70% of the Top Skills for 2026 Are Human Skills

Emily Gerson

mercredi 25 février 2026

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AI tools may change how people learn, but what people learn is still dominated by human-centric skills and capabilities that AI can’t replace. 

Nearly every organization has broad access to AI tools, but your workforce is unique to your company. People are the thing that sets your organization apart. Ultimately, that’s going to be your competitive differentiator. And your people are (smartly) doubling down on human skills.

New insights from Degreed show the top 10 skills professionals are building for 2026. And here’s the thing: Seven of the top 10 are human or business-centric skills, like leadership and communication.

Top 10 Skills Professionals Are Building for 2026

Based on learning pathways created in Degreed in 2025, the top 10 skills professionals want to develop in 2026 are*:

1. Leadership
2. Communication
3. Project Management
4. Problem Solving
5. Customer Service
6. Microsoft Excel
7. Data Analytics
8. Python
9. Adaptability
10. Stakeholder Management

The list makes it clear that the development of technical skills remains essential. Data analytics and Python continue to grow in importance. 

Yet, the majority of this list reflects something more foundational. As automation scales, the value of judgment, coordination, and influence increases. Those are the skills that competitors don’t automatically have access to just because they have ChatGPT.

There’s another important takeaway here: Not all tasks can be done by AI. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, “tasks tied to empathy, creativity, leadership, and curiosity” only have a 13% potential for AI transformation. They require too much human judgement and experience to be automated.

As technology advances, complexity increases and change accelerates. For employees, complexity requires human or soft skills and capabilities to amplify the value of technology while remaining adaptive and agile through the change technology is creating. These skills are what help AI investments translate into sustained performance. In other words, imagine how chaotic and stressful it would be to guide your company through AI transformation without good leadership, communication, problem solving, and stakeholder management.

AI Literacy Is a Growing Need for Workforce Readiness

While human skills are essential for sustained growth and resilience, organizations are not slowing down on AI implementation. AI transformation is no longer optional, but where it often breaks down for organizations is on the human layer. Employees need to be able to use AI tools successfully and productively, otherwise the transformation stalls.

It’s all about workforce readiness, which is why hiring managers are already looking at AI literacy as a must-have. In fact, more than half of hiring managers say they would not hire someone without AI literacy skills. The expectation is clear: Employees need to understand how AI works, where it adds value, and how to use it responsibly in conjunction with their human expertise. Even when new employees bring the fresh AI skills, hiring for those skills only addresses the problem in the short-term. Focusing on upskilling your existing workforce is a safer long-term strategy for keeping pace with any unforeseen changes that may occur.

AI fluency has become foundational capability, and it’s one that must be constantly maintained. AI and other digital technology skills have about a 2-year shelf life, which means they expire almost twice as fast as traditional skills.

For businesses, the advantage of AI literacy comes from combining that fluency with skills like leadership, communication, and problem-solving to realize greater sustained value of transformation initiatives. That’s why forward-thinking professionals are leaning into both areas.

Popular Skills Across Industries

The top ten skills listed above are aggregated from generalized data across businesses, but every industry has its own set of essential emerging skills. There are varying human and technical skills that stand out as up-and-coming in each industry. 

According to our data, here are some of the skill trends across key industries:

• Financial services professionals are strengthening leadership and stakeholder management alongside analytics capabilities.
  
• Healthcare teams are focusing on inclusivity, collaboration, resilience, and data-informed decision-making.
  
• Manufacturing and energy organizations are prioritizing leadership, project execution, and change management, as automation reshapes operations.
  
• Professional services and IT show a blended profile, combining demand for programming and analytics with strong interest in project management, communication, and problem-solving.

Across the board, industries demonstrate the need for a combination of human skills and AI or tech skills. It’s the combined strength of both that sets businesses up for success.

Human Skills + AI Literacy Is a Business Power Move

In any industry, technical capability can enable efficiency, but human capability will determine impact. AI systems can generate recommendations, but great leaders guide teams to interpret, innovate, and execute on them. AI can process data at scale, but teams must decide what to do with the results. 

Leading organizations strengthen both dimensions. Adopting AI tools faster isn’t enough. Your organization needs experienced, knowledgeable employees who can guide AI transformation from the start and sustain ongoing transformation.

*Top skills are based on the number of learning pathways created in the Degreed platform specific to those skills in 2025.