This document discusses several ways to identify new and emerging occupations: 1. Analyzing investment levels, job postings, surveys, and patent tracking to find sectors experiencing growth and requiring new skills. 2. Identifying "hard to fill vacancies" and occupations that are a poor fit for existing categories. 3. Using technology roadmapping and value chain analysis to anticipate skills needs. It recommends using multiple approaches together and also considering existing occupations' adaptability to changing skills demands. Existing occupations like electricians and plumbers score highly on adaptability due to their ability to integrate new technologies. Identifying resilient occupations can help manage workforce transitions.

1. Some of the
ways of
viewing new
and
emerging
occupations
Investment levels: look for where investment levels are tacking place and in
particular amongst new and emerging businesses using the various listing websites.
Investment can be both private and public sector, and so trawling of grant awards
can be useful too here.
Job postings: collating and analysing largely web-based job postings which have
become a common way of creating near-real time labour market intelligence
Focused surveys: undertaking sector surveys to track employment generation and
in particular to identify new skills and occupations as they emerge in high growth,
high investment sectors.
Hard to fill vacancies: can provide a lagging indicator of where skills gaps and
shortages exist which might be indicating a demand for new and emerging skills.
Patent tracking: one form of IP protection which captures the where businesses
are investing to create new, commercially valuable knowledge. Can highlight cross-
over technologies between sectors based on the sponsor and owner of the IP.
Innovation uptake rates: Mapping the market uptake of a technology requiring
skills to both adapt, adopt, apply and improve (incremental innovation) can show the
nature and scale of demand for new skills and occupations
Poor fit with existing occupation categories: When regular surveys take place
there are often occupations that do not fit well with existing categories and these
can be explored further.
Technology road mapping/value chain analysis: Build on the usual technology road
mapping method but focus on skills elements – this probably best used in
conjunction with a form of transformational analysis.
Note: It is important that at least 2 approaches are used in combination and ideally 3
or more. This is now possible using the tools we have available to analyse across
various datasets.

2. Some
additional
ways to
handling
future skills
needs
Perhaps rather than just focus on the future
and on new and emerging skills and
occupations, it is also worth focusing on the
patterns of skills origin, and also the level of
likely adaptability there is within existing
occupations.
Let’s look at these two potentially additional
approaches.

3. Alternative
One: An AI
Approach
There is a tendency to add new occupations to
help drive levels of recognition, to get new
standards established, and to help in the
supply of an emerging skill set, but often the
apparently “new” is merely a reconfiguring of
what already exists.
With ESCO we see the use of AI being used to
maintain the current set of occupation pillars
both for the normalisation of job titles, and in
areas of high rates of change e.g. ICT and
amongst professional groups. AI helps
establish similarity and linkages across
occupations based on their detailed content.
See: Leveraging AI to maintain the ESCO occupation pillars.
April and May 2021

4. Alternative
Two:
Viewing an
occupation’s
adaptability
score
Using current occupational data from both O*NET and
ESCO it is possible to examine the solutions capability
of an occupation – basically looking at the range of
problems encountered by an occupation and also the
tools developed in the occupation to tackle and resolve
problems and to create lasting improvements. The
greater the breadth of problems tacked, the greater
the potential adaptability.
Just taking two occupations: an electrician and a
plumber they both score very highly on their combined
adaptability scores which indicates their ability to both
absorb new technologies and the skills they demand
and bring together groups of new technologies. This is
particular relevant to the “green sector” where large
number of roles are being created to deliver new, low
carbon solutions.
Source: BMI have devised the adaptability scoring system

5. Conclusion
While it is very important to be able to explore and try
identify future skills requirements driven by technology
and other changes, it is also equally valid to identify
those occupations which have the ability to readily
adapt and adopt new technologies, and even drive
innovation.
By identifying an occupation’s resilience also suggests
there are a series of core occupations from which to
build when seeking to manage a transition from one set
of technologies to another whilst also having to deal
with legacy technologies and practices.