Tricia Friedman

Tomorrow’s Classifieds

triciafriedman.com · The Futures Desk

Tomorrow’s Classifieds

Thirty-five job ads from 2031. None of these jobs exist yet, but every one grows out of a real job and a real trend you can find today. Open any ad to see the signals and sources behind it.

Browse the ads Use them with a group How they were built
How to use them

Two questions, every card

1One problem this job will need to work on is…
2One small connection our learning has with this work is…
  1. Deal the cards. Give each table one ad, or let them choose from a theme below.
  2. Read it aloud. The bold word is explained at the foot of each card.
  3. Answer the two questions. Keep the second answer small. Small, visible connections are where change starts.
  4. Check the evidence. Open “Why it’s plausible” and ask whether the signals convince you.
  5. Write ad no. 36. Pick a problem you can see from where you sit and write the 2031 ad for the job that solves it.
The classifieds

We’re hiring, 2031

We’re hiring, 2031: Machine Values Steward. Your tasks will include defending, in public, the principles an AI model trains on; testing them in Yoruba, Korean and Portuguese with red-team agents and fairly paid human raters; finding where they clash; and publishing the fixes as open test suites.
Ad 01Machines on the team

Machine Values Steward

Grows from today’s AI trust-and-safety leads, red-teamers and the philosophers AI labs now hire

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include defending, in public, the principles an AI model trains on; testing them in Yoruba, Korean and Portuguese with red-team agents and fairly paid human raters; finding where they clash; and publishing the fixes as open test suites.

Red-team agents: AI systems set up to attack another AI’s rules on purpose, so weaknesses are found before the public finds them.

Signals

  • AI labs now publish the principles their models are trained on: Anthropic’s constitution for Claude (2026) and OpenAI’s Model Spec.
  • AI-related philosophy job postings rose from about 1% (2013) to 16% (2025), mostly in universities.
  • Researchers warn that the human raters who test AI are often uncredited and underpaid (Gray & Suri, Ghost Work).

Sources

Ask the roomWhose values should an AI be trained on, and who gets to check?

We’re hiring, 2031: Swarm Agronomist. Your tasks will include earning a farming co-op’s trust; flying its small drone swarm, whose multispectral cameras often catch fungal stress before the eye can; letting soil sensors set the dose and rain forecasts pick the hour; and making sure the co-op, not the vendor, owns the field data.
Ad 02Machines on the team

Swarm Agronomist

Grows from today’s Crop advisers, agricultural drone pilots and India’s ‘Drone Didi’ spraying entrepreneurs

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include earning a farming co-op’s trust; flying its small drone swarm, whose multispectral cameras often catch fungal stress before the eye can; letting soil sensors set the dose and rain forecasts pick the hour; and making sure the co-op, not the vendor, owns the field data.

Multispectral: cameras that see light beyond human vision, like near-infrared, which reveals plant stress early.

Signals

  • India’s Drone Didi scheme trains women’s self-help groups as paid drone-spraying providers, with an 80% subsidy.
  • In the US, Hylio holds an FAA exemption for one pilot to fly a swarm of up to three spray drones.
  • Multispectral cameras can flag crop stress before the eye can see it.

Sources

Ask the roomWho should own a farm’s data: the farmer, the co-op or the drone company?

We’re hiring, 2031: School Social Prescriber. Your tasks will include following up when a student’s AI tutor flags they’ve gone withdrawn; asking what matters to them, not what’s wrong; writing a social prescription for a climbing club, choir or community garden; sharing notes safely between school and doctor; and tracking whether it helped.
Ad 03Connected lives

School Social Prescriber

Grows from today’s NHS social prescribing link workers for children and young people, and school counsellors

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include following up when a student’s AI tutor flags they’ve gone withdrawn; asking what matters to them, not what’s wrong; writing a social prescription for a climbing club, choir or community garden; sharing notes safely between school and doctor; and tracking whether it helped.

Social prescription: a referral to community activities, like sport, arts or nature groups, to support wellbeing alongside medical care.

Signals

  • More than 3,300 social prescribing link workers already work in GP teams in England; the National Academy for Social Prescribing wants specialist children and young people’s link workers in every area.
  • Its ‘Connected to Thrive’ vision names schools among the places that can connect young people to support, and social prescribing now features in England’s Youth Strategy.
  • Early evidence is promising but small: Barnardo’s LINK Cumbria service suggests about £1.80 of value per £1 spent, and researchers call for better data to judge what works.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat would ‘what matters to you, not what’s wrong’ look like in our school?

We’re hiring, 2031: Microgrid Conductor. Your tasks will include keeping 200 remote homes warm through a −40°C week; training local apprentices with drone thermal maps so the worst leaks get fixed first; and balancing heat pumps and backup heat against wind, battery and diesel on a digital twin of every house.
Ad 04A changing planet

Microgrid Conductor

Grows from today’s Remote-community energy operators, heat-pump installers and solar technicians

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include keeping 200 remote homes warm through a −40°C week; training local apprentices with drone thermal maps so the worst leaks get fixed first; and balancing heat pumps and backup heat against wind, battery and diesel on a digital twin of every house.

Digital twin: a live virtual copy of a real building, fed by sensors, used to test changes before making them.

Signals

  • Old Crow Solar in Yukon is owned by the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and cuts about 189,000 litres of diesel a year.
  • Yukon monitoring shows heat pumps can work in cold northern climates, though diesel backup remains.
  • The IEA estimates heat-pump supply and installation could need more than 1.3 million workers by 2030, nearly triple today.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat would a 19-year-old do in their first week in this job?

We’re hiring, 2031: Neighbourhood Heat Marshal. Your tasks will include leading the door-knock teams that keep 4,000 neighbours safe in a heatwave; using street sensors, satellite heat maps and council-approved mobility data to see which areas face dangerous heat tomorrow; and routing cooling buses and six-language alerts.
Ad 05A changing planet

Neighbourhood Heat Marshal

Grows from today’s Emergency planners, public-health outreach workers and community responders

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include leading the door-knock teams that keep 4,000 neighbours safe in a heatwave; using street sensors, satellite heat maps and council-approved mobility data to see which areas face dangerous heat tomorrow; and routing cooling buses and six-language alerts.

Mobility data: anonymised phone-location data showing how many people are where, and when.

Signals

  • In Thailand, a heat-triggered insurance pilot pays informal domestic and delivery workers automatically when temperatures pass a threshold (Ipsos).
  • Climate attention is shifting from prevention to adaptation: protecting people from heat that is already here.
  • WHO projects 1 in 6 people will be 60+ by 2030; older people are among the most at risk in heatwaves.

Sources

Ask the roomWho in our community would be hardest to reach in a heatwave, and who already knows them?

We’re hiring, 2031: Herd Methane Technician. Your tasks will include working alongside herders to cut methane without cutting milk; reading breath-collar and drone data; sampling gut microbes; adjusting feed with an AI app; and building the evidence herders need to earn credit for every tonne cut — with the data staying theirs.
Ad 06Living technology

Herd Methane Technician

Grows from today’s Livestock extension officers, herders and lab technicians

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include working alongside herders to cut methane without cutting milk; reading breath-collar and drone data; sampling gut microbes; adjusting feed with an AI app; and building the evidence herders need to earn credit for every tonne cut — with the data staying theirs.

Gut microbes: the bacteria in a cow’s stomach that digest grass and produce methane.

Signals

  • ILRI in Kenya made the first direct methane measurements from free-grazing pastoral cattle, using breath collars, and has tested drones for the same job.
  • New Zealand breeds low-methane sheep and aims to cut methane 24–47% below 2017 levels by 2050.
  • Verra has a methodology for crediting methane cuts from cattle feed; sequencing gut microbes on working farms is still research-stage.

Sources

Ask the roomIf a herder’s data earns carbon credits, who should get paid?

We’re hiring, 2031: Street-Layer Game Director. Your tasks will include running a town-wide story game that plays out through AI glasses on real streets; working with the council to geofence schools, memorials and private homes out of play; letting AI characters improvise without leading kids into traffic; and paying the local businesses the game sends crowds to.
Ad 07The future of play

Street-Layer Game Director

Grows from today’s Game designers, live-event producers and location-based game teams

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include running a town-wide story game that plays out through AI glasses on real streets; working with the council to geofence schools, memorials and private homes out of play; letting AI characters improvise without leading kids into traffic; and paying the local businesses the game sends crowds to.

Geofence: a virtual boundary on a map that switches content on or off when someone enters an area.

Signals

  • IDC expects smart-glasses shipments to grow from about 13.6 million in 2026 to 27.3 million by 2030.
  • Omdia expects AR display glasses to outsell VR headsets by 2030.
  • China has restricted AI companion apps for minors (Ipsos): a sign of the rules AI characters in public games will face.

Sources

Ask the roomWho decides what goes on the digital layer over our town?

We’re hiring, 2031: Care Choreographer. Your tasks will include planning each night in a 40-bed care home where robot helpers lift and turn residents; using ambient sensing to decide who needs a person now; matching each resident’s life story to the students and neighbours who visit; and proving, resident by resident, that saved hours go to talk, bathing and touch, not staff cuts.
Ad 08Longer lives

Care Choreographer

Grows from today’s Care-home managers, nurses and personal care aides

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include planning each night in a 40-bed care home where robot helpers lift and turn residents; using ambient sensing to decide who needs a person now; matching each resident’s life story to the students and neighbours who visit; and proving, resident by resident, that saved hours go to talk, bathing and touch, not staff cuts.

Ambient sensing: sensors built into a room, like low-power radar, that notice breathing, sleep and falls without cameras or wearables.

Signals

  • Japanese nursing homes that adopted care robots employed and kept more caregivers, not fewer (Stanford/Tokyo study).
  • The ILO estimates the care economy could create up to 299 million jobs by 2035.
  • Over a third of people expect to live to 100, and attention is shifting from lifespan to healthspan (Ipsos).

Sources

Ask the roomIf machines save carers time, how do we make sure it goes back to people?

We’re hiring, 2031: Interpretation Integrity Officer. Your tasks will include watching a live map of every AI-translated conversation in a hospital, across 60 languages and sign; stepping in by video when the AI’s confidence score drops on a diagnosis or consent; teaching it local dialects and taboos; and making sure each patient hears the doctor in a voice they trust.
Ad 09Languages & species

Interpretation Integrity Officer

Grows from today’s Medical interpreters and hospital cultural mediators

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include watching a live map of every AI-translated conversation in a hospital, across 60 languages and sign; stepping in by video when the AI’s confidence score drops on a diagnosis or consent; teaching it local dialects and taboos; and making sure each patient hears the doctor in a voice they trust.

Confidence score: how sure an AI says it is of an answer; a rough guide, not a guarantee, to when to check.

Signals

  • Google’s Gemini Live Translate (2026) offers speech-to-speech translation in 70+ languages.
  • A JAMA study found machine-translated discharge instructions were mostly accurate, but 2–8% of sentences could have caused significant harm.
  • Oxford research links rising machine translation to slower growth in translator jobs.

Sources

Ask the roomWhen should a person, not a machine, be the one who explains?

We’re hiring, 2031: Language Data Steward. Your tasks will include recording elders; paying and crediting every transcriber by name; fine-tuning a speech model for a language big platforms ignore; and negotiating a licence that gives the community control of the model and a share of its value.
Ad 10Languages & species

Language Data Steward

Grows from today’s Community linguists, oral historians and AI data annotators

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include recording elders; paying and crediting every transcriber by name; fine-tuning a speech model for a language big platforms ignore; and negotiating a licence that gives the community control of the model and a share of its value.

Fine-tuning: further training an existing AI model on a small, specific dataset, such as one language.

Signals

  • Masakhane brings together 1,000+ researchers across 30 African countries to build language AI.
  • AI4Bharat builds models for India’s 22 scheduled languages with 100+ translators.
  • Researchers flag that the transcribers behind language AI are often the least visible workers.

Sources

Ask the roomWho should own a language’s data?

We’re hiring, 2031: Cetacean Signal Liaison. Your tasks will include keeping a hydrophone array in the water with a local field crew; training the AI that sorts sperm-whale clicks; warning ships when whales are detected near the lane; and chairing the ethics panel that decides whether anyone plays a sound back.
Ad 11Languages & species

Cetacean Signal Liaison

Grows from today’s Marine biologists, acoustic field technicians and AI researchers

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include keeping a hydrophone array in the water with a local field crew; training the AI that sorts sperm-whale clicks; warning ships when whales are detected near the lane; and chairing the ethics panel that decides whether anyone plays a sound back.

Hydrophone array: a network of underwater microphones recording sound across a stretch of sea.

Signals

  • Project CETI uses AI to study sperm-whale click patterns off Dominica.
  • Detection systems can warn ships when whales are near shipping lanes.
  • No animal ‘language’ has been translated, and playing sounds back to whales is debated.

Sources

Ask the roomShould humans ever play a sound back to a whale? Who gets to decide?

We’re hiring, 2031: Mixed-Reality Party Coordinator. Your tasks will include hosting a Sim’s 16th birthday that spills into ten guests’ living rooms through MR glasses; pinning the cake to each real table with spatial anchors; timing the toast across four time zones; checking ages on the guest list; and setting up a low-stimulation room for anyone who needs a break.
Ad 12The future of play

Mixed-Reality Party Coordinator

Grows from today’s Event planners, online community moderators and Sims content creators

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include hosting a Sim’s 16th birthday that spills into ten guests’ living rooms through MR glasses; pinning the cake to each real table with spatial anchors; timing the toast across four time zones; checking ages on the guest list; and setting up a low-stimulation room for anyone who needs a break.

Spatial anchors: saved points that fix a virtual object to a spot in a real room, so it stays put as you move.

Signals

  • EA’s 2026 roadmap reframes its next Sims project (Project Rene) as a mobile-first social multiplayer game.
  • Smart glasses are forecast to reach about 27 million shipments a year by 2030 (IDC).

Sources

Ask the roomWhat makes a celebration feel together when people are in different rooms?

We’re hiring, 2031: Agent Fleet Supervisor. Your tasks will include running the AI agents that process a farming county’s drought-relief claims; signing off every denial yourself; reading the audit trail when an agent can’t explain a decision; driving out to farms the data gets wrong; and training the two clerks who used to do the work to supervise it.
Ad 13Machines on the team

Agent Fleet Supervisor

Grows from today’s Benefits caseworkers and office supervisors

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include running the AI agents that process a farming county’s drought-relief claims; signing off every denial yourself; reading the audit trail when an agent can’t explain a decision; driving out to farms the data gets wrong; and training the two clerks who used to do the work to supervise it.

Audit trail: a step-by-step record of what an AI did and why, kept so a person can check it later.

Signals

  • WEF imagines people becoming ‘agent orchestrators’ who direct portfolios of AI agents, and warns some firms may hand decisions to agents with little oversight.
  • Of 10,000+ executives surveyed, 54% expect AI to displace jobs and only 12% expect higher wages.
  • Stanford research finds hiring of 22–25-year-olds in AI-exposed jobs has fallen.

Sources

Ask the roomWhich decisions should always need a human signature?

We’re hiring, 2031: Two-Way Trades Mentor. Your tasks will include pairing retiring electricians with apprentices who used to run drive-throughs and call centres; fitting old schools with solar and bus chargers; setting up reverse mentoring so the apprentice teaches the AI tools while the master teaches the craft; and signing off every job a robot arm helped with.
Ad 14A changing planet

Two-Way Trades Mentor

Grows from today’s Electricians, apprenticeship coordinators and career changers

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include pairing retiring electricians with apprentices who used to run drive-throughs and call centres; fitting old schools with solar and bus chargers; setting up reverse mentoring so the apprentice teaches the AI tools while the master teaches the craft; and signing off every job a robot arm helped with.

Reverse mentoring: newer workers teaching experienced colleagues new tools while learning the trade from them.

Signals

  • McKinsey projects about 12 million US occupational shifts by 2030, over 84% out of food service, customer service, office support and production.
  • Lower-wage workers are up to 14 times more likely to need to switch jobs; women 1.5 times more likely than men.
  • Construction is already about 400,000 workers short, and solar installers are among the fastest-growing US jobs (+37%, BLS).

Sources

Ask the roomWhat does a career changer bring that a school-leaver doesn’t?

We’re hiring, 2031: Community Trust Verifier. Your tasks will include checking which wildfire photos, voice notes and videos are real before the valley’s community radio shares them; reading each file’s content credentials; phoning the rancher who filmed it; and running Saturday sessions at the library where grandparents and teens learn to check together.
Ad 15Trust close to home

Community Trust Verifier

Grows from today’s Local journalists, fact-checkers, librarians and community radio hosts

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include checking which wildfire photos, voice notes and videos are real before the valley’s community radio shares them; reading each file’s content credentials; phoning the rancher who filmed it; and running Saturday sessions at the library where grandparents and teens learn to check together.

Content credentials: a tamper-evident tag showing who made a photo or video, with what tool, and how it was changed.

Signals

  • Content credentials (the C2PA standard) attach a tamper-evident record of how a photo or video was made.
  • WEF expects trust to shift to verified sources and human go-betweens as AI content overtakes human content.
  • Ipsos finds trust is moving from institutions to people close to home.

Sources

Ask the roomWho in our community do people already go to when they’re not sure something is true?

We’re hiring, 2031: Tabletop Playtest Director. Your tasks will include running playtest nights that sort the year’s 1,700 new board games from the ones that will last; testing each rulebook in 12 languages; checking every hybrid game still plays when the app goes down; making sure colour-blind players can read the board; and bringing the best to Educators Day.
Ad 16The future of play

Tabletop Playtest Director

Grows from today’s Board-game developers, playtesters and game localisers

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include running playtest nights that sort the year’s 1,700 new board games from the ones that will last; testing each rulebook in 12 languages; checking every hybrid game still plays when the app goes down; making sure colour-blind players can read the board; and bringing the best to Educators Day.

Hybrid game: a board game that uses a companion app for rules, story or scoring alongside real cards and pieces.

Signals

  • SPIEL Essen 2025 drew a record 220,000 visitors, with 948 exhibitors from 50 nations and more than 1,700 new games.
  • Its Educators Day moved onto the main stage.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat makes a game last, and what could a classroom playtest teach?

We’re hiring, 2031: Rescue Scenario Designer. Your tasks will include building the smoke-filled stairwells, blocked doors and collapsed rooms that firefighting robots must clear at the World Humanoid Robot Games; writing the scoring with veteran firefighters; setting each task’s autonomy weight; and making sure courses test what crews need, not what looks good on a livestream.
Ad 17Machines on the team

Rescue Scenario Designer

Grows from today’s Firefighter trainers, competition designers and robotics engineers

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include building the smoke-filled stairwells, blocked doors and collapsed rooms that firefighting robots must clear at the World Humanoid Robot Games; writing the scoring with veteran firefighters; setting each task’s autonomy weight; and making sure courses test what crews need, not what looks good on a livestream.

Autonomy weight: a scoring multiplier that rewards robots for finishing a task with no human steering them.

Signals

  • The 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games had 2,056 robots from 666 teams in 51 events, including firefighting and rescue scenarios.
  • In some scenario events, robots steered remotely by a person earn only half points.

Sources

Ask the roomWho should design the test: the engineers or the firefighters?

We’re hiring, 2031: Autonomy Referee. Your tasks will include judging the fully autonomous sprints and relays; checking every run’s logs for hidden teleoperation; stopping a race when a robot overheats or can’t brake; and publishing, task by task, what robots really did on their own and where a person still had to step in.
Ad 18Machines on the team

Autonomy Referee

Grows from today’s Sports officials, test engineers and auditors

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include judging the fully autonomous sprints and relays; checking every run’s logs for hidden teleoperation; stopping a race when a robot overheats or can’t brake; and publishing, task by task, what robots really did on their own and where a person still had to step in.

Teleoperation: a person controlling a robot remotely, like a drone pilot, rather than the robot acting alone.

Signals

  • A humanoid robot ran 100 m in 8.86 seconds at the 2026 Games, faster than Usain Bolt.
  • Some robots also tripped, broke apart or caught fire; Forbes called the Games one of robotics’ most honest documents.

Sources

Ask the roomHow would we know what a machine really did on its own?

We’re hiring, 2031: Robot Skills Demonstrator. Your tasks will include teaching hotel robots to make beds, fold towels and plug in a cable by doing it yourself in a motion-capture suit; feeding thousands of runs into imitation learning; spotting the shortcuts robots copy; and earning a royalty on every robot that learns from you.
Ad 19Machines on the team

Robot Skills Demonstrator

Grows from today’s Hotel housekeepers, motion-capture performers and robot trainers

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include teaching hotel robots to make beds, fold towels and plug in a cable by doing it yourself in a motion-capture suit; feeding thousands of runs into imitation learning; spotting the shortcuts robots copy; and earning a royalty on every robot that learns from you.

Imitation learning: training a robot by having it copy many recorded examples of a person doing the task.

Signals

  • Household and hotel tasks are now scenario events at the World Humanoid Robot Games.
  • NBC News asked whether robots that outrun humans can plug in a cable; robots learn such tasks by copying recorded human demonstrations.
  • McKinsey expects lower-wage service workers to be the most likely to need new roles.

Sources

Ask the roomIf a robot learns a skill from you, should you be paid every time it uses it?

We’re hiring, 2031: School Cluster Producer. Your tasks will include running a school cluster that shares one physics teacher across five island schools by live video; lining up five timetables so every class can join; running hands-on labs in person each week; and making sure students at the smallest school get heard on screen.
Ad 20Rural futures

School Cluster Producer

Grows from today’s Teachers in small schools, timetablers and distance-learning coordinators

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include running a school cluster that shares one physics teacher across five island schools by live video; lining up five timetables so every class can join; running hands-on labs in person each week; and making sure students at the smallest school get heard on screen.

School cluster: a group of small schools that share teachers, classes and resources so each can offer more.

Signals

  • The OECD finds almost half of rural places are losing population.
  • Networked schools in Finland and Quebec stream lessons between small schools; lining up timetables is one of the hardest parts.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat would it take for a student in a class of six to feel part of a class of sixty?

We’re hiring, 2031: Rural Innovation Broker. Your tasks will include connecting a fishing village’s social enterprise to university labs and overseas buyers; running the living lab where residents test telehealth and delivery drones before anyone scales them; writing the grants; and making sure the profits stay in the village.
Ad 21Rural futures

Rural Innovation Broker

Grows from today’s Economic development officers, grant writers and social entrepreneurs

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include connecting a fishing village’s social enterprise to university labs and overseas buyers; running the living lab where residents test telehealth and delivery drones before anyone scales them; writing the grants; and making sure the profits stay in the village.

Living lab: a real place where residents help design and test new services in daily life before they spread.

Signals

  • The OECD highlights Fogo Island’s social enterprise, Scotland’s Highlands and Islands, and Switzerland’s tourism test zones.
  • It recommends innovation brokers who link rural entrepreneurs to universities and buyers, and living labs for testing services.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat could our school test as a living lab with its community?

We’re hiring, 2031: Drone Delivery Technician. Your tasks will include keeping a valley’s medicine drones flying through sleet and wind; getting prescriptions to elders 40 km from a pharmacy; flying beyond visual line of sight under the region’s trial rules; training two local teens as apprentices; and fixing what breaks before the 7 a.m. run.
Ad 22Rural futures

Drone Delivery Technician

Grows from today’s Drone pilots, aircraft maintenance technicians and pharmacy couriers

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include keeping a valley’s medicine drones flying through sleet and wind; getting prescriptions to elders 40 km from a pharmacy; flying beyond visual line of sight under the region’s trial rules; training two local teens as apprentices; and fixing what breaks before the 7 a.m. run.

Beyond visual line of sight: flying a drone further than the pilot can see, which needs special permission and remote tracking.

Signals

  • The OECD says drone delivery could transform services in sparse areas, but rural regions lack people qualified to run and maintain drones.
  • US hospital systems such as Advocate Health are building drone networks for prescriptions and lab samples from 2027.

Sources

Ask the roomWhich local skills already transfer to this job?

We’re hiring, 2031: Wetland Restoration Crew Lead. Your tasks will include leading the crew that rewets a city’s drained wetland as a nature-based solution to floods, so water soaks into reeds instead of homes; scheduling dawn shifts so no one works through dangerous heat; mapping recovery by drone; and turning seasonal contracts into year-round jobs.
Ad 23A changing planet

Wetland Restoration Crew Lead

Grows from today’s Conservation crews, restoration ecologists and construction supervisors

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include leading the crew that rewets a city’s drained wetland as a nature-based solution to floods, so water soaks into reeds instead of homes; scheduling dawn shifts so no one works through dangerous heat; mapping recovery by drone; and turning seasonal contracts into year-round jobs.

Nature-based solution: using healthy ecosystems, like wetlands, mangroves or forests, to solve problems such as flooding.

Signals

  • About 60 million people already work in nature-based solutions; up to 32 million more jobs could come by 2030.
  • Many of these jobs are temporary, informal or project-based, and heat stress is a growing risk.
  • Kigali, Rwanda, is restoring the Nyandungu wetlands to reduce flooding.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat would make this a job someone could build a life on?

We’re hiring, 2031: Native Seed Bank Keeper. Your tasks will include running a regional seed bank for 200 native species; paying local and Indigenous collectors as year-round staff, not seasonal day labour; choosing climate-matched seed for each restoration site; and testing which seedlings survive the hotter summers ahead.
Ad 24A changing planet

Native Seed Bank Keeper

Grows from today’s Seed collectors, nursery managers and Indigenous land stewards

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include running a regional seed bank for 200 native species; paying local and Indigenous collectors as year-round staff, not seasonal day labour; choosing climate-matched seed for each restoration site; and testing which seedlings survive the hotter summers ahead.

Climate-matched seed: seed gathered from places already as hot or dry as a site is expected to become.

Signals

  • Women hold about a third of nature-based-solutions jobs and young people about 14% (ILO).
  • Most training in the field is short-term and lacks formal certification.
  • Australia is doubling its Indigenous rangers to 3,800 by 2030.

Sources

Ask the roomWhose knowledge of local plants is already in our community, and is it paid?

We’re hiring, 2031: Restoration Co-Design Facilitator. Your tasks will include running the hillside meetings where farmers, elders and students decide together which slopes to terrace and replant; making sure payments for ecosystem services reach the families who did the work; and teaching the school’s science class to monitor soil and water each month.
Ad 25A changing planet

Restoration Co-Design Facilitator

Grows from today’s Community liaisons, environmental educators and field facilitators

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include running the hillside meetings where farmers, elders and students decide together which slopes to terrace and replant; making sure payments for ecosystem services reach the families who did the work; and teaching the school’s science class to monitor soil and water each month.

Payments for ecosystem services: paying people to protect nature that benefits others, like clean water downstream.

Signals

  • In an ILO survey of nature-based projects, the key occupations named include community liaisons, field facilitators, environmental educators and specialists in participatory approaches.
  • Payments for ecosystem services are part of how these projects are funded.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat could our students monitor in our own watershed?

We’re hiring, 2031: Shared Apprenticeship Coordinator. Your tasks will include running a shared apprenticeship across six family workshops in a valley that makes surgical instruments; rotating each apprentice through milling, robots and quality checks; recruiting young women into a sector where 7 in 10 workers are men; and helping retiring owners pass on their know-how.
Ad 26Rural futures

Shared Apprenticeship Coordinator

Grows from today’s Apprenticeship coordinators and owners of small family manufacturers

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include running a shared apprenticeship across six family workshops in a valley that makes surgical instruments; rotating each apprentice through milling, robots and quality checks; recruiting young women into a sector where 7 in 10 workers are men; and helping retiring owners pass on their know-how.

Shared apprenticeship: several small firms jointly employ one apprentice, rotating them so the training cost and risk are shared.

Signals

  • Rural regions hold about 28% of the OECD population but 48% of its manufacturing jobs.
  • Men hold 70% of manufacturing jobs, and most rural firms have fewer than 10 employees.
  • Tuttlingen, Germany, grew from shoemaking into a hub for surgical instruments.

Sources

Ask the roomHow could small employers near our school share one apprentice?

We’re hiring, 2031: Low-Carbon Factory Retrofitter. Your tasks will include switching a rural furniture plant’s drying kilns from diesel to heat from its own wood waste and solar; tracking each chair’s embodied carbon for overseas buyers; retraining the night shift to run the new controls; and proving green jobs can grow outside big cities.
Ad 27Rural futures

Low-Carbon Factory Retrofitter

Grows from today’s Plant engineers, energy auditors and machine operators

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include switching a rural furniture plant’s drying kilns from diesel to heat from its own wood waste and solar; tracking each chair’s embodied carbon for overseas buyers; retraining the night shift to run the new controls; and proving green jobs can grow outside big cities.

Embodied carbon: all the emissions released making and moving a product, before anyone uses it.

Signals

  • Green jobs make up as little as 5% of work in remote rural regions, against up to 30% in capital cities (OECD).
  • Women hold only 28% of green-task jobs.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat would it take for green jobs to grow where our students live?

We’re hiring, 2031: Cardiac Drone Dispatcher. Your tasks will include launching an AED by drone alongside every ambulance sent to a suspected cardiac arrest; coaching the nearest bystander by phone to open the box and place the pads; routing lab samples between hospitals by air between emergencies; and deciding when dark, rain or wind means the ambulance goes alone.
Ad 28Longer lives

Cardiac Drone Dispatcher

Grows from today’s Emergency dispatchers, paramedics and drone pilots

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include launching an AED by drone alongside every ambulance sent to a suspected cardiac arrest; coaching the nearest bystander by phone to open the box and place the pads; routing lab samples between hospitals by air between emergencies; and deciding when dark, rain or wind means the ambulance goes alone.

AED: automated external defibrillator, a portable device that talks anyone through shocking a stopped heart back into rhythm.

Signals

  • In Sweden, AED drones can be dispatched automatically alongside the ambulance to a suspected cardiac arrest.
  • In a Karolinska Institutet study (The Lancet Digital Health, 2023), drones arrived before the ambulance in more than half of cases, about three minutes earlier on average.
  • In 2026 a drone-delivered AED was used to shock a cardiac-arrest patient in Borås, Sweden. Early trials didn’t fly drones in darkness, rain or high wind.

Sources

Ask the roomHow many people in this room could use an AED today?

We’re hiring, 2031: Cyber Circuit Rider. Your tasks will include protecting the water plants of nine towns too small to hire their own security team; walling off each plant’s operational technology from the internet; running drills where operators switch to manual in minutes; and teaching the night shift to spot an intruder before the chlorine levels change.
Ad 29Rural futures

Cyber Circuit Rider

Grows from today’s Water-plant operators, IT technicians and the water sector’s existing ‘circuit riders’

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include protecting the water plants of nine towns too small to hire their own security team; walling off each plant’s operational technology from the internet; running drills where operators switch to manual in minutes; and teaching the night shift to spot an intruder before the chlorine levels change.

Operational technology: the computers and controllers that physically run machines, like pumps, valves and power switches.

Signals

  • In July 2026 a coordinated attack hit the control systems of more than 30 Minnesota water and wastewater utilities; federal agencies are investigating whether it is part of a wider campaign.
  • Staff restored operations with manual overrides after intruders locked out automated controls.
  • Information security analysts are among the fastest-growing US jobs (+21%, BLS).

Sources

Ask the roomWhich skills in our community would still work if the computers went down?

We’re hiring, 2031: Space-Made Medicine Quality Lead. Your tasks will include meeting each factory capsule as it lands on a community-owned desert range; checking that drug crystals grown in microgravity survived re-entry; writing the first safety rules regulators will use for medicine made in orbit; and making sure the landing fees stay with the community.
Ad 30Beyond the planet

Space-Made Medicine Quality Lead

Grows from today’s Pharmaceutical quality inspectors and spaceflight recovery crews

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include meeting each factory capsule as it lands on a community-owned desert range; checking that drug crystals grown in microgravity survived re-entry; writing the first safety rules regulators will use for medicine made in orbit; and making sure the landing fees stay with the community.

Microgravity: the near-weightlessness of orbit, which lets some crystals grow larger and more evenly than on Earth.

Signals

  • Varda Space Industries has completed six re-entry missions with capsules built to make drugs in orbit, and in 2026 began working with United Therapeutics on drugs for rare lung diseases.
  • BioOrbit (London) raised £9.8 million to crystallise cancer antibodies in orbit.
  • It is still unresolved whether regulators will accept medicine made in space.

Sources

Ask the roomWho should benefit when a factory lands on someone’s land?

We’re hiring, 2031: Canine Enrichment Designer. Your tasks will include designing puzzle feeders and scent games for dogs home alone all day; testing each prototype with a vet behaviourist; reading collar data to tell a calm dog from a merely busy one; studying which soundboard buttons dogs really use; and making sure no smart toy sells owners comfort instead of company.
Ad 31The future of play

Canine Enrichment Designer

Grows from today’s Toy designers, dog trainers and veterinary behaviourists

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include designing puzzle feeders and scent games for dogs home alone all day; testing each prototype with a vet behaviourist; reading collar data to tell a calm dog from a merely busy one; studying which soundboard buttons dogs really use; and making sure no smart toy sells owners comfort instead of company.

Soundboard buttons: recordable buttons that each play a word, like ‘outside’, which some dogs learn to press to ask for things.

Signals

  • Interactive enrichment toys for dogs were worth about $126 million in 2025 and are forecast to more than double by 2034, growing about 13% a year.
  • Puzzle and treat-dispensing toys are the fastest-growing type, driven by owners’ interest in their dogs’ mental stimulation.

Sources

Ask the roomWhen does a smart product offer comfort instead of company, for pets or for people?

We’re hiring, 2031: Carbon Removal Verifier. Your tasks will include checking 300 farms that use enhanced rock weathering, sampling soil and streams against an AI model’s estimate; testing new AI-designed filters that pull CO₂ from the air; refusing any carbon credit the data can’t back; and showing farmers whether the rock also lifts their yields.
Ad 32A changing planet

Carbon Removal Verifier

Grows from today’s Soil scientists, agronomists and carbon-credit auditors

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include checking 300 farms that use enhanced rock weathering, sampling soil and streams against an AI model’s estimate; testing new AI-designed filters that pull CO₂ from the air; refusing any carbon credit the data can’t back; and showing farmers whether the rock also lifts their yields.

Enhanced rock weathering: spreading crushed rock like basalt on fields so rain slowly locks carbon from the air into minerals.

Signals

  • Meta, Georgia Tech and Cusp AI released an open dataset of 100 million+ data points to help AI find better CO₂-capture materials.
  • Proving how much carbon enhanced rock weathering removes is the main bottleneck; a 2026 study uses a weather AI model to estimate it, and scientists still debate how to measure it.

Sources

Ask the roomHow would we check a claim we can’t see happening?

We’re hiring, 2031: Genetic Rescue Steward. Your tasks will include using AI to compare ancient DNA from fossils with the genomes of living relatives; applying the same tools to genetic rescue for red wolves with only a few dozen left; and chairing the panel of ecologists, ranchers and Indigenous nations that decides whether any revived animal ever leaves the lab.
Ad 33Living technology

Genetic Rescue Steward

Grows from today’s Conservation geneticists, wildlife managers and ethics boards

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include using AI to compare ancient DNA from fossils with the genomes of living relatives; applying the same tools to genetic rescue for red wolves with only a few dozen left; and chairing the panel of ecologists, ranchers and Indigenous nations that decides whether any revived animal ever leaves the lab.

Genetic rescue: adding genetic variety to a small, inbred population so it can survive and adapt.

Signals

  • In 2025 Colossal Biosciences announced ‘dire wolves’ bred from ancient DNA; scientists are split on whether they are true dire wolves or edited grey wolves.
  • The same team cloned four critically endangered red wolves; fewer than two dozen are thought to be left in the wild.

Sources

Ask the roomShould we bring back an extinct species, or spend that effort saving ones still here?

We’re hiring, 2031: Deep-Space Crew Wellbeing Coach. Your tasks will include coaching a four-person crew through a three-year Mars mission when every message home takes up to 20 minutes; training an onboard AI counsellor to notice sleep, voice and mood shifts and to know its limits; rehearsing conflict before launch; and scheduling the video letters that keep families close.
Ad 34Beyond the planet

Deep-Space Crew Wellbeing Coach

Grows from today’s Astronaut psychologists, Antarctic station support staff and team coaches

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include coaching a four-person crew through a three-year Mars mission when every message home takes up to 20 minutes; training an onboard AI counsellor to notice sleep, voice and mood shifts and to know its limits; rehearsing conflict before launch; and scheduling the video letters that keep families close.

AI counsellor: an AI system that offers support and coping tools, trained to hand over to a human when it reaches its limits.

Signals

  • NASA’s CHAPEA kept a four-person crew in a 3D-printed mock Mars habitat for a year; its HERA missions build message delays up to five minutes.
  • On a real Mars trip, messages can take up to 20 minutes each way, and researchers flag crew conflict as a key risk.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat helps a team stay well when no one can step in to help?

We’re hiring, 2031: Neural Data Rights Advocate. Your tasks will include auditing the focus headbands a school district wants to buy; checking whether a company sells the neural data it collects or uses it to guess a student’s mood; helping families delete it; and testifying for laws that treat brain data like DNA, so no one’s inner life becomes a product.
Ad 35Machines on the team

Neural Data Rights Advocate

Grows from today’s Privacy officers, data-protection lawyers and school technology directors

Why it’s plausible

Your tasks will include auditing the focus headbands a school district wants to buy; checking whether a company sells the neural data it collects or uses it to guess a student’s mood; helping families delete it; and testifying for laws that treat brain data like DNA, so no one’s inner life becomes a product.

Neural data: readings of brain activity, from headbands, earbuds or implants, that can reveal focus, stress and emotion.

Signals

  • Colorado, California, Connecticut and Montana have passed laws protecting neural data; Montana’s expands its genetic privacy law to cover it.
  • Chile amended its constitution in 2021 to give special protection to brain activity, and UNESCO adopted the first global neurotechnology ethics framework in November 2025.
  • A 2024 review found only one of 30 consumer neurotech companies meaningfully limited how it used or sold users’ data.

Sources

Ask the roomWhat should a school ask before buying any device that reads students’ bodies or brains?

How they were built

Speculative, but not made up

Each ad started from a job that exists now, then followed a signal: a pilot, a law, a market, a study. We asked what that job might need to do by 2031 if the trend continues.

The set was then stress-tested against future-of-work research. Who gains? Whose unseen work makes the job possible? Is there a first rung for a 22-year-old? Does the technology actually work yet? Where the evidence was thin, the wording was pulled back.

These are prompts for thinking, not predictions. Figures come from the sources listed, and some are projections or company estimates.

Deeper questions

  • Whose unseen work makes this job possible?
  • Who decides how the technology is used, and who keeps the gains?
  • What’s the first rung? What would a 22-year-old do in this job?
  • What has to be built first: data, law, training or trust?

Key reports

Tomorrow’s Classifieds · Tricia Friedman · Shifting Schools