Rising skills
Which AI skills should you learn for work?
Last checked 23 September 2026
The AI skills that matter at work are mostly not technical. Across government and industry guidance the same eight recur: AI literacy, prompting, checking outputs, designing a workflow, data literacy, privacy and responsible use, critical thinking and adaptability. The 20 pages below cover the human and AI skills our instrument measures, and how to build each one.
- Rising skill #1
Analytical thinking
Breaking messy problems into parts, weighing evidence, and reaching a defensible conclusion.
- Rising skill #2
Resilience, flexibility and agility
Staying effective while the tools, the process and the goalposts keep moving.
- Rising skill #3
Leadership and social influence
Moving a group towards an outcome without relying on formal authority.
- Rising skill #4
Creative thinking
Producing options that were not already in the room, and knowing which are worth pursuing.
- Rising skill #5
Motivation and self-awareness
Knowing where your judgement is reliable, where it is not, and acting on that honestly.
- Rising skill #6
Technological literacy
Being fluent enough with tools to evaluate them, not just operate them.
- Rising skill #7
AI literacy
Understanding what models can do, where they fail, and how to supervise them.
- Rising skill #8
Curiosity and lifelong learning
Actively seeking out what you do not know before it becomes a problem.
- Rising skill #9
Empathy and active listening
Understanding what someone actually needs, including what they have not said.
- Rising skill #10
Systems thinking
Seeing second-order effects and how parts of a process interact.
- Rising skill #11
Talent management
Finding, growing and keeping people whose capabilities are shifting.
- Rising skill #12
Service orientation
Anticipating what a customer needs and taking responsibility for the outcome.
- Rising skill #13
Dependability and attention to detail
Consistent, careful work that others can build on without re-checking.
- Rising skill #14
Quality control
Defining what good looks like and verifying that output meets it.
- Rising skill #15
Networks and cybersecurity
Protecting systems and data as attack surfaces multiply.
- Rising skill #16
Design and user experience
Shaping how people actually experience a product or service.
- Rising skill #17
Environmental stewardship
Building and operating with resource and emissions consequences in view.
- Rising skill #18
Teaching and mentoring
Transferring capability to other people so it sticks.
- Rising skill #19
Programming
Instructing machines precisely, and reading what they produce.
- Rising skill #20
Resource management and operations
Allocating time, money and people against shifting constraints.
- Rising skill · not in the WEF list
Ethics and integrity
Acting fairly, sincerely and modestly in how you deal with people and information: telling the truth when it costs you, giving credit, not overstating what you know, and treating AI output with the same honesty you expect of yourself.
- Rising skill · not in the WEF list
Collaboration and teamwork
Working with other people to get something done that none of you could do alone: sharing what you know, asking for help early, handing work over cleanly and keeping the group moving when it disagrees.
Which of these are already yours?
Reading a list tells you what the market wants. The AI Adaptation Profile tells you where you sit; with a confidence band, not a confident-sounding number.
Take the AI Adaptation ProfileQuestions
ApplyAI's free profile measures 13 of the 22 skills in this library. Each skill page says whether it is measured.
Build the skills that gain value as AI spreads: analytical thinking, AI literacy, resilience and quality control. Measure where you start, then pick one free course for your widest gap.
The WEF Future of Jobs 2025 core skills list is led by analytical thinking; resilience, flexibility and agility; and leadership and social influence. AI literacy ranks seventh.