Longevity consultants and nano-technologists are set to become as familiar as shop keepers and accountants, as new technology and changing lifestyles conspire to transform the UK job market, new research claims.
City & Guilds, the vocational awarding body, has forecast which careers are set to emerge, thrive or significantly change over the next decade.
While postal workers and milkmen may find themselves out in the cold job wise, it will be boom time for personal dieticians, psychologists and plastic surgeons. Rising affluence, complex family arrangements and increased lifespan will create demand for many different types of workers who are paid to keep people looking good and feeling physically and mentally fit. Longevity consultants are predicted to emerge to help retired people make best use of their later years giving advice on health, financial planning and lifestyle pursuits.
The hottest jobs from 2010 onwards are likely to be among nano-technologists – scientists involved in building unimaginably tiny structures – and bioinformatics specialists who fuse technology and science to aid medical research.
The pressures of our busy lives will also prompt the invention of new jobs. Time consultants will be at hand to put our lives in order by booking holidays, organising household repairs and taking the car to the garage while global matchmakers will scour the world to find individuals their perfect date.
Not all the successful jobs will be new. Pilots will continue to fly high, according to the analysis, as the boom in international air-travel continues. Tax advisers will do well thanks to an increasingly complex tax regime while education tutors will be in stronger demand as growing numbers of parents decide to “top up” their children’s education.
Significantly less job security will be enjoyed by insurance brokers and estate agents whose roles are predicted to change beyond recognition thanks to the Internet.
In 2002 Easy Jet advertised in the national press for a new position as ‘Head of Fun’. Whilst people naturally smile at such a job, the underlying logic behind such roles is simple and compelling, aiming to boost the productivity of the workforce and reduce the costs of high staff turnover. City & Guilds predicts that fun workers will not be employed to turn the office into a party venue. Instead, they will be let loose to identify interesting ways of making all aspects of our working lives more enjoyable, whilst at the same time improving the bottom-line performance of the organisation.
Chris Humphries, Director General at City & Guilds, said: “We are living in an exciting era that is constantly evolving and bringing with it new career opportunities. Globalisation, technology and changes in consumer behaviour are the main influencers in this changing job market. Indeed 10 years ago, many people would not have known what a web page designer does.”
