Skills For Our Very Near Future
At the recent Central Lakes Trust Annual Public Meeting, Three Lakes Cultural Trust was asked to speak about the impact of creativity and culture on communities. During that presentation, at one point, we spoke about future skills for our rangatahi / youth in a world with technology and Ai.
We had multiple people ask if we could share our findings, so here it is —
Using Ai, we compared reports including: UNESCO - ‘The futures we build: Abilities and competencies for the future of education and work (2023)’, the World Economic Forum - ‘The Future of Jobs Report 2025’, and OECD - ‘Future of Education and Skills 2030 / 2040’.
These reports highlighted 8 key skills for the very near future - listed below. We then asked Ai if they agreed and the response was …
“The need for creativity is not new, but AI makes it more visible and urgent. We can’t (and shouldn’t) try to out-compute machines.
What we must do is double down on the things that make us human: imagination, storytelling, community, and cultural expression."
Perdicted Skills for 2030-2050
Creativity & Imagination: Generating new ideas, exploring alternatives, designing solutions to problems we don’t yet know exist.
Critical Thinking & Foresight: Seeing patterns, questioning assumptions, anticipating long-term consequences, and making ethical choices.
Adaptability & Resilience: Thriving in uncertainty, bouncing back from setbacks, and shifting skills across multiple careers.
Collaboration & Social Intelligence: Working across cultures, disciplines, and geographies; empathy, negotiation, leadership, teamwork.
Digital, Data & AI Literacy: Understanding and working with emerging technologies (AI, robotics, big data, cybersecurity) while keeping human judgement at the centre.
Systems & Interdisciplinary Thinking: Connecting the dots across science, art, culture, and technology to address global and local challenges.
Sustainability Mindset: Embedding environmental responsibility, social equity, and cultural respect into decision-making.
Moral & Ethical Reasoning: Balancing innovation with fairness, privacy, cultural identity, and long-term human wellbeing.
Do you agree?
