If Bill Gates is right about the future of work and what AI is going to do to the job market over the next decade, we’re in for a pretty interesting few years. And by interesting, I don’t necessarily mean good.
In his recent article, The Turbulent AI Era Is Here. The Choices We Make Now Are Critical, Gates argues that AI is likely to affect far more than a few obvious jobs. Entry- and mid-level roles could be particularly vulnerable, including many white-collar jobs. And unlike some previous technological changes, this one could happen incredibly quickly.
That’s the bit that worries me. It’s one thing to know that your job might change eventually. It’s another to think that the change could happen quickly enough that you don’t have much time to work out what you’re going to do instead. If you’re still raising children, paying a mortgage and relying on your salary to support the life you’ve built, that’s a pretty uncomfortable thought.
I’m not a doomsday prepper. I’m not building a bunker in the garden, I haven’t bought 400 tins of baked beans, and I’m not expecting civilisation to collapse next Tuesday. But I do think there’s a difference between being frightened about the future and being prepared for it. And the more I think about AI and the future of work, the more I think preparation is really about one thing: having options.
This is something I’ve been thinking about personally because quite a lot is changing in my own life. I’ve sold the big family house, and I’m downsizing to a three-bedroom flat near the seafront in England. It’s close enough to walk into town and down to the sea, so I’ll probably use the car less. And, perhaps most importantly, I’ll be mortgage-free.
Now, you might think this is simply a story about downsizing. It isn’t. For me, it’s really a story about buying myself more freedom. If I want to work less at some point, my monthly expenses will be lower. If I need to move for a job or another opportunity, I won’t have a huge house tying me to one place. If I want to travel more, there will be less house to look after and fewer expenses to worry about. And if something unexpected happens, I’ll have more room to manoeuvre.
I’ve given up some space in exchange for something I think is much more valuable at this stage of my life: Optionality. I really like that word. Because when things are changing quickly, having options feels like a form of security.
We normally think of security as having everything sorted. A good job, a nice house. A decent income, a pension. Everything planned.
But perhaps there’s another kind of security. Being able to change direction. Being able to say, “OK, that didn’t work. What else can I do?” And being able to cope if your income drops or your circumstances change.
I’m not suggesting that everyone should sell their house and move into a flat. For some people, their home is exactly where they want to be. That’s absolutely fine. What I think is worth asking is a slightly different question: Does the life you’ve built give you choices, or has it gradually made you feel trapped? And perhaps that’s the most useful way to think about the future of work: not as something we can predict, but as something we can prepare ourselves to navigate.
Have a look at your monthly outgoings. How much of your income is already committed before you even receive it? What would happen if you earned 20 percent less? What if you had to take a job you didn’t really want for a couple of years while you retrained? And what could you get rid of now that would make a future change easier? These aren’t particularly exciting questions, but they are useful ones.
I’ve spent a lot of the past year clearing things out. Furniture I don’t need, clothes I don’t wear. Things that have been sitting in cupboards for years because I might, possibly, one day need them. I sell things on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. I’ve used Vinted for clothes.
And yes, some of it is about making money. But that’s not really the point. The point is getting rid of stuff that costs money, takes up space, and makes you feel as though you have to keep living the life you were living when you bought it.
There’s something surprisingly liberating about having less stuff. You start to realise that you don’t actually need as much as you thought you did. And that can give you choices.
The other kind of reserve I’d really encourage people to build is a career reserve. Ask yourself a slightly uncomfortable question: If my job disappeared tomorrow, what would I do?
If you’ve got a clear answer, that’s great. But if your honest response is, “I haven’t got a clue,” then maybe that’s something to work on now. Changing careers can take much longer than people imagine. You might need to learn new skills, get a qualification, gain some experience, or simply work out what you’re actually interested in. The future of work isn’t just about which jobs AI might replace; it’s also about whether we’re prepared to move into the opportunities that emerge. You don’t want to be doing all of that while simultaneously worrying about how you’re going to pay the mortgage. So start while things are still okay.
One of the things I encourage people to do is to stop looking only at the skills they’ve put on their resume. Think instead about what you’re naturally good at. What do people always ask you for help with? What seems easy to you but difficult to other people? Are there types of problems that you enjoy solving? What can you get completely absorbed in?
And here’s one of my favourite questions: What did you love doing when you were a child, before anyone told you that you needed to choose a sensible career? You might be surprised by what comes up.
(This is one of the reasons I created my Career Change Kit. It includes assessments to help people identify their natural abilities, talents, personal style, and motivators, and then look at careers that might suit them.)
You don’t need to have your next career mapped out perfectly; you just need to start looking. Because the future of work is going to change whether we’re ready for it or not. Some jobs will disappear. Some will change dramatically. New jobs will appear that we haven’t even thought of yet.
And some people will find that AI makes them incredibly productive in the career they’re already in. Others may discover that a large part of what they do can be automated.
That’s why I don’t think the answer is to sit around trying to predict exactly what will happen. None of us can. If AI is going to affect your industry, start finding out how. Play around with it, see what it can do. See what it can’t do. Ask yourself which parts of your job could eventually be automated and which parts still require judgement, creativity, empathy, relationships, or experience.
Perhaps your current career isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps you simply need to learn how to use AI and update a few skills. Or perhaps you’ll discover that you’ve wanted to do something completely different for years. Either way, it’s better to find out while you still have choices. In a world where the future of work may look very different from the one we grew up expecting, curiosity is a useful form of preparation.
There’s another form of security that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough: People. When we talk about being prepared for career change, we tend to talk about money and qualifications. But knowing people matters too. Keep in touch with old colleagues. Have coffee with someone who works in an industry you’re curious about. Go to the occasional professional event.
Don’t only contact people when you want something from them. Be useful. Share what you know. Help other people when you can. You never know where a conversation might lead. Sometimes the next opportunity doesn’t come from a job advert. It comes from someone saying, “Actually, you should talk to Sarah. She might be able to help.”
The truth is, none of us knows exactly what AI is going to do to the job market. Some people are wildly optimistic about AI; others think we’re heading for disaster. I suspect the reality will be somewhere in between. There will be enormous benefits. There will also be disruption. Some people will do extremely well. Others will have a much harder time. And I don’t think we can stop the changes simply by worrying about them.
So I’d rather concentrate on the things I can control. I can reduce my debt and build savings. I can keep learning, can stay in touch with people, and make my life less expensive if I need to. And I can keep asking myself what else I might be capable of.
None of this means you need to make a dramatic change. You don’t need to quit your job tomorrow, or sell your house. You don’t need to reinvent yourself at 50, 60, or 70 because someone on the internet told you that you should. But I do think it’s worth making sure that your life isn’t so tightly constructed that one unexpected event brings everything crashing down.
Clear out the spare room. Sell the furniture you’re never going to use. Get rid of the clothes you haven’t worn in three years. Learn something new. Talk to someone who works in a field you’ve always been curious about. Try the AI tools that are relevant to your work instead of ignoring them.
And if you’ve been thinking about a different career for years, give yourself permission to investigate it. You don’t have to do anything about it yet. Just start looking.
Because the point isn’t to predict exactly what happens next, it’s to make sure you have somewhere to go if things don’t turn out the way you expected.
That’s what resilience means to me. It’s not having everything under control; it’s knowing that if something changes, you can change too.
You may never need your Plan B. But knowing you’ve got one can make your Plan A feel a whole lot safer. And perhaps that’s the most useful way to think about the future of work: not as something we can predict, but as something we can prepare ourselves to navigate.
Resources:
- Take a look at the Career Change Kit to give you a structured, supportive roadmap. The assessments help you narrow down the right career fit. The exercises help you break through fear. And the step-by-step plan guides you toward action.
- Or you might like my book Coach Yourself to a New Career, which takes you through practical exercises to help you work out what you might want to do next and how to make the change.
