Higher Education and Skills for the Future(s) of Work

This chapter takes a macro-level approach to explore key skills required for the future(s) of work in a digital era. It will explore how the future skills highlighted both impact on, and can be co-created and nurtured through, formal yet flexible higher education. Our focus is purposefully on skills for the future (not of the future) and on futures (plural). A key underpinning to our argument is the need for a narrative that moves away from a technical focus on skill development to a more holistic view of human-centred development. This is discussed with respect to the human aspects of digitalisation in virtual and real dimensions, the slow movement and elevated well-being. In providing an infrastructure which balances reflection and action while locating digital disruption in its socio-economic context, higher education can ultimately provide a platform for greater certainty and progress in an age of digital disruption and uncertainty.