You don’t have to attend many roundtables, or scroll very far on Linkedin, before encountering the question: which skills do we need for an AI-enabled future? This paper finds that essential skills - the highly transferrable skills defined by the Universal Framework - are a core part of the skillset required.
We do not seek to make predictions about the trajectory of AI and its impact on jobs. Instead, this paper focuses on what is happening right now and locates that within the existing literature.
This research finds higher levels of essential skills are crucial for individuals and the economy to successfully navigate the AI transition: driving AI adoption, boosting productivity and wages, and mitigating negative impacts on social mobility. Failure to invest in these skills risks exacerbating inequalities.
UK workers value opportunities to build essential skills almost as much as pay, and want to see their employers using the Universal Framework to inform staff development.
The job market is changing, and most workers are concerned about the future. Essential skills emerge as vital not just for society today, but to help us adapt to new technologies and ways of working.
For a government targeting inclusive productivity growth, the evidence is clear that essential skills are core to harnessing the AI revolution. As technology changes rapidly, the skills that underpin rapid learning and effective application of ever-evolving technical skills must form a core part of the skills landscape.
AI looks likely to continue to be contained within products and tools (as the adage goes, AI is whatever doesn’t work yet). So its use follows that of any other technical tool or skill: to be rapidly adopted and made fully effective, individuals require essential skills.
By the time children who are in primary school now enter the workforce, AI tools and products are likely to be unrecognisable from their current instantiation. So while just “teaching AI” might be an instinctive reaction to technological change, the research suggests that building learners’ essential skills should form a core part of a complete education. This way, learners will have the skills not only to adopt the AI of today, but also fully realise the benefits of the tools of tomorrow.
Workers are calling out for more high-quality opportunities to build essential skills. Three-quarters think their employers should use the Universal Framework as part of professional development and two-thirds think it should form part of performance appraisals.
In the workforce, anxiety and concern for the future are high. But not in individuals who have higher levels of essential skills. Creating opportunities for building these highly transferable skills is a way for employers to help workers embrace inevitable technological change.
This upskilling is likely to improve worker retention and attraction - particularly for higher skilled and higher paid employees. Opportunities to build essential skills are in the top three considerations for employees looking to move jobs.
As well as keeping workers happy, building essential skills is likely to have two waves of positive outcomes on productivity: firstly through the direct benefits of higher essential skill levels and secondly through effective adoption of AI.