The Jobs of Tomorrow

Recent college grads are still entering a shaky job market even as the economy continues to recover. And though there's always been parental encouragement behind degree and job selection, that may be even stronger now that the selection of jobs is even more limited.

But what parents may not consider is that the world is changing—fast. Sure, the highest paying jobs right now are still positions in finance, engineering, and law, but a new wave of fast-growing positions will take over and evolve into the high-paying jobs of tomorrow.

Yahoo! Education analyzed the fastest-growing jobs between 2010 and 2020 according to data from the Department of Labor.

The top seven jobs are as follows: auditor or accountant, medical assistant, social worker, human resources specialist, health services manager, public relations specialist, and paralegal.

But in the ten years to 2030, the job market is likely to evolve again, accounting for changes in lifestyle that we're already seeing today. That's not to say these fast-growing jobs are going to disappear; they'll more likely form the starting point for the jobs of the future.

Futurologists from the U.K. has studied the changes in society, technology, and lifestyle to create a guess of what popular jobs might be in the future. They accounted for the changing medical industry, a growing robotic presence in the workplace, and the increasing global population.

Futurologist Ian Pearson, for example, believes augmented reality will become a part of everyday life. He told the Telegraph:

“When you look at a building it's constrained by planning laws, but in cyberspace you can make it look however you want.”

“A company with a high street presence could make their shop look like Downton Abbey, or set it in a post-nuclear apocalypse environment.”

So let's add programmer to that list of growing jobs. We're already seeing growth in this industry with the evolving technology sphere and burgeoning social media.

Taking a look at the growing careers of this decade and the futurologist predictions for the decade following, we can see what jobs might be important in the years to come.

Medical careers will, undoubtedly, continue to grow. Life expectancy is growing and, with current medical advancements, will continue to grow, and as today's research becomes tomorrow's medical treatments, we can hope that diseases like cancer and Alzheimers will no longer be a death sentence.

But that means cancer specialists and Alzheimers specialists will be even more important for tracking treatment and monitoring recovered patients. Medical assistants may evolve into elderly care assistants so the elderly can receive treatment or nursing care at home.

As robots start to become ubiquitous in the workforce, Pearson points out, people with “human skills” will be more necessary as well. This will up the importance of social workers, public relations specialists, and human resources specialists.

Human resources positions may evolve in a computer-based workforce to create the barrier between human employees and robotic systems. They will be a source of understanding for workplace dilemmas and a mediator for confusion that might arise from computerized systems.

But a number of positions that are not popular or nonexistent today may also arise for tomorrow. Bioengineers, for example, could be in charge of anything from organ and body part growth to—Huxley forbid—child design.

And as we continue to explore the final frontier, particularly Mars and its potential for sustaining human life, there could even be room for a Martian realtor.

The Telegraph lists other future jobs mentioned by futurologists—including climate controllers, haptic programmers (to work with touch and physical feeling), and avatar manager (for holographic people)—that seem to be a little further away than two decades.

But the Google Glass was just launched, providing a technology that until now was only associated with futuristic spies. So no one can really predict how quickly our technology will evolve.