The Development of Competencies 2030

Explore the top skills for 2030. Collaboration, intentional learning, and leadership are crucial for career growth. Discover how companies are adapting to rapid skill obsolescence.

The Evolution of Skills 2030

Which skills should employees particularly often learn or expand in further training? According to the evaluation of a further training provider, training in "Intentional Learning", i.e. the ability to learn itself, has experienced an enormous increase in the past three years. But another topic is at the top of the most sought-after further training courses.

Hardly any skill has gained as much importance in recent years as the ability to learn itself – this was the result of the study "The Evolution of Skills 2030" by the further training provider Lepaya. The report combines the findings of over 100 leading European HR professionals with the data analysis of Lepaya's industry partners from the past three years. A few clear trends can be identified in it.

Collaboration and Leadership remain the most trained skills

In all three evaluation periods, one further training topic remained unchallenged in first place: "Collaboration & Influence". In 2022, employees of the 162 evaluated companies spent a total of more than 20,000 hours on training in these competencies. In second place in 2022 were further training courses on leadership, followed by training in analytical thinking, storytelling and resilience. Lepaya interprets the high number of resilience training courses primarily as a reaction to the "Great Resignation", the large wave of resignations that affected many companies in 2022. More resilience should enable employees to adapt to new forms of work such as hybrid models, which should help to retain talent in the company.

In the top skills of 2023, the first three places are identical to those of the previous year, while storytelling only lands in fifth place this time. Resilience training was replaced by further training on a new topic: fourth place is now taken by "Intentional Learning", which can be translated as "intentional learning" or "purposeful learning". It is therefore about further training courses in which the ability to learn itself is to be learned. Compared to the previous year, interest in intentional learning has increased more than fivefold.

Purposeful learning and sales skills are becoming increasingly important

In the first half of 2024, "intentional learning" is even in second place among the five most trained skills, directly after "Collaboration & Influence"; employees of the companies surveyed spent more than 6,000 hours on the topic alone. This pushes training in learning competence to third place, displacing leadership training. New to fourth place this year are "Sales Skills". Further training in analytical thinking still makes it to fifth place.