The world has changed drastically in the last 50 years than perhaps even centuries before. The technology we create has mainly been the catalyst with a ripple effect sweeping through the world of work, how we learn, how we live, and many other amazing things in life. Today, you can make calls with high definition quality to anyone from across the world.
The world of work is highly responsive to the changes of our time and technology. When the production line came, skilled men and women were needed to operate and maintain it. Today, the work is changing at a dazzling speed and the skill to learn is one of the most important. However, learning how to learn is just the gateway to learning other skills, but also success which is the end goal for us all.
What Does it Mean to Have a Skill? (What is a Skill?)
Skills like plumbing are the oldest skills you can think of. Artisans have been a part of the evolution of civilizations as we know them. Skilled men and women like blacksmiths helped make weapons and forge swords for battle but also made the everyday utensils, and metal items used in the community. People skilled in design helped build and construct monuments. As much as these skills are still needed in our society, our world has evolved to create new skills that require learning.
In all examples, you may have noticed that skilled people are not only competent in an area with knowledge but are also capable of doing things like making pottery. That is a skill. A skill is an ability and competency to do something. Being able to meander the social world means you have good communication skills, and excellent interpersonal skills and you are also an emotionally intelligent person. Skills move from hard to soft but we won’t be making those distinctions in this article.
10 High-Income Skills That Can Pay You Forever
1. Copywriting
There is a loose quote about entrepreneurship that says the first skill an entrepreneur needs is to write. To write proposals, to write visions, and to write guidelines, documents, and many more. Startup entrepreneurs are often cash-strapped and need all the skills they can get including writing. But perhaps the most powerful reason why an entrepreneur needs writing is to master the art of copywriting. Copywriting has gained a lot of attention among digital marketers but it has been used by the marketers of old for centuries and is still as important if not more important than it was centuries ago in the Babylonian times.
Copywriting is writing to move hearts and change minds to take an action. In the most common application of the skill of copywriting, people are persuaded to buy. And if you can make people buy things through the power of your copy, businesses will pay you with blank checks (just kidding). Copywriters are among the top paid writers in the world. Even though their published work may not amount to a single novel in length, their words bring lots of money to their employers.
Copywriting is a skill that requires learning how to persuade, mastering sales and the psychology of sales, keeping with trends, and having an almost perfect grasp of who you are writing to. It takes consistency but like many skills, you only get better when you do it.
2. Sales and Persuasion
Sales is perhaps a high candidate for one of the most hated professions, yet “Nothing happens until a sale is made”. Our education teaches us entrepreneurship is a factor of production, yet for entrepreneurs to be successful, a product is no longer enough. Businesses can no longer create products and the products, in turn, sell themselves.
The art of persuasion and sales is a skill that greases the wheels of business by bringing in revenue. And if the management can keep costs down, a profit could be made. Salespeople are some of the most sought-after professions and you can readily guess the reason. During the Covid-19 crisis, companies were rampantly laying off people but the companies that hoped to be saved never let go of their sales team.
Despite the attractive pay, enticing benefits, and perks, most people don’t like the job of sales. “They are liars” are some of the common misconceptions about the professional. Truth is, salespeople are supposed to provide value, lying is never valuable. A salesperson doesn’t have to lie to get a sale. Sales do have their ups and downs but you hardly find a broke salesperson. And that’s a fact.
3. Graphic Design
Art has always been a well-appreciated aspect of creativity. Just like creating canvas paintings, graphic designers are artists who are a lot more obvious about what they want to communicate. Perhaps it’s an event, a business, a product, a brochure, or even a logo. These are all works the graphic designer is a master in.
In our day, every company needs a graphic designer and if you don’t have one, it’s time to find one. Our world is driven by content. Memes can move markets and so can simple graphic communications get you more sales. Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) are the next revolution of art and graphic designers are in for a treat. Some NFTs have already been sold for millions of dollars.
4. Content Creation
In a 1998 paper, the once richest man in the world and former CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates bolding predicted: “Content is King”. Perhaps people got his idea but didn’t see how much practice that was. But a few decades down the lane and well, the world cannot do without content. Social media, blogs, and other platforms are swarming with content about anything imaginable.
Today, you can learn almost anything you want. And content creation should be one of those skills you learn. It has a highly demanded skill because businesses have to play the content game if they want a mass appeal and to survive through the years. Today, content is not only king but also reigns and favors the one who makes content.
6. Programming
Programming or computer programming may sound nerdy to the unbaptized. But in a nutshell, we all do programming daily. We may not do computer programming as an exact skill, but we do. Programming involves using language to perform tasks on a computer. Just like we use language to perform tasks like sharing knowledge, programmers use various programming languages to create complex sentences of code to create the software we all use to perform tasks such as word processing, video editing, note-taking, and more.
With the widespread use of the computer and the internet, the software is only bound to grow. Now your argument may be that programming is extremely difficult and I cannot get myself to learn it all. Just like we can all learn to speak new languages, you can always learn to code with the passion and patience to try an immersive learning strategy instead of purely knowledge-based learning.
7. Digital Marketing
Digital marketing has grown ever since the creation of the internet. The term Digital Marketing was first used in the 1990s and has become much more popular over the years. Today, digital marketers are wildly demanded by companies and organizations. A simple look at job entries on platforms like LinkedIn will bring you a sea of job openings in the field. The skills needed to be a digital marketer are broad and require both a theoretical understanding of marketing and the practical use of tools and platforms to market brands online. If you are already a marketer but you operate in the traditional domains of TV, Radio, Newspaper, and the other channels of brand promotion, jumping onto the digital marketing realm will surely give you a boost in achieving results for your brand.
To become a full-stack digital marketer, one needs skills in email, social media, content marketing, search engine marketing and optimization, sales, and many more skills. You don’t need all of them to succeed. Acquiring a few of them and specializing is equally a great way to create a niche for yourself. Digital marketing is broad enough to get jobs in each aspect of it. If you are a freelancer, starting with just one that is in demand will be a great way to start. For a small business owner, you can learn the basics of social media and content creation to get started.
8. Video Production
Video production has been mainly used in TV and movies until the dawn of the internet and web 2.0 where users on the internet could make their video content and share it with the world. Today, online video content is consumed far more than TV. This has resulted in a spike in demand for people who are skilled in planning, shooting, editing, and publishing video media.
There are various skills required to be a successful video producer such as scriptwriting, video editing, voice-overs, using camera equipment and setting up scenes, video editing and post-production, and many more. Just like digital marketing, you needn’t try to learn it all. Start with graphic design and video editing. Editors are in high demand due to the extreme skill needed in putting together various cuts of video to make a coherent story.
9. Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing is one of the many wonders that have accelerated the internet and provided many businesses the platforms to grow their solutions as much as catering to the entire world from a single office location in a small city somewhere in the world. Through cloud computing, we can have access to media, platforms, and many other things. This is made possible by the technology that allows on-demand services like Netflix.
This is mainly possible through the provision of cloud storage that allows robust software and platforms to be built in stable environments to allow for worldwide access without a total breakdown of the systems. Cloud engineers are the main players in this space responsible for building and deploying software packages. Some of the skills needed to become a cloud engineer are programming skills which we already have on this list, networking, database management, working with web services and APIs, security, and more.
10. UX & UI Design
User interface (UI) and User experience (UX) are recently developed terms to cover the art of graphic design and the use of design to create experiences for web apps and mobile applications. When you open an app and you are warmly greeted by the app according to your name and local time, that is the user experience. The design used to create the experience is the user interface.
On more conceptual levels, UX deals with how users interact with the application as well as other users on the platform. However, UI is the use of design in the application, how smooth, flat, and exciting the various interfaces on the platform look to the user. These are subtle reflexes that determine how much we enjoy using a platform. AS a UI and UX designer, you will require a good graphic design background with a specialization in understanding users and crafting the best environments for them. Whether you want to start a new app, create a website, be an employee or simply choose the free path of freelancing, UI and UX design are some of the most demanded right now and will be for a long time to come.
Conclusion
The internet has more than changed our lives. It has changed the way we work and do our everyday things including how we work. Today, you don’t need elaborate certificates and professional examinations to thrive in the market. Today, skills are the powerhouse through which the future is being built. Right from the skill of writing to generate sales, writing code to automate everyday tasks both complex and simple to creating content through video and design, these are the skills of the future and will pay you forever if you commit to mastering them. Today’s design may not be the same as tomorrow’s, but the design will be there. You have to adjust and adapt as the terrains change to remain relevant and valuable to the economy.