Best Jobs of the Future: 2020 to 2050

The job market is constantly changing and the changes are coming faster and faster. Today it is very different from your grandparents’ generation. The jobs your grandparents held might not be in demand now.

What does this mean for 2020, or even 2050? We know the job market will change even faster as technology advances increases. Some jobs in high demand for future generations don't even exist today. But we can predict which career paths will be in demand 20-50 years from now. Present day labor statistics and industry trends help form these predictions.

What are the best careers for the future? The jobs predicted to have solid growth and good pay in the future are:

• Business Analyst
• Software Developer
• Marketing
• Information Security
• Physical Therapist
• Sales

The future is uncertain but we can make solid predictions with today's information. Some of the list came from sectors that are growing quickly today. Other jobs come from predictions based on upcoming technology.

We can find the jobs that are growing today with help from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They predict the number of new jobs created in a field over the next 10 years. These are great career paths for the future. Jobs in the health care field have huge growth predicted soon. This earned them a place on the Best Careers for the Future list.

Further in the future, other jobs will be in demand as technology changes industries. These jobs aren't necessarily getting a big boost yet, while the technology is still young, so they're not remarkable in BLS's growth statistics and more difficult to predict. But we can look at upcoming technologies to see what jobs will be important in 10-30 years.

Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are two technologies that are going to change industries. These will form the jobs in demand in the future.

Robotics taking a bigger role in industry will mean certain jobs going away. Manual and dangerous tasks will be replaced by robots. Manual laborers will become more skilled to stay valuable.

Artificial intelligence will remove the need for many repetitive tasks. Workers will have access to more tools and data than ever before. The career paths that thrive will be those that use data like analysts and developers.

In the next 10-20 years businesses will have more access to data and automation. Parts of the jobs of people like accountants and admins will become obsolete. Workers using data to draw connections and improve processes will be in demand.

Business Analyst

Analyzing industry trends and watching the competition will be important. Business analysts will spend more time drawing conclusions and presenting them to management than making reports. Soft skills will be as important as ever to succeed.

Even without a background in analysis you can pivot into a business analyst career by taking a respected online course in business analytics.

Combine that specialization with your experience in an industry and you can work your way into more lucrative positions.

Technology will make producing products more cost-efficient than ever. To stand out, businesses will invest more in marketing and sales.

Here are a couple of marketing careers that will be at the top of the list in 20-50 years:

Marketing Analyst

Marketing Analysts will have more information available to them to make decisions. Now, analysts spend a lot of time gathering and processing data.

In the near future, a marketing analyst will be working software that does the processing for them. It finds patterns on its own. The important part of the analyst's job will shift away from finding patterns to drawing meaningful conclusions from those patterns. This is a trend you'll see in many of these roles.

Salesperson

Getting customers to buy your product will be more important than ever as technology progresses.

Workers in sales can expect to have smarter tools and more data on potential customers. But commission-based compensation isn't going anywhere. In the future, sales will still be a high pressure job that pays well when you bring in business.

Tech has seen a huge surge in the last 20 years and it will continue to grow. But the in-demand sectors will be more refined.

Soft skills and high-level thinking will be the gaps every business is trying to fill. See any of these you're interested in? Learn how to prepare for a technical interview so you're ready for your next position.

Software Developer

You knew software engineers or developers would be on the list! But soon it won't be enough to know how to code. Machine learning will replace the grunt work of entry-level programmers. Software engineers will need to add machine learning to their skill set to stay relevant.

A desirable software engineer will have high level skills like data structures and an understanding of AI. Developers will spend more of their time integrating with other services and less of their time on specific code.

Self-taught coders will become a bigger part of the workforce.

Information Security

The future comes with more data and more ways to exploit it. Businesses will need employees to provide sophisticated protection.

Workers in the IT security field will be in high demand to provide this protection. The nature of the work isn't likely to change much. But staying relevant in cyber security will be more and more difficult as new threats are developed.

As humans live longer, the medical field will continue to boom. The aging baby boomer generation will need more care and medicine.

Physical Therapists

It's not just doctors and nurses with promising careers. Physical therapists were on the top of the list of jobs expected to outpace the market by 2050.

Assistants and aides for therapist is also a promising market. Most assistant positions can be secured with a 4 year degree and training on the job.

Most of the work done by these positions will be similar to what is it today. Therapists and their assistants provide hands-on patient care that can't be replaced by a machine.

Healthcare Administrator

Hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics all need facility managers and administration. These workers will handle logistics, insurance and planning for a whole facility or just a department.

Why would you want to be a healthcare administrator? This position pays very well for relatively little education (Bachelor's). It can be a good avenue to help people even if you don't like the idea of becoming a doctor or nurse. Another benefit is that this these roles can be found anywhere in the country.

What will be the highest paying jobs in the future? We can't be sure

But of the careers that are expected to grow in the future Sales Director and Software Developer will have the highest salaries.

1. Occupational Outlook Handbook - https://www.bls.gov/ooh/