According to the new 2020 Future of Jobs report by the World Economic Forum, there will be an increasing demand for skills related to Innovation and Creativity between now and 2025.
Of the Top 5 skills listed there as having a growing importance and demand for the future, creativity and innovation are related to four out of the top 5.
Listed in the image above are the Top 15 Skills needed by companies by 2025, with the ones related to creativity and innovation highlighted by my beautiful red squiggly stars.
It is immediately obvious how important innovation and creativity are as part of that list.
These highly sought after skills include:
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Complex problem-solving
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Creativity, originality and initiative
This continues the trend we saw in previous Future of Jobs surveys, which listed creativity as as the third most important skill needed by companies by 2020.
Another interesting insight from this year’s report is what types of skills are becoming more or less important for the future. As outlined in the other interesting figure from the report below, the skills of Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving show the most rapid increase in importance over the next five years.

The ability to innovate and solve problems will become significantly more important
Again, these types of skills are closely related to the ability to think creatively and come up with new solutions to problems.
The survey was conducted with the World Economic Forum, with responses from 291 of the largest companies across the world, directly representing more than 7.7 million employees worldwide.
How do you think these skills will affect the future of work?
Let me know in the comments, and share this article if you also think creative and innovation skills will be important in the future.
Nick Skillicorn
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