The most employable jobs today are in cyber, coding, and programming, along with financial and project management.
That was said by Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the US and the world’s largest bank by market capitalisation as of 2024, at the most recent Business Roundtable’s CEO Workforce Forum, a gathering of presidents, owners, and other CEOs.
Is there really a question about what the most employable jobs of today are? Source: AFP
How to get employed in 2025 and beyond
“We all have needs for cyber, we all have needs for coding, we all have needs for programming, we have needs for financial management and programme management, things like that,” said Dimon at the CEO Workforce Forum on June 17, 2025.
Over 250 CEOs, including the likes of Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Indeed’s Chris Hyams, and McKinsey & Company’s Bob Sternfels, have signed a letter to US lawmakers demanding that computer science and AI education be made mandatory for every US student.
But technical skills aside, Dimon stresses that good character is a must too, especially in today’s age where Gen Z in the workforce have been accused of a distinct lack of professionalism, organisation, and communication skills.
Knowing your way around cybersecurity is good, but if you know how to be a project manager, even better. Source: AFP
The most employable jobs of 2025, according to a billionaire CEO
Cybersecurity project management
A 2023 Cybersecurity Skills Gap report revealed that 56% of companies find it hard to recruit skilled cybersecurity staff, with cybersecurity project managers commanding an average annual salary of US$136,125.
Beyond the work in cybersecurity, like identifying risks and threats and coming up with countermeasures, having good project management skills is crucial in effectively guiding the team to your objective. An up-to-date understanding of the latest policies and regulations can play in your favour during the job hunting process too.
There’s no surprise that careers in fintech are among the most employable jobs of today. Source: AFP
Financial technology
Just over two-thirds (68%) of fintechs surveyed consider the current regulatory environment to be adequate, but that “a substantial portion find regulatory compliance challenging and the licensing and registration processes to be problematic,” according to a 2024 research conducted by the World Economic Forum.
The good thing about this? You don’t have to spend too long sharpening your fintech knowledge to step up into the role, which, by the way, Fintech specialists earn a median annual salary of US$129,000.
Many universities offer short courses and certifications to get your knowledge up to par. For example, the University of Chicago has an eight-week course that’ll have you navigating fintech fundamentals and their application, identifying quantitative and qualitative approaches to finance frameworks, and examining security measures required to ensure fintech innovations protect customers and financial institutions.
Software engineering is still one of the most employable jobs, although many think AI will replace it. Source: AFP
Software engineering
The overall employment of software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers is projected to grow 17% from 2023 to 2033, much faster than the average for all occupations, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics projects.
As of May 2024, the median annual wage for software developers was US$133,080.
While this might go against what other giant tech companies are saying and doing (Google said that over a quarter of its new code is generated by AI, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has said the company won’t be hiring any engineers this year), Okta CEO Todd McKinnon believes otherwise.
In every era of productivity advancements in the field, demand for software engineers has “kept rising” as the economy becomes more technologically enabled, McKinnon states in an interview with Business Insider.
“[Software engineers] will move up a level,” said McKinnon. “They’ll spend more of their time thinking about, you know, broader systems design and how the systems interact, and they’ll be able to solve more complex problems.”
