As artificial intelligence reshapes how work gets done, a new joint study from Udemy and Indeed reveals a widening disconnect between how employers hire and how workers prepare for the future. While professionals are increasingly investing in skills they believe will matter tomorrow, many organizations remain focused on filling immediate roles—often overlooking the capabilities that will define long-term competitiveness.
The report, titled The Future-Proofing Instinct, draws on job posting data from Indeed and learning behavior from Udemy Business across Australia, India, the UK, and the US between September 2023 and September 2025. Together, the datasets offer a rare dual perspective on the labor market: what employers are asking for today, and what workers are betting on for the future.
At the heart of the findings is a striking imbalance around AI. Despite the technology dominating headlines and boardroom agendas, only 4% of job listings across the four countries explicitly mention AI skills. In contrast, AI-related learning accounts for nearly two-thirds—67.5%—of all employee upskilling activity. The gap is especially pronounced among technology professionals, who devote 95% of their learning time to AI, even though just 17.5% of the fastest-growing skills in tech job postings are AI-related.
The mismatch is even more dramatic in manufacturing. Across all four economies studied, employees in the sector spend around 60% of their learning time on AI skills, yet AI does not appear among the top job posting skills in manufacturing at all. Employers continue to prioritize traditional requirements such as quality control and operational expertise, while workers prepare for a more automated future that has yet to fully materialize in hiring practices.
“Professionals are developing a remarkable instinct, accelerating their skills journeys faster than ever before to prepare for what’s ahead,” said Hugo Sarrazin, President and CEO at Udemy. “The future belongs to workers who can build AI fluency while maintaining adaptive or soft skills that help teams collaborate effectively and navigate the workforce transformation. At the same time, the smartest organizations will meet employees where they are, hiring the right skills to achieve business goals and secure top talent for sustainable growth.”
Beyond AI, the research exposes another persistent tension: employers consistently emphasize the importance of soft skills, while learners focus overwhelmingly on technical capabilities. Skills such as communication, leadership, and critical thinking appear repeatedly among the fastest-growing requirements in Indeed’s job data. Yet these same skills are largely absent from Udemy’s list of fastest-growing learning topics. Employees appear to be gravitating toward hard, certifiable skills they can clearly measure and master, even as organizations continue to identify soft skills as essential to workplace effectiveness—particularly in AI-enabled environments where human judgment and collaboration remain critical.
The pace of AI adoption also varies sharply by industry and geography. Professional services firms are already hiring actively for AI skills across all countries studied, reflecting the sector’s early integration of automation and data-driven tools. Manufacturing tells a different story, with workers moving ahead of employers in preparing for AI-led change. The technology sector remains the most advanced, with upskilling efforts overwhelmingly centered on AI and growing employer demand—especially in the US, where AI skills now appear in nearly 30% of tech job postings, and in the UK, where they account for around 20%.
Some of the fastest shifts are occurring in Australia and the US technology markets. Over the two-year period analyzed, the share of AI-related skills in Australian tech job postings surged from 3.2% to 22.3%. In the US, the increase was nearly as steep, rising from 5.8% to 21.9%. These jumps suggest that while many employers have been slow to adjust, inflection points are emerging rapidly in certain markets.
“Indeed Hiring Lab’s job market data, along with Udemy’s workforce skills data, gives us a unique view of how work is evolving,” said Laura Ullrich, Director of Economic Research at Indeed Hiring Lab. “AI emerging as a top-growing skill across industries isn’t surprising, but the employees who pair technical expertise with strong soft skills will be best positioned to thrive.”
Taken together, the findings point to a workforce caught between urgency and foresight. Employers, under pressure to meet near-term business needs, continue to hire for today’s roles. Workers, sensing deeper structural change, are preparing for what comes next. Bridging this gap will require organizations to align hiring strategies with long-term skill trajectories—and for employees to balance technical mastery with the human capabilities that AI cannot replace.