Digital technology and AI are rapidly transforming the world beyond imagination. The present workforce needs to adapt to these changes by constantly upskilling themselves. Technology has disrupted the business landscape and people need to transform to thrive and earn in the future. But what are the skills that need to be mastered?

McKinsey Global Institute lists down 56 foundational skills that will lead to higher proficiency and benefit people across the globe. Foundational skills are defined as those that help an individual to add value beyond automation and technology and constantly adapt to the changes around him. These skills have been classified into four categories – Cognitive, Interpersonal, Self-Leadership, and Digital. While assessing the present proficiencies across these categories, it was found that the lowest was for the digital bucket specific to software use and understanding digital systems, clearly highlighting the lack of digital literacy.

The proficiencies under the cognitive and digital categories are directly related to the education levels while for the remaining categories there exits the lowest correlation between education and proficiency levels. It has also been observed that high proficiency is related to higher employability, income, and job satisfaction. Self-confidence and organization awareness are top proficiencies contributing to higher incomes.

The purpose of identifying these skills is to refine the education systems, giving more scope for technology and AI-related courses, abilities to develop these proficiencies, and making young people future read and sustainable for the future. The need of the hour is a high-quality education at an affordable range!