Future Talent Summit 2026
Widening the scope of job search
Durable skills widen access. Technical skills raise the ceiling. Evidence from 19.9M job postings across 26 tracked skills.
Source for all charts: Revelio Labs job postings master dataset. Analysis covers postings with at least one tracked skill; skills are identified by keyword presence; salary outliers are removed using IQR × 1.5.
By the numbers
Authors
Júlia Rocha · Brandon Kopp · Nathaly Zamarripa · Neil Sekhri
Future Talent Council — Emerging Leaders Ecosystem
Supervisors
Howard Leong · Emmalyn Green — JA Worldwide
01 Start here
Lead with durable skills: they drive 63% of skill demand.
Communication, leadership and collaboration are the market’s common language.
Share of all mentions
Across 9.1M skilled postings, 63.4% of tracked-skill mentions are durable. Communication, leadership and collaboration dominate.
Durable skill mentions
Technical skill mentions
02 Skill stack
Pair technical depth with human skills.
Two-thirds of technical postings also ask for at least one durable skill.
The stackable model
Two in three technical postings also ask for a durable skill. The pairing is strongest in NLP (83%), Data Analysis (82%) and Machine Learning (77%).
Also lists ≥1 durable skill
Technical skill only
03 Career path
Use durable skills to enter; build technical depth to advance.
Entry-level roles lean human-centric. Specialist technical roles lean senior.
The divide
Machine learning 80% · PyTorch 84% · NLP 83% senior. The deepest technical skills are almost never asked of early-career candidates.
Teamwork 64% · Interpersonal 60% · Communication 60% entry. Human-centric skills are the entry ticket.
Human skills are the clearest entry signal.
durable skill
Technical skill
← more entry-level · more senior →
04 Hiring gap
Entry-level demand stayed below senior demand.
From 2021 to 2026, entry-level demand never caught up with senior hiring.
The persistent gap
Entry-level demand sits below senior demand in every month shown.
Entry hiring swings more sharply with the market.
Entry-level
Senior
05 Skill shift
Add AI fluency without dropping communication.
Communication remains widespread, but its share is falling as AI-related skills rise.
AI-related skills rising ↑
while Communication's share eases ↓
Reading the trend
Communication fell from about 57% to 45% of skilled postings. AI-related skills moved the other way.
Excel
Communication
Leadership
AI / ML
TensorFlow
MS Office
Adaptability
06 Growth
Technical-skill demand is growing faster.
Technical-skill mentions grew 560% versus 471% for durable skills.
Technical 6.60× vs durable 5.71×
the gap = shaded band
2021 → 2026
Technical-skill mentions grew 560%; durable-skill mentions grew 471%. The gap opened sharply in 2025.
Part of the technical-skill gain reflects an expanding skill panel.
Solid line — Technical skills (all technical-skill mentions, indexed to 100 at Jan-2021)
Dashed line — durable skills (all durable-skill mentions, indexed to 100 at Jan-2021)
Shaded band = hard-minus-durable gap (the lead hard built up)
07 Education
Durable skills travel across every education level.
Technical requirements vary more; durable skills remain close to universal.
Stable across the ladder
Durable-skill demand barely moves across education levels. Technical-skill demand is uneven and peaks at the Bachelor’s level.
For early talent: lead with the skills that travel.
Technical skill
durable skill
08 2025 break
Durable-skill demand stayed stable — except in the Bachelor’s market.
Bachelor’s postings fell sharply in 2025 while other education levels held steady.
Two stories at once
Stable: four education levels remain in a narrow band.
The break: only the Bachelor’s line drops sharply in 2025.
High School
Associate
Bachelor's
Master's
PhD
09 Pay
Combine human and technical skills to earn more.
The highest average salary appears when postings ask for both.
The pairing premium
+$3.2K
+7.0% lift when durable-skill roles add hard skills
Durable-only roles average $46K; hard-only roles average $35K. Together they reach $49K — the highest average.
Pair a human strength with a technical proof point.
No tracked skill
durable only
Technical only
Technical + durable
10 Across fields
AI demand is rising everywhere — Marketing leads.
Marketing, finance and operations show the strongest gains.
The broadening
+2.1pp
Marketing's gain — largest of any field
Marketing rose +2.1 percentage points, followed by finance (+1.3) and operations (+1.0). Every field increased.
The rise is broad-based, not confined to technical jobs.
Increase in AI-skill share (pp)
Marketing — largest gain (highlighted)
11 Takeaways
Search beyond technical roles: lead with human skills, then add an edge.
Four practical moves for early talent.
01
Show the human skills employers already ask for
63.4%
of tracked mentions are durable
Name these skills explicitly in applications and interviews.
02
Add one technical edge
1.16×
faster hard-skill growth
Choose one technical skill that strengthens your target role.
03
Prove both in the same example
+7.0%
salary lift when both appear
Use evidence that shows technical delivery and human impact.
04
Search beyond technical roles
+2.1pp
AI growth in Marketing
Look for AI-enabled work in marketing, finance and operations.
