What skills are needed in the age of the AI-powered economy? According to a new report by freelance platform Upwork, there’s a strong dual need for deep technical skills with specific AI applications, as well as those “learning-how-to-learn” skills like coaching and developing.
Upwork’s analysis of work on the platform showcases how employers and businesses are turning to freelance workers to fill urgent skills gaps inside their organizations.
“What’s happening is the majority of workers today [do] not have future-proof skill sets as we start to look three to five years out,” said Kelly Monahan, managing director of Upwork's Research Institute.
As generative AI matures and organizations rapidly adopt and develop applications for the technology, specialization in the technical skills space will be critical, Monahan said. Companies are looking for skills that address specific needs along the AI tech’s entire lifecycle.
Monahan also pointed to significant growth on the freelance platform in personal coaching, career coaching, and training and development. More SMBs are looking to freelancers and fractional executives to support L&D and training. Professionals are seeking freelancers to help themselves upskill and develop amid technological changes.
“The workforce needs to build resiliency. They need to learn how to upskill,” she said.
Deep well. The deployment of generative AI tools across enterprise software has driven a rise in the need for skills related to AI modeling and data annotation amid “the full lifecycle of AI solutions,” according to Upwork.
More generalist skill sets were helpful to cultivate further professional opportunities in the pre-AI era of work, but today businesses need specialists with deep expertise in specific work related to the tech, such as data extraction or data quality analysis.
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“What we’re seeing this year is specialized AI skills begin to actually matter much more than when we first [saw] generative AI,” Monahan said. “You’re really beginning to see the data extraction, the data mining, the data quality skill sets…the data annotation and labeling that are required to make these generative AI models work.”
But Monahan also pointed out that the need for AI skills and content creation are still growing in non-technical roles—skills like prompt engineering and infusing AI technology into workflows continue to dominate.
Relearning learning. Workers need to learn and develop in a rapidly changing world of work. Unlike large corporations, many mid-sized companies lack full-scale L&D teams or budgets to nimbly build out learning programs and train workers to keep up.
“Personal coaching, career coaching, training and development [are] coming [up] as the hottest growing skills on our platform,” Monahan said. “Business leaders are starting to wake up and realize they’re not going to capture the value of AI in particular, if their workforce can’t keep up. And people are struggling today.”
What the data revealed, according to Monahan, is an increased reliance on freelance trainers and L&D pros on the platform sharing their specialized skills and offering training to others.
Upwork found that 48% of CEOs reportedly plan to boost freelance hiring in the coming year, leveraging their specific skills and talents to close gaps and compete with speed.
“We continue to see the freelancer market ahead when it comes to technical skill sets and with a lot more experience,” she said.