WEF Future of Jobs and EASEC: Certifying the Skills the World Will Need by 2030
About this framework
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report is a biennial research publication that analyses how macrotrends — technological change, the green transition, economic shifts, demographic changes and geopolitical fragmentation — are reshaping the global labour market. Based on data from over 1,000 of the world's largest employers, it identifies the skills that will be most critical in the coming five years.
Why the Future of Jobs Report Matters
The Future of Jobs Report is the most widely cited global reference on workforce skills trends. Published by the World Economic Forum since 2016, it is used by governments, employers, educators and international organisations to inform skills policy, workforce planning and education strategy.
The 2025 edition — the most recent — surveyed more than 1,000 employers representing over 14 million workers across 22 industry clusters and 55 economies. Its headline finding: 39% of core skills required in the job market will change by 2030. This is a significant figure, though it represents a slight deceleration from the 44% projected in the 2023 edition, reflecting the impact of increased investment in upskilling and reskilling programmes.
The report projects that 170 million new jobs will be created globally and 92 million will be displaced by 2030, resulting in a net increase of 78 million jobs. This rebalancing is driven primarily by technological adoption (AI, robotics, automation), the green transition, and demographic shifts including ageing populations in higher-income economies and expanding working-age populations in lower-income ones.
For anyone working in competency certification, workforce development or education policy, the Future of Jobs Report provides the empirical foundation for the case that transversal competencies — the human skills that technology cannot fully replicate — are not a soft option but a strategic imperative.
The Top Skills for 2025–2030
The Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies two complementary skill rankings: the core skills employers consider most important today and the skills rising fastest in importance.
Core Skills
Most Important Today
Analytical thinking remains the top core skill for employers globally, identified as essential by seven out of ten companies surveyed. The full ranking reveals a notable balance between cognitive, interpersonal and self-management competencies:
- 01 Analytical thinking
- 02 Resilience, flexibility and agility
- 03 Leadership and social influence
- 04 Creative thinking
- 05 Motivation and self-awareness
- 06 Technological literacy
- 07 Empathy and active listening
- 08 Curiosity and lifelong learning
- 09 Talent management, mentoring and coaching
- 10 Service orientation and customer service
Skills Rising Fastest in Importance
Greatest net increase in demand 2025–2030
When measured by the greatest net increase in employer demand between 2025 and 2030, the ranking shifts to reflect the accelerating pace of technological change:
- 01 AI and big data
- 02 Networks and cybersecurity
- 03 Technological literacy
- 04 Creative thinking
- 05 Resilience, flexibility and agility
- 06 Curiosity and lifelong learning
- 07 Leadership and social influence
- 08 Talent management, mentoring and coaching
- 09 Analytical thinking
- 10 Environmental stewardship (new entrant to the top 10)
A critical observation for the skills ecosystem: of the 10 core skills employers identify as most important today, eight are transversal competencies — not technical skills. The WEF's data consistently shows that while technological skills are rising fastest, the human competencies that enable people to think critically, lead others, adapt to change and communicate effectively remain the foundation on which all other skills are built.
The WEF's Skills Framework
The Future of Jobs Report organises skills into five broad categories that span the spectrum from technical to interpersonal:
Technology Skills
TechnologyAI and big data, networks and cybersecurity, programming, technological literacy, design and user experience.
Cognitive Skills
CognitiveAnalytical thinking, creative thinking, systems thinking.
Self-Efficacy Skills
Self-EfficacyMotivation and self-awareness, curiosity and lifelong learning, resilience, flexibility and agility, dependability and attention to detail.
Management Skills
ManagementTalent management, mentoring and coaching, leadership and social influence, resource management and operations.
Working with Others
InterpersonalEmpathy and active listening, service orientation and customer service, teaching and mentoring.
This categorisation is not a formal classification in the way that ESCO or O*NET provide structured taxonomies. It is an analytical framework designed for comparative research and policy communication. Its value lies not in technical precision but in its ability to communicate to a global audience — including senior executives, policymakers and media — which skills matter and why.
The Skills Gap Challenge
The report identifies a significant gap between the skills employers need and the skills the current workforce possesses. Skill gaps are cited as the single biggest barrier to business transformation, identified by 63% of employers surveyed.
The response: 85% of employers plan to prioritise upskilling their workforce, 70% expect to hire staff with new skills, and 50% plan to transition employees from declining roles to growing ones. Simultaneously, 40% anticipate reducing staff whose skills become less relevant.
These figures reveal an urgent tension: organisations recognise the need for skills transformation but face the practical challenge of verifying which skills their people already have and which they still need. As the report notes, 59 out of every 100 workers will require training by 2030, yet employers expect that 11 out of every 100 will not receive it. Without reliable assessment mechanisms, this gap is likely to widen.
How EASEC Aligns with the WEF's Skills Priorities
EASEC's transversal competency certifications directly address the skills the WEF identifies as most critical for the 2025–2030 period, providing the verified assessment mechanism that the report's findings implicitly demand.
Direct Coverage of WEF Priority Skills
Of the 10 core skills the WEF identifies as most important for employers today, EASEC certifies competencies that correspond to eight:
| WEF Core Skill (2025) | EASEC Competency | EASEC Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Analytical thinking | Problem Solving, Strategic Thinking | EASEC-EC |
| Resilience, flexibility and agility | Resilience, Adaptability, Change Management | EASEC-EC |
| Leadership and social influence | Leadership, Influence and Impact | EASEC-EC |
| Creative thinking | Creativity and Innovation | EASEC-EC |
| Motivation and self-awareness | Achievement Orientation, Emotional Intelligence | EASEC-EC |
| Empathy and active listening | Effective Communication, Diversity and Inclusion | EASEC-EC |
| Curiosity and lifelong learning | Continuous Learning | EASEC-EC |
| Talent management and coaching | People Development, Team Management | EASEC-EC |
The two WEF skills not directly covered — Technological Literacy and Service Orientation — are domain-specific competencies that fall outside EASEC's focus on transversal skills, though EASEC's "Use of Digital Tools" and "Digital Citizenship" certifications address the transversal dimensions of digital competence.
Closing the Verification Gap
The WEF report documents the problem: employers cannot find the skills they need. EASEC addresses the mechanism that is missing from the report's analysis: how do you verify that someone actually has the transversal competencies they claim?
The WEF's finding that 63% of employers cite skill gaps as their top barrier reflects, in part, the absence of reliable verification tools for transversal competencies. Self-reported skills on CVs and LinkedIn profiles provide no assurance. Certificates of attendance from training programmes prove exposure, not competence.
EASEC's psychometric assessment instruments — using forced-choice and situational judgement test formats with 98% validated reliability — provide the objective, standardised assessment that converts the WEF's skills priorities from a wish list into verified, credentialed competence.
Each EASEC certification states not only which competency has been verified but at what proficiency level, referenced against the EQF and classified using ESCO vocabulary.
From Research to Credential
The WEF Future of Jobs Report tells organisations which skills will matter. EASEC provides the mechanism to verify whether individuals possess those skills, certify them to an international standard, and issue credentials that are digitally verifiable and interoperable across the European skills ecosystem and beyond.
This is the bridge between labour market intelligence and competency certification.
The WEF provides the evidence base for what needs to be measured; EASEC provides the instrument to measure it.
What This Means for You
For Employers
The WEF report gives you the business case for investing in transversal competencies. EASEC gives you the tool to act on it. When you certify your workforce using EASEC instruments aligned with the WEF's priority skills, you gain objective data on where your competency strengths and gaps lie — not based on self-assessment or manager perception, but on psychometric evidence. This transforms skills strategy from an intuition-based exercise to a data-driven one.
For Education Institutions
The WEF's findings provide powerful evidence for integrating transversal competency development into academic programmes. When your graduates carry EASEC certifications in the skills that the WEF identifies as most demanded by employers, you can demonstrate — with verified data — that your institution prepares students for the labour market of the future, not just the labour market of the past.
For Individuals
The Future of Jobs Report is your map of where the labour market is heading. An EASEC certification in the competencies the WEF identifies as most critical — analytical thinking, resilience, leadership, creativity, communication — is verified evidence that you possess what employers are actively seeking. It is a signal that cuts through the noise of unverified self-reported skills.
Frequently Asked Questions About the WEF Future of Jobs Report
Certify the Competencies That Matter Most
The World Economic Forum identifies the skills. EASEC verifies them. Explore how EASEC's psychometric assessments and internationally recognised certifications can help your organisation, institution or career align with the skills priorities shaping the global labour market.
Related Frameworks
Discover how EASEC aligns with other international standards: