Image created with the help of DALL·E by OpenAI.
“Be patient with yourself.
Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.”
S. R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
The growth mindset learning trend continues to be substantial in 2025. The use of AI as a learning and development tool makes learning paths easy to personalise. Still, creativity, emotional intelligence and the growth mindset are skill sets important for building the future workforce.
Many organisations are facing a wave of change because of emerging technologies. Advanced technologies like AI, IoT, blockchain, augmented reality, and RPA strongly impact the labour market. About 60% of jobs can be automated, and the software market is constantly growing, and so is the skill gap that negatively impacts organisations’ capability to implement new technological developments.
Staying competitive has become a survival competition related to implementing new tech.Since 2001, when the Agile Manifesto was launched as a methodology in the IT organisations, agility practices have been continuously revitalised and embraced by other industries, particularly financial services and healthcare.
Most known agile practices like Scrum, Kanban, and Lean are being adopted across organisations. Agility methodologies are reinterpreting organisational responses, market orientation, and social computing. These principles, characterised by a continuous learning mindset, flexibility, adaptability and knowledge sharing, are becoming largely accepted as a strategic organisational strategy.
The Constant growth mindset learning trend
The growth mindset, defined as the ability to learn continuously and the willingness to adapt to change, is among the most needed to prepare the workforce for the future. Learning new skills is the first step in adapting and surviving in a constantly changing environment. More IT companies adopt agile methodology to face the changes and stay competitive.
Due to AI, the number of skills needed for a single job is increasing by 10%, and more than 30% of the skills needed a few years ago will soon be irrelevant. In this context, learning skills such as effective communication and coaching, the ability to formulate a strategy, are important for driving change and engaging and creating teams.
What is the Agility concept?
Agility relates to fast movements and alignment to changes in the environment. Seeing organisations as agile organisms makes continuous learning a strategic measure that strengthens the growth mindset. Technologies like machine learning, augmented and virtual reality have improved the learning experience.
Being agile is also about fast adaptation to changing situations and involves working and reacting with an appropriate speed. Agility is a personal trait that relates to making decisions and is a combination of flexibility, adaptability, speed and the ability to anticipate and integrate upcoming changes.
Also, how we make decisions for our future is an important variable in becoming agile as professionals. If we try to coordinate our actions and adapt our responses to these changing situations, we are already on our way to becoming agile.
When we make future investment decisions in learning new skills, we need to manage the time and costs we spend or don’t spend on learning. The easiest way to change the odds and remain competitive is to learn new skills.
Agile, fast responses, adaptation to changes and flexibility
The agility concept applies to both mental and body health and sharpness. It is used in sports and natural wilderness. In sports, agility relates to fast physical movements and rapid mental reactions. Studies show that the higher the complexity of tasks, the harder it is for us to be agile.
Agility performance, expressed by agility time, decreased when associated cognitive demands increased. To master ability our behaviours and course of actions should reach a level comparable with that of an athlete.
Agility requires quick responses and adaptation to environmental changes and a fast pace. So, being an agile team player implies that our skills involved in agility, like the speed of reaction and mental acuity, should reach higher levels. Easily switching between different mindsets and solving complex situations with a deep understanding and certainty is a behaviour that also shows agility.
New trends and different career paths
Likewise, organisational agility is equivalent to iterative development, continuous feedback, and adaptive practices. The agile approach favours cross-functional teams bringing together diverse skills to work on specific projects with different perspectives and respond to changes effectively.
So, an agile organisation is like a living and growing organism constantly learning and adapting to new circumstances. We can only aim to imitate these complex biological systems and draw inspiration from their principles and methods.
Even before the Agile Manifesto, some jobs involved responsibilities meant to apply these principles under different forms, like the waterfall methodology. Since agility has conquered the organisational environments, on the job market, there are various job titles involving agile.
From training with agility frameworks to leading roles, this approach created job opportunities in cross-industries. Several new career pathways have been created since then. Most jobs that involve and use agile practices are Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Product Manager, Product Owner, and even Project Manager.
Agile Skills and the global job market
The swift transition towards hybrid work has contributed to generating a demand for roles that mix technical leadership and agile skills. Agile roles are in demand not only in software development but across industries like finance, healthcare, and marketing.
In 2025, there is a growing demand for agile skills across sectors, especially in evolving roles combining agile coaching, product ownership, and agile project management. Agile job opportunities are strongly aligned with digital transformation, hybrid work trends, and industries prioritising flexibility and fast delivery and automation.
The main regions with in-demand jobs for agile skills are:
- The United States with the largest demand globally in tech, finance, healthcare, and AI integration areas
- The United Kingdom and Ireland have strong financial services, consulting, and technology
- DACH Region – Germany, Switzerland, Austria has a stable skills demand, particularly in tech, manufacturing, and finance
- India has seen a growth in agile roles due to tech expansion, AI-related jobs, and digital transformation
At the current date, a simple search on Indeed reveals that the number of jobs involving agile skills and knowledge is approximately:
- 51.000 jobs in the US
- 41. 000 jobs in India
- 13.000 jobs in the UK
- 5.000 jobs in the Netherlands
- 4.000 jobs in France
- 3.000 jobs in Spain and
- 2.000 jobs in Germany
Learning to be agile, an imitation of nature’s intelligence
Nature has always set examples for adaptation and evolution. We can barely imitate the intelligence and adaptability of biological organisms from nature. Living organisms like simple molecules are incredibly complex. They not only survive by reacting to rapid changes and integrating new ones, but they thrive and are a source of inspiration for us.
There are long-term changes in job markets due to automation, new work dynamics, automation, remote work, and tech innovation. This creates environments requiring new job creation in the new digital and green economies.
So, one pathway to face these challenges is to become agile and learn to integrate new AI tools in our daily routine tasks and polish our soft skills that AI tech cannot imitate, or at least not yet, like active listening, empathy, and creativity. Becoming career agile is necessary to progressively sharpen our competencies and remain aligned with the demands of the changing environment.
An agile organisation should be like a learning living organism, constantly growing and adapting to new circumstances. In such an environment, learning new skills would increase the possibilities for us to thrive and become more agile. Not having the right skill set limits employability prospects and access to new jobs.
There are a lot of free learning resources to use, but it seems that our time has become the most valuable and expensive learning resource of all. Let’s hope that “Where there is a Will, there’s a Way”. In such ever-changing environments, lifelong learning skills increase the possibilities for us to thrive and become more agile.
