Predictions suggest that 70% of the skills required for everyday jobs today will have changed by 2030, according to LinkedIn’s 2025 work change report.
In five years time, your job could look completely different, but are you prepared for the change or will you be left behind?
In this episode of The Big Question, Hannah Brown is joined by LinkedIn’s Managing Director for EMEA & LATAM, Josh Graff, to discuss the state of the European job market and the future of employment skills.
What does the European job market look like in 2025?
The data for January 2025 shows a 17% decrease year on year in hiring across Europe. This is connected to a downsizing for many businesses which came after a post-pandemic hiring surge.
During this time, career mobility reduced with many people fearing the ‘last in, first out’ approach to downsizing.
Despite that, statistics still suggest that those entering the workforce now will have twice as many jobs in their career as those who joined the workforce 15 years ago.
What’s really shaping the employment landscape of Europe is the change in skills demands as we look to the future.
“10% of the job titles that exist today did not exist in 2000,” Josh told Euronews, adding that there’s a huge demand for AI skills but very little supply.
How should Europeans prepare for the future of work?
Josh stressed the importance of reskilling and upskilling the workforce to prepare for the jobs of the future. In particular, it’s important for older generations to develop their capabilities as they are often working later in life and face reduced career mobility.
“Let's be clear here. You don't need to suddenly become a coder overnight. You just need to know how AI is embedded in your day to day,” he explained.
He cited a report he read last year which suggested that three quarters of executives would hire someone with AI skills over someone without, even if the someone without had significantly more experience.
He also discussed the importance of educational programmes to encourage young women to get into STEM subjects, as well as to encourage a more diverse workforce.
“There are double the number of women working in AI than there were in 2016,” Josh said.
“The bad news is that it's going to take 162 years until there is gender balance within artificial intelligence.”
Are senior roles accessible to everyone?
It’s not just us mere mortals whose skills are set to change, those at the top also need to adapt to survive.
“Historically, maybe you could rely on your chief technology officer or your chief product officer to have deep technical expertise,” Josh explained.
“Today, every executive needs to be a tech executive. You may not need to know how to code, but you certainly need to know how technology has the ability to influence your business, to influence your products, to drive productivity, to drive profitability, and in particular, within the space of artificial intelligence.”
Whilst Josh highlighted that there are still barriers preventing people from all backgrounds accessing certain roles, he was also optimistic about the future of access to opportunity.
“Historically it was very difficult to engage with a company or to reach an executive within an organisation. Today, you can log on to LinkedIn, you can find them and you can send them a message. And in most cases, they will respond to you in a very short period of time.”
“So there are tools that are helping, but we still have a major journey ahead of us.”
Josh also shared some tips to help get more attention on LinkedIn. They included:
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Having a profile picture - this can lead to 26 times more views.
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Writing an introduction on your profile.
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Listing all your skills.
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Participating in the conversation. This means following companies that you're interested in joining, as well as commenting and participating in debate.
Are you at a disadvantage as a remote worker?
The data from LinkedIn shows the ratio of applicants to roles for fully remote jobs are much higher than office or hybrid roles.
“Less than 5% of roles are fully remote, and they are attracting 15% of all applications,” Josh explained.
In this scenario, he stressed it’s even more important to be equipped with future-facing skills to help beat out the competition.
He also addressed the benefits of a hybrid work arrangement for those early in their career. These types of roles also tend to have a better supply and demand ratio.
“The opportunity to build their networks internally is really helpful. And actually I've seen for people that are fully remote, sometimes it can be a challenge to build their internal network earlier in their career.”
The Big Question is a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.
Watch the video above for the full conversation with LinkedIn’s Josh Graff.
