Trend Radar –
The Skills of the Future

The Trend Radar identifies 15 key organizational areas of focus that will be critical to the world of work in the coming years. It highlights specific shifts, such as the move of AI strategy into the immediate sphere of action or the new importance of cyber resilience.

A key finding is the analysis of evolving job profiles, which increasingly require a hybrid set of skills combining subject matter expertise, data literacy, and interpersonal skills. In addition, four new strategic areas—such as regulatory compliance and ecosystem management—are examined in detail. The findings make it clear that technological, cultural, and regulatory dynamics are now inextricably intertwined.

The Trend Radar is a visual guide that ranks areas of focus according to their strategic urgency. This urgency increases from the bottom left to the top right, with the radar divided into four zones:

• ACT: High urgency; requires immediate action.
• CREATE: Strategic preparation and capacity building are necessary.
• DEVELOP: Topics in forward-looking development.
• DISCOVER: Fields with an exploratory nature.

The evaluation is based on four criteria: pace of change, structural impact, stakeholder needs, and the ratio of impact to effort.

The Trend Radar serves as a solid basis for reflection and discussion for the following key groups:

• Management and executives who must make strategic decisions while under intense pressure to adapt.
• Strategy leaders who want to identify future competitive advantages and build resilient organizations.
• Professionals who want to actively prepare for the future early on and take a holistic approach to their professional development.
• HR professionals and talent development specialists who design targeted programs for competency development and the creation of new skill profiles.

The results provide a structured framework for setting priorities in a volatile work environment. Companies can identify early on where they need to build structures and capabilities to remain future-proof—for example, when scaling AI or ensuring regulatory compliance. The radar helps transform isolated individual topics into a connected, holistic view, thereby ensuring the organization’s ability to act. It also provides concrete guidance for creating healthy working conditions and an adaptive corporate culture. Ultimately, it facilitates informed discussions about necessary skill development, investments, and transformation processes.

The creation of the Trend Radar is based on a four-step qualitative analysis process developed by the Zukunftsinstitut:

• Relevance assessment: Existing areas of focus were reevaluated based on four defined criteria.
• Triangulation: Each field was supported by 10 to 16 academic and practice-oriented sources drawn from a core corpus of 114 sources.
• Blind-Spot Research: A systematic search for underrepresented topics using Opielka’s four social subsystems.
• Integration: The identified gaps were weighted and incorporated into the model as four new areas of action.

Yes, the Trend Radar goes beyond a purely theoretical description of trends and identifies specific requirements for job profiles and skills in each field. It describes in detail how roles must evolve into hybrid profiles that combine, for example, subject matter expertise with AI proficiency, regulatory understanding, or systems thinking. As such, the Trend Radar serves as a practical tool for strategic competency development.

The 2026 Trend Radar reveals significant shifts: While topics such as AI Strategy and Cybersecurity have moved significantly into the “ACT” zone due to their urgency, Agility has been reevaluated. Particularly valuable are the four entirely new areas of focus—Regulatory Compliance, Operating Model, Ecosystem Management, and Human-to-Human Experience—which address strategic “blind spots.” These additions reflect a working world in which technological, regulatory, and cultural factors are inextricably intertwined.