WeeklySA_AdminUPSKILLING: Survey finds South African career changers questioning their qualifications’ future value, while healthcare, teaching and skilled trades rank highly for resilience to automation…
By Leandré Morake
More than half of South African respondents in a new career survey have questioned whether their chosen career or qualification will retain its value as artificial intelligence reshapes the workplace.
The TEFL Academy’s South African Career Resilience Report 2026 found that 57% had doubts about their career’s future value, while 84% said AI had changed how they thought about their future employment. The research surveyed 230 South Africans from the academy’s TEFL community and drew on labour market, education and AI research. Its findings reflect this particular group of respondents and should not be read as representative of all South African workers.
For those considering a career change, the findings highlight a growing concern: securing work today while developing skills that will remain useful tomorrow. Among respondents, 48% said AI had changed their career thinking somewhat and 36% said it had changed it significantly. Meanwhile, 69% considered resilience to AI very or extremely important when choosing a career or degree.
Concern extended to the broader employment outlook, with 54% believing AI would eliminate more jobs than it creates in South Africa over the next decade.
Yet anxiety was accompanied by a strong willingness to adapt. Some 87% said they would be likely to undertake AI training or upskilling if offered by an employer, university or training provider. Four in five respondents believed AI literacy would become as essential as computer literacy for most jobs.
Human skills remain central
Adaptability topped the capabilities respondents considered important, selected by 50%, followed by critical thinking at 49%, AI literacy at 43%, communication at 39% and emotional intelligence at 38%. Career choices also reflected concerns about stability and wellbeing. Long-term career resilience was the leading priority, selected by 20%, narrowly ahead of work-life balance at 19% and job security at 16%.
Together, the findings suggest that respondents are weighing lasting relevance and quality of life alongside their employment prospects.
The report’s AI Resilience Index assessed 100 occupations using factors including human interaction, emotional intelligence, creativity, critical thinking, automation risk, labour demand, skills shortages and projected job growth.
Surgeons ranked highest, scoring 98 out of 100. Nurse practitioners and therapists or psychologists followed on 97, with physicians or doctors and skilled tradespeople scoring 96.
Teachers or educators, emergency medical technicians and social workers each scored 95. Occupational therapists and physical therapists completed the top 10, both on 94.
These occupations share demands that extend beyond routine information processing: physical presence, specialist expertise, human relationships, complex judgement and responsibility.
Teaching alongside technology
Teaching ranked sixth, reflecting the importance of responding to individual learners, understanding context and making decisions in real time.
The report argues that resilience does not necessarily mean avoiding AI. Technology may assist with tasks while people remain responsible for relationships, interpretation and decisions. In education, for example, tools can support lesson preparation and communication, while teachers continue to guide learning and respond to pupils’ needs.
The index should nevertheless be understood as an assessment of relative resilience, rather than a guarantee of employment or protection from technological change. Lower rankings do not mean an occupation will disappear.
Its scoring also considers employment conditions: current labour market demand accounts for 10% of the total, while skills shortages and projected future job growth each contribute 5%. These measures place the assessment within a wider employment context, alongside the human capabilities required by the work itself.
For career changers, the report’s central message is to examine how tasks within a profession may evolve, rather than divide occupations into those that survive and those that vanish.
Building AI literacy alongside communication, adaptability, creativity and sound judgement may help workers prepare for a workplace in which technology changes what people do, and how they do it. – Fullview
