Globally, workers are focused on developing their human skills, even as they see a future dominated by technology-driven work and increasing automation, according to the new study from Pearson, a global learning company.

For the latest edition of the Pearson Skills Outlook series, Pearson partnered with Google to examine how and why people in the UK, US, India, and Brazil are looking to upskill as they face a rapidly changing economy.

Pearson Skills Outlook: Employee View, the survey of 4,000 workers across those four labour markets, revealed that people are most interested in careers in the tech and business-related fields such as e-commerce, software services, data science, and financial services.

However, they believe that they will need to focus on human and soft skills to land these jobs in advance in their current role. Human skills such as problem solving, leadership, and teamwork are believed to be the most attractive to employers now and in the future.

In the UK, the top two human skills workers in each market are actively prioritising developing and maintaining for career advancement are problem solving and team work.

US workers are also looking add developing problem solving skills, but looked to develop more decision making talents over teamwork.

Indian and Brazilian respondents also sought out teamwork skills, but Indian respondents opted for data processing skills while Brazilians selected leadership as a top priority.

Looking to the future, the top two skills workers want to train to remain focused on human skills in markets in the UK include leadership and problem solving.

In the US, leadership was also a priority, as well as entrepreneurial and project management skills.

Brazilians surveyed selected language skills and leadership as their main skill priorities for the future.

Indian respondents were more varied in their responses, and selected more technical skills including coding/programming, data processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as problem solving as key focus areas for the future.

The report also signals that in non-English speaking countries, learning English is emerging as a key skill for employees to advance their careers, according to 85% of Indians and 77% of Brazilians surveyed.

“This valuable new research shows that job seekers are prioritising human skills at a time when machine learning and artificial intelligence are having an increasing influence on work,” said Mike Howells, president of Pearson Workforce Skills. “Human skills are proving critical to personal and organisational success, and workers are motivated to sharpen and develop those skills to stay competitive and advance their careers.”

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Further, the study also found that most workers (73% of Americans, 68% of British, 89% of Indians and 70% of Brazilians) also say they prefer to learn via their employer, with an even higher number expecting their employer will increase or maintain learning and development opportunities.

Pearson’s previous report, from the eye of the employer, provided further evidence to the trend toward interpersonal and human skills needed in the labour market.

The report found that communication, customer service, leadership, attention to detail, and collaboration were the top five skills employers were seeking in 2022.