Over Half of Graduate Roles Now Require AI Skills

Over half (54%) of organisations say AI skills will now be required in all early-career roles, as recent graduates face an AI-driven workplace, according to a recent survey from FDM Group. Despite this, only 6% of teams have high AI proficiency.

These findings come from FDM Group’s whitepaper, Workforce 2.0: AI Adoption and the Future of Jobs, in which the global tech talent consultancy surveyed over 300 clients across the UK, North America, EMEA, and APAC. The survey provides insights into AI adoption, workforce readiness, and early-career roles.

The most in-demand skills for graduate roles include prompt engineering (25 per cent), critical thinking and applied problem solving (22 per cent), and data engineering and pipeline development (21 per cent).

Alongside these, soft skills including critical thinking (18 per cent), creativity and innovation (15 per cent), and ethical judgement (14 per cent) are increasingly valued, highlighting the importance of human skills in an AI-driven workplace.

Sheila Flavell, CBE, COO of FDM Group, commented:

“AI is transforming every aspect of our lives, from education to the workplace, and businesses clearly recognise this shift. For graduates, this creates a huge opportunity to build the skills that are needed in the current and future workforce. This is especially true considering the gap between organisational appetite for AI and their existing capabilities for successful AI integration.

That’s why training and upskilling are more important than ever. By equipping graduates with AI capabilities, organisations can prepare for the AI-driven world we now live in. But this must go hand in hand with supporting existing staff. To build a truly digitally confident workforce, organisations need to provide individuals with the training to not only use AI effectively but also oversee it responsibly.

The future of AI success lies in human oversight. AI doesn’t replace people, it amplifies those who are equipped to use it wisely.”

New AI-focused roles are also emerging to support these shifts. These include prompt engineers, AI project managers, AI and machine learning engineers, AI governance and ethics specialists, business and data analysts, and AI coaches and trainers.

The research highlights how early-career roles are evolving. Around a quarter of organisations (25 per cent) expect organisations to prioritise hybrid roles that blend business and technology skills.

Meanwhile, 8 per cent foresee a shift from generalist to specialist graduate roles. Only 2 per cent of respondents expect graduate roles to decline in favour of experienced AI talent, suggesting that entry-level opportunities will continue to grow with skill requirements.

This survey comes amid a growing debate over how AI is reshaping entry-level opportunities for recent graduates. From the rise of AI in the education sector to the increasing use of AI-powered tools in the workplace, such as ChatGPT-5, society is steadily moving in an AI-driven direction.