Despite the war, Ukrainians continue to make plans for the future — primarily for what their children's lives will be like and what professions will provide stability in the coming years. Experts emphasize: the labor market is rapidly transforming and the coming decade will be a period of rethinking many specialties, but the need for human competence will not disappear.
It is obvious that military and medical specialties will remain in the spotlight due to the ongoing war. At the same time, experts predict that Ukraine will need IT specialists, engineers, agrarians, ecologists, architects, chemists, microbiologists, and builders. Global trends are also creating demand for new hybrid professions related to green energy, cybersecurity, telemedicine, or the ethics of artificial intelligence. The world is moving towards digitalization, and this inevitably requires new skills, but does not cancel the fundamental needs of the economy.
HR expert Tatyana Pashkina emphasizes that along with the professions of the future, there are those that she calls “eternal”. Doctors, teachers and engineers, according to her, can hardly be completely replaced by algorithms. AI can change the tools, but not the essence of work, which is based on empathy, responsibility or complex technical solutions. Teachers, for example, will work in a new format - remotely, with a greater emphasis on individual learning. And pharmacies may partially automate the sale of medicines, but control over the processes will still remain with people.
Pashkina predicts that the transformation will most affect the professions of the “golden mean” — lawyers, accountants, clerks and specialists who perform routine operations with documents or coding. Simple work will be profitable to automate, and therefore these areas will gradually narrow. Workers will have to either improve their qualifications or move to related industries.
The creative sphere is also on the verge of change. Pashkina notes that the profession of a creator is evolving - from a person who creates content to a specialist who manages AI tools. But at the same time, she believes that society is already tired of the excess of “ideal” AI images and is increasingly striving for authenticity. Therefore, a complete replacement of creative professions is unlikely to happen: tools will help, but people will again look for a living, real product.
Speaking about new opportunities, the expert draws attention to the global demographic trend. The Earth's population is aging, and this process affects Ukraine. Already now, the focus is on people aged 55+, who make up the so-called "silver economy". The demand for technologies for older people - from "grandma phones" to smart homes and geriatric care systems - is creating new professional niches. This means that the products and services of the future will be designed for different consumer behavior, different from today's.
At the opposite pole is the development of digitalization and the preservation of artisanal professions. Pashkina emphasizes that artificial intelligence is not yet capable of performing complex, intellectually or physically unique types of work that require manual skill or high precision. Therefore, certain niches of manual labor, especially in the high segment, will remain outside the automation zone for many years to come.
The main challenge for future generations will not be the choice of profession, but the willingness to learn regularly. The concept of lifelong learning, according to the expert, is turning from a fashionable term into an objective necessity. The labor market will require constant updating of skills, and changing professions several times in a lifetime will cease to be something strange. Professional "reincarnations" will become a regular part of the career trajectory: a person can start as an engineer, continue in the creative field, move to machine learning, and then master agricultural business - and this will not be perceived as chaos, but as adaptability.
An additional factor will be the increase in life expectancy. If people work longer in the future, they are unlikely to stay in one profession for 50–60 years. To avoid professional burnout, they will have to move between industries. That is why the profession of career counselor can also evolve and expand.
Pashkina concludes: most of the professions that children will work in today do not yet exist. And that is why it is important for parents not so much to point to a specific field, but to teach children to think flexibly, to be able to adapt and to be ready for new challenges. The world is changing rapidly - and the ability to learn throughout life will become the main competitive advantage of the future.
