The Skills Businesses Will Need by 2035 and the Ones They’re Already Behind On

Most small businesses are feeling it already.

Not the big flashy stuff like robots taking over the office or AI rewriting job descriptions while you sleep, but something much quieter. A slow, noticeable shift in what “good” looks like at work.

People don’t just need knowledge anymore. They need agility. They need problem-solving. They need to think, adapt, collaborate, communicate, juggle and re-juggle their workload. And they need to do it in a labour market that’s changing faster than most SMEs can keep up with.

According to the CIPD’s latest lifelong learning report, the UK is heading for a 7.4% increase in jobs by 2035, mostly driven by growth in high-skill roles. Routine and administrative roles, on the other hand, are projected to continue their long decline.

And yet, as the report quietly points out, the skills that will matter most aren’t technical at all.

They’re human.

The top skills employers will need by 2035

The Skills Imperative 2035 programme looked across the UK nations and landed on six essential skills that will be in highest demand across almost every job:

1. Communication
2. Collaboration
3. Problem-solving
4. Organising, planning and prioritising work
5. Creative thinking
6. Information literacy (gathering, processing, applying information effectively)

These aren’t “nice to have” skills anymore. They’re becoming the bedrock of performance.

If you’ve ever said, “If only people could think things through…” or “I need my team to be more confident, not more compliant,” then you’re already seeing this shift.

What this means for small businesses

For SMEs, these changes hit differently.

You don’t have layers of management. You don’t have a talent pipeline team quietly planning workforce skills for the next decade. You don’t have the luxury of slow transitions. When a skill gap shows up, it shows up loudly in performance, in customer experience, in rework, in time lost, in stress.

And because you rely so heavily on people wearing multiple hats, you feel the shift earlier than large organisations.

If your team can’t:

• prioritise effectively,

• solve problems independently,

• adjust when things change,

• or communicate clearly under pressure…

…it’s not just inefficient — it’s expensive.

Why we’re already behind

The report also highlights a tough truth: adult participation in training has been declining for over a decade. From 3.3 million adult learners in 2012/13 to just 1.6 million in 2020/21. Even with a slight recent uptick, we’re nowhere near historic levels.

Combine that with:

• declining employer investment in training, down 27% per trainee since 2011, and

• training participation drops sharply with age, with only 12% of 55–64-year-olds engaging in job-related training.

…and it’s clear why many SMEs find themselves with committed teams who simply haven’t had the chance to build the skills modern work now requires.

This isn’t a motivation issue. It’s a system issue.

So how do SMEs realistically build these skills?

Let’s keep it practical.

1. Start with onboarding.

Most SMEs skip straight to job tasks, but this is the moment to build core skills early. Not with a lecture, but with small, scenario-based nudges:

• “How would you prioritise these three tasks?”

• “A client emails with this problem, what’s your first step?”

• “Here’s incomplete information, what do you do next?”

This is skills-building disguised as induction.

2. Make micro-learning your friend.

The report makes it clear that time is one of the biggest barriers to adult learning. (If you’ve watched your team try to find 45 uninterrupted minutes, you’ll know.)

Keep it short. Relevant. Immediate. Useful.

3. Teach thinking, not tasks.

Tasks change. Thinking skills don’t.
Encourage teams to narrate their decisions, explain their reasoning, reflect on what worked and what didn’t.

It’s not fluffy — it’s capability.

4. Build skills into the work, not around it.

Most don’t need extra workshops. You need structured, guided on-the-job learning that happens inside the flow of the day.

Small shifts. Big impact.

Your 2035-ready business doesn’t need more content. It needs more capability.

The good news? You don’t have to overhaul everything. You just need a plan.
A simple, repeatable way to help people build the skills they need while they’re doing the work that matters.

And that’s exactly why I created 30 Days to a Stronger Team.

It gives managers a clear, practical pathway to:

• Understand where skills are thriving and where the gaps actually lie

• Spot the small but meaningful actions that boost capability quickly

• Strengthen performance without adding more meetings, documents or overwhelm

• Build confidence and clarity across the team consistently, not occasionally

It’s hands-on, it’s lightweight, and it’s designed for real SME life, the messy, busy, multiple-hats version.

👉 Start 30 Days to a Stronger Team
And begin building the capability your business will rely on by 2035.