The future of work is often framed as a contest between humans and technology. What’s emerging instead is more human than many expected.
The ServiceNow 2026 Workforce Skills Forecast found that over the next five years, job growth will be driven by a need for people who can work alongside technology, not just build it, to deliver faster, more strategic outcomes.
A small number of these roles will expand faster than the rest of the labor market, showing where organizations should focus job design, skills development, and career pathways.
A previous article explored the skills reshaping work. Here, we’ll go one level deeper to examine where those skills are translating to the fastest-growing jobs.
As technology transforms how work is done at the task level, traditional entry points into skilled roles are being reworked or removed, making it more difficult for people to gain experience and progress.
The roles growing fastest connect the dots, linking humans and AI, data and decisions, and strategy and real-world adoption. People still need to decide where technology should be applied, how risks should be managed, and how teams should adapt. The work changes, but human capability remains essential to an organization’s success.
Our research identified the 59 fastest-growing roles and grouped them into five clusters. Each cluster reflects a different organizational need, but together they tell a consistent story: The future of work will depend on people who can connect technology to outcomes.
For each role example provided, we’ve predicted a growth multiplier (1x = 100% job growth) to project the change in the number of people holding this job between 2026 and 2031.
The future isn’t only about building AI; it’s also about making human-AI collaboration work in practice. Demand is rising for people who can understand systems, improve workflows, guide adoption, and keep human judgment at the center of decision-making.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this fastest-growing cluster overall contains three of the five fastest-growing future jobs:
- Machine learning engineer (58.4x growth)
- Augmented and virtual reality roles (34.1x growth)
- Implementer (21.9x growth)
AI is only as useful as the data and systems it can draw from. For many organizations, the immediate challenge is making data flow consistently between tools, teams, and workflows.
That’s why growth in this cluster is concentrated in integration and foundational roles that help turn fragmented information into a reliable operating layer for AI-enabled work:
- Integration specialist (44x growth)
- Data warehousing specialist (9.8x growth)
- Data scientist (6.7x growth)
New technology doesn’t create value on its own. That takes people who can understand it and explain why it matters, how it changes work, and what’s needed to use it effectively. The importance of a strategically planned change management and people readiness adoption strategy cannot be understated.
This cluster includes some of the strongest growth rates:
- IT business partner (26.5x growth)
- Industrial-organizational psychologist (14x growth)
- Strategy analyst (10.8x growth)
As organizations move AI from experimentation to enterprisewide use, they need stronger oversight and accountability. Demand is rising for people who can interpret regulations or assess risk, as well as for leaders who understand how AI works, where it can fail, and how to ensure AI systems are deployed responsibly.
The fastest-growing roles in this cluster include:
- Data governance manager (4.3x growth)
- Test manager (3.7x growth)
- Risk management specialist (2.3x growth)
As specialized technologies move deeper into physical operations, there’s an increasing need for roles to work with advanced tech in highly specialized environments. These positions are tied to engineering, safety, and infrastructure contexts where new technology changes how physical systems are designed, monitored, and maintained.
Growth here will be driven by sector-specific needs versus broad expansion. Leading roles in this cluster include:
- Industrial health and safety engineer (5.4x growth)
- Geospatial information scientist (5x growth)
- Robotics engineer (2.3x growth)
As technology reshapes skills demand, new roles are expected to emerge at the intersection of AI, data, and human capability.
Potential new roles include:
- AI ethics and trust adviser to govern the responsible deployment of AI agents
- AI value realization lead to translate AI investments to measurable business outcomes
- Human-AI experience designer to design the interaction layer between human workers and AI agents
Many future roles are closer than they appear. Waiting until shortages become visible may put organizations at risk of missing out and individuals behind the competition.
The five clusters offer a practical map for workforce planning: where hiring may intensify, where internal mobility could pay off, and where training investment should focus.
We recommend that leaders start now to create new pathways to future jobs. That means designing clear entry points, especially for those earlier in their careers whose traditional routes into skilled work are being restructured. ServiceNow University is one starting point for that journey, offering a practical route for people to build skills for the AI era.
Experience in operations, analysis, change, risk, technology, or people leadership can become a foundation for growth when paired with new skills development.
We recommend that individuals prioritize common skills behind rapidly rising roles. The fastest-growing roles require a blend of technical and power skills. Data literacy and skills matter, but so do leadership, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. Investing in these skills now can help build readiness for where demand is headed.
AI will continue to reshape work, but value will be created through human judgment, coordination, and decision-making, even as tools become more capable. The future belongs to organizations that can bring technology and human capability together—deliberately, responsibly, and at scale.
Find out how ServiceNow can help you prepare for jobs of the future.
