How to Prepare for AI’s Impact on Your Job by 2030

TL;DR – What You Need to Know in 30 Seconds

1. AI job impact—could reduce staff: A whopping 41% of employers say they’ll cut jobs due to AI by 2030 (World Economic Forum, 2025).
2. Growth in other roles: Despite job losses, net growth of 78 million new jobs is predicted over the next five years (World Economic Forum, 2025).
3. Skills are vital: AI, big data, networks, cybersecurity, and tech literacy lead the pack, along with creativity and resilience.
4. Health benefits matter: Employers see better health and well-being perks as key to recruiting top talent.

AI and the Impact on Future Jobs: Will You Still Have One By 2030?

Brace yourselves, everyone—artificial intelligence (AI) is about to make your workplace look very different in the next few years. If you’ve got a job that involves a lot of repetitive or knowledge-based tasks, you might be feeling a bit nervous right about now, and honestly, who could blame you? The World Economic Forum (WEF) has just released its bi-annual survey on what employers around the world expect from their workforces as technology—especially AI—becomes an even bigger part of our day-to-day operations. And according to this new report, about 41% of employers say they’re planning to reduce their number of staff by 2030 thanks to AI taking over certain tasks (World Economic Forum, 2025).

Before you start pulling your hair out or wondering whether to live off the grid, here’s the good news: Most employers, to the tune of 77%, say they plan to train existing staff to work with AI. So, even though job automation is on the rise, it seems there’s still a place for humans—assuming we’re willing to adapt. Let’s take a closer look at what these projections mean for everyone, from the soon-to-be job hunters among us to the skilled veterans whose roles might soon be redefined.

The Big Picture: 2030 and Beyond

According to the WEF, the new survey includes 1,000 employers from across the globe, collectively overseeing more than 14 million workers in 22 different industries (World Economic Forum, 2025). It’s a big sample size, which makes it even more compelling (and slightly nerve-wracking) that 41% are anticipating fewer employees on payroll by 2030.

But let’s not lose sight of the broader context. Although some jobs will be lost, new ones are expected to emerge. The WEF predicts net growth in the total number of jobs over the next five years, in part due to new types of work that AI makes possible (World Economic Forum, 2025). Sure, we might see fewer legal secretaries, for instance, but there could be more cybersecurity experts or data analysts to fill that gap.

In fact, “AI and big data top the list of fastest-growing skills, followed closely by networks and cybersecurity as well as technology literacy,” according to the report (World Economic Forum, 2025). This makes sense: The more tech we rely on, the greater our need for people who can keep everything running smoothly—and securely.

Rude Awakening For Graphic Designers and Legal Secretaries

If you happen to be a graphic designer or a legal secretary, I’ll admit the WEF’s findings may not be what you wanted to hear. “The presence of both Graphic Designers and Legal Secretaries just outside the top 10 fastest-declining job roles… may illustrate GenAI’s increasing capacity to perform knowledge work,” the report says (World Economic Forum, 2025).

Why those two roles? Well, generative AI can already create fairly complex images from just a bit of text. And while it might still be a bit of a plagiarisation machine right now, it’s improving rapidly. Meanwhile, legal secretaries deal with a lot of document preparation and standardised tasks, which AI can handle quite efficiently.

Even more interesting is the fact that in the previous edition of the WEF’s Future of Jobs Report, graphic designers weren’t facing such a grim future. They were actually considered to have moderate growth potential. But the new data shows how quickly AI’s creative and administrative capabilities are encroaching on those roles (World Economic Forum, 2025).

Skills, Skills, Skills (Did We Mention Skills?)

One major theme emerges loud and clear: skills matter. The report emphasises that if you want to weather the AI storm, you’ll need to stay on top of emerging technology. And it’s not just about coding or data analytics, even though those skills are certainly in demand. Creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility, curiosity, and lifelong learning are also key—and are expected to keep rising in importance through 2025-2030 (World Economic Forum, 2025).

Think of it this way: If AI handles all the grunt work, it frees you up to do the creative, problem-solving parts of your job. But employers believe that a lot of current workers lack the needed technical and cognitive skills to stay relevant in a more AI-driven world. That’s why 77% of them say they’ll invest in training existing staff to bridge this gap (World Economic Forum, 2025). So if there’s ever been a time to become best mates with a self-paced online course or a coding bootcamp, it’s now.

Health and Well-Being: The New Hiring Perk?

The survey also points out that employers plan to lean more on health and well-being benefits to attract and retain staff (World Economic Forum, 2025). If you’re in the UK, you might be rolling your eyes—it’s not exactly a secret that good healthcare is a priority in many countries. But for those in places like the U.S., where health insurance is often tied to employment, that emphasis could be a big factor in job decisions. It might even be the deciding factor for candidates choosing between two similarly paid positions.

Now, “health and well-being” can be a somewhat nebulous concept. Does it mean better mental health support, flexible schedules, or better parental leave? Probably a bit of all of the above. But it is clear that as workplaces become more competitive and technology gets more advanced, companies have to stand out in new ways. Offering good health benefits is one way to do that.

Good News: More Jobs, In Theory

Yes, the robots might be coming for some of our jobs. But the WEF report estimates a net growth in jobs over the next five years, with around 170 million new roles emerging (about 14% of current employment), balanced by the displacement of around 92 million jobs (8% of current employment) (World Economic Forum, 2025). That should work out to a net increase of roughly 78 million jobs.

Of course, these numbers don’t tell us everything. Just because jobs will exist doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be in your city, your field, or come with a living wage. But the WEF does seem optimistic that overall, humans will still have plenty to do—especially because tech might make us more efficient at work. “In other words, both machines and humans might be significantly more productive in 2030… so any concern about humans ‘running out of things to do’ due to automation would be misplaced,” the report notes (World Economic Forum, 2025).

Babysitting the Machine

While AI might soon be good enough to crank out legal documents or design your next logo, it’s not exactly a flawless system. It can hallucinate information, make daft mistakes, and be prone to biases if the data it’s been trained on is dodgy. If you’ve played around with any generative AI, you’ll know it often needs a human eye to catch errors. So while some jobs might disappear, new ones will pop up to oversee AI’s output, ensure accuracy, and keep the algorithms in check.

That may not be much comfort if you’re a graphic designer worrying about job security. But we can hope that new AI-centric roles (think “AI prompt engineers” or “AI design curators”) may open up, even if it requires retraining and a fresh mindset.

So, the crystal ball says that while AI might make our jobs easier in some ways, it could also send some roles packing. The companies that stay ahead of the curve will be the ones that invest in training, foster a culture of innovation, and offer decent health and well-being packages. The employees who thrive will be those who adapt, learn continuously, and aren’t afraid to pivot. The real question is: Are you ready to evolve, or will you let the robots leave you behind?

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You may also like:

• Davos Decodes AI Regulation: A Balancing Act Between Innovation and Ethics
• Bridging the AI Skills Gap: Why Employers Must Step Up
• Or read the World Economic Forum, 2025, Future of Jobs Survey & Report by tapping here.