The skills a MENA board should still plan for in 2026

As of October 2026, the planning document most boards still mean when they say “the skills report” is the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. It is an employer survey about 2025–2030, not a census of Gulf academies. Cite it that way.

The figures worth putting on one slide

Skill instability: 39%. Employers expect two-fifths of workers’ existing skill sets to be transformed or outdated over 2025–2030. That is slower than the 44% in the 2023 edition and the 57% recorded in 2020.
Training reach: 50%. The Forum links that slowdown, in part, to a larger share of workers having completed training, reskilling, or upskilling — 50%, compared with 41% in the 2023 edition.
The skill employers say they need now: analytical thinking. Seven in ten companies call it essential. Resilience, flexibility and agility, and leadership and social influence follow.
The skills rising fastest: AI and big data, then networks and cybersecurity, then technological literacy. Creative thinking, resilience, and curiosity and lifelong learning rise alongside them.
The barrier: skills gaps in the labour market, cited by 63% of employers — first in 52 of 55 economies in the survey.
The response: 85% of employers expect to prioritise upskilling their workforce. The Forum also reports that 70% expect to hire people with new skills and 50% expect to transition people from declining roles to growing ones.

How to use this in MENA without over-claiming

The report is global. A Saudi skills council, a UAE government academy, and an Egyptian shared-services centre will not have the same gap. The professional move is to borrow the structure:

Which core skill in this role will be outdated or transformed by 2030?
What percentage of that population has completed a relevant programme — measured by you, on a date?
Is the intervention upskilling, hiring, or redeployment? The Forum treats those as different strategies. So should a nomination.

If the only number in the pack is the Forum’s 39%, you have a citation, not an outcome.

Source

World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025 — digest. Confirmed as the current edition when this brief was written in October 2026.

Questions this piece answers

Which skills report should we cite in 2026?

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. It covers employer expectations for 2025–2030 and remained the current edition as of October 2026.

What is the single planning number?

Employers expect 39% of workers’ existing skill sets to be transformed or outdated by 2030, down from 44% in the 2023 edition.

What do employers say they will do about it?

85% expect to prioritise upskilling. 63% name skills gaps in the labour market as the main barrier to business transformation.