Additionally, we face new challenges every year, like hybrid and remote workers. As of 2024, almost 22 million Americans in the workforce are working remotely and more are expected to go off-site. Collaborations and inter-departmental functions are actively undergoing changes to make work more efficient, productive, and supportive. To make this happen, we will need people who can communicate seamlessly regardless of the barriers of location, language, and work function.
6. Critical thinking and problem solving
One fairly significant disadvantage of fast technological advancement is that so much can change in the blink of an eye. Business models, products that have had to go digital, governments struggling to legislate and formulate new policies — all of it on extremely short notice. To succeed in your career at such times, you need to be a quick thinker, and a dynamic one at that! Someone who can look at a problem objectively and subjectively too to assess what it means for the business. Someone who is focused not only on the problem, but on the solution. Critical thinking will gain more ground in the future as we face problems the business world has never even imagined, each one of them costing billions.
7. Leadership
Leaders have existed as long as humans have. There should always be someone entrusted to lead the pack; but leadership today looks very different than it did even ten years ago. 31% of employees surveyed are not happy with their bosses, feeling like they are reporting to toxic leaders in their current jobs. Clearly, traditional leadership is due for an upgrade! Employees today want a leader who can promote diversity and equality, who can support their on-site as well as remote employees, and who encourages work quality as well as work-life balance. Healthy leadership is not about being the boss; it is about being the go-to for everyone in your crew.
At PowerUp, we are committed to building the leaders of today and tomorrow for modern workplaces where talent and growth flourish.
8. Change management
Understatement of the decade, but the last five years have been a little crazy. We’ve undergone years of pandemic and the effects afterwards, including economic downfall. Geopolitical tensions are building up around the globe and mass layoffs further set the business world back. In the background, AI and remote work is changing the way the world works while transforming work life.
How well can your business keep up with all the new upgrades? You’ll want to learn how to scale up while also minimizing impact from external stressors. Change is never going to be predictable, but anticipating change on all foreseeable fronts is key to business stability. We cannot avoid change but we can use it for good. With the right strategies, disruption can also become an opportunity to get ahead. As a result, businesses are investing more and more on change management, making it a great skill to have in your toolbox.
9. Communication
Delegation, supervision, team management, client relationships, brand messaging — it all requires great communication. The tricky part is that everybody has their own communication style. Take this quick quiz and figure out the varied ways you and the people around you communicate.
The more we learn how to communicate, the easier it gets to handle teams, progress in our careers faster, and become an overall aspirational leader. After all, a leader who fails to communicate isn’t really a great leader.
10. Willingness to learn
Last but certainly not least! Tech changed pretty fast in 2024, and as you can see, four of our top 10 skills for 2025 on our list are tech-related. So, you can further anticipate that technology will continue to change and evolve, in 2025 too, and with its evolution, the skillset evolves too. So, perhaps, the biggest skill you can pick up on is lifelong learning.
How to pick your skills for 2025
Don’t be intimidated, even if this list sounds like a gigantic task — spending a whole life as a student committed to growth and upskilling can sound daunting. Where does one even take the first step? Right here!
PowerToFly is here to help you with all your upgrading needs! Check out PowerUpto join a community of mentors, learners, and ambitious professionals looking to upskill, network, and grow together, or Skillcrush, which allows us to also offer you tech upskilling options.
Still feeling unsure about where to start? Start by understanding the skills you already have and identify the skills you need for your career. Click here to do your personal skills audit and get your answers now.
