Future STEM career guidance

In this blog, we look at which future STEM jobs you can prepare yourself for now. STEM jobs refer to those involved in Science, Technology, Electronics and Mathematics.

What will future STEM jobs look like?

You only need to watch sci-fi movies to know that we have not been that great in predicting the future thus far. If we look at how the first Back to the Future movie thought 2015 to be, you’ll see they were a bit off.

We have come a far way regardless. There might not be flying cars, but driverless cars are being tested. SpaceX is doing amazing things in getting us to space. Alexa has moved into many homes. And people pay with their watch!

Most of the children in school at the moment will be working in jobs that don’t yet exist. A figure as high as 65% is used, but I have not yet found any basis for this. If we look at the job market in the ’80s for example, many of our current careers were non-existent. Social media manager, machine learning specialist, digital nomads, app designers, all included.

So, if we set our view on 10 years in the future, which future STEM jobs will be in demand? It’s difficult to predict, as who knows, there might be flying cars. We can, however, look at trends and current technological advances and we came up with the following:

Drone Technician

If the increased use of drones in photography and security, this is very viable to have grown as an industry. That is of course if you will still be allowed to fly these by then.

Space exploration

With SpaceX’s latest success in launching and returning a capsule from the international space station, there are great things in the pipeline. Nasa is reportedly expecting Boeing and SpaceX to launch astronauts into space this year. The possible future stem jobs and careers more accessible space travel will uncover are countless.

Future Farmers

Farming has already changed in many ways. As our population growth increases, we will have to look at more ways to feed ourselves. Although I’m not so sure genetic engineering and genetic seed engineering is the way to go, these are practised more and more. Although vertical farming can provide a solution to some issues, we need to learn to use less soil and water. With Elon Musk setting the odds at 70% that he will one day be living on Mars, the challenges seem to be mounting.

Biotech Engineers

The use of stem cells has had great successes. From creating limbs, curing nerve cells, curing HIV. Biotech engineers work in a variety of fields. Medicine, pharmaceuticals, agriculture etc.

Weather Moderators and Climate Analysts

In an effort to save the earth from ourselves we have already started moderating weather. Things like cloud seeding and geo-engineering are already familiar concepts. Spraying sulfate particles into the atmosphere to block the UV rays, finding solutions for draughts and analysing climate change are only starting to grow. Geo-engineering still has a far way to go. There is however a great need for leaders in this field. The Beijing Weather Office is currently believed to be the world’s largest. They claim to employ 37 000 people nationwide who assist in their weather control effort. They have not only prevented rain in the Summer Olympics 2018, but they have also created a snow storm. The verdict is still out on the global implications of all this. Either way, there seem to be great developments in this field.

Alternative currency Brokers

Cryptocurrencies are hailed as the future of money/exchange. No longer connecting us to the material, but rather to time. Time banking or chronocurrency is perhaps the way to the future. This still has to be bought, sold and traded on a virtual market.

Science Ethicists

With our current move towards AI, cloning and robotics, it will most likely become necessary for ethics and guidelines to be upheld. If we come back to sci-fi movies on this one, the warning signs are clear. Elon Musk for one has been very outspoken in warning humanity to not go too far with their obsession with artificial intelligence. We need watchdogs for this and this might just open up a whole new career field. Knowledge might be power, but sometimes it’s more powerful not to know when not to use that knowledge.

3D Printing Engineers

The world of 3D printing has grown in leaps and bounds over the past few years. It has revolutionised many industries. These include the fabrication industry, medical fields of prosthetics,  food industry and construction to name a few. As this grows, a need for more engineers to manage applications, maintain machines, monitor and operate machines.

Electrical and driverless car engineers

With the newest trend towards electrical and driverless cars, we will need engineers to build them. As these cars will interact with people and have to navigate routes as directed, they will need a special kind of engineer. An engineer that can relate to human interaction and build systems that will be able to cope with whatever is thrown at it.

Virtual World and Augmented Reality creators

We are already moving more towards a virtual world. We have virtual games, we experience space through virtual reality and soon our children might be playing on virtual playgrounds. Virtual reality is however not used as much as it, most likely will be in the future. Therefore there is a lot of scope in learning and using it in various areas of our lives.

AI Trainer and Technician

We are only starting to learn about AI and using it in our every day lives. Alexa might not be the best example of this but helps us all relate. As the world of Artificial Intelligence develop, so we’ll need people to ‘teach’ machines. Someone who is an expert in human behaviour, social norms and knows about machine learning would be a great fit.

I wonder which future STEM jobs we’ll be looking at in ten years’ time.

Our Other STEM career blogs

Firstly, Internship Guide.

 

If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. – ELON MUSK