Skills trends 2026

What the 2025 and 2026 workforce reports say employers are training for, with links to each source and the courses that match.

39%

of workers' core skills are expected to change by 2030, according to the employers surveyed by the World Economic Forum.

World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025

30.7%

of Canadian businesses with skills gaps said better technical, practical or job-specific skills would help them most. Customer service came next, at 10.2%.

Statistics Canada, Analysis on employee skills gaps, Q1 2026

85.7%

of Canadian businesses that adopted new technology in the last three years trained their employees to use it.

Statistics Canada, Analysis on employee skills gaps, Q1 2026

was the fastest-growing training topic in 2024 in ATD's benchmark data. Live instructor-led classes were still the most common format.

ATD, 2025 State of the Industry

These figures come from the public reports linked on each card, checked on November 13, 2026. They describe the wider market, not results from Mastery Mentors courses.

From trend to course

Where each trend shows up in our catalogue

What the reports found	Where to look
AI and big data are the fastest-growing skills employers expect to 2030, followed by networks and cybersecurity, then technological literacy. (World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025)	AI & Automation Courses on machine learning, Azure AI, AWS AI and AI for manufacturing.
Networks and cybersecurity are the second fastest-growing skill group in the same survey. (World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025)	IT & Cybersecurity Security+, networking, cloud and IT support programs.
Nearly half (47.9%) of Canadian businesses adopted new technology in the last three years, and 85.7% of those trained staff to use it. (Statistics Canada, Analysis on employee skills gaps, Q1 2026)	Manufacturing & Automation PLC, robotics, HMI/SCADA and CNC programs for plant teams.
Quality control and resource management and operations are among the skills that separate growing jobs from declining ones. (World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025)	Lean & Quality Lean Six Sigma Yellow, Green and Black Belt, plus quality programs.
Technical, practical or job-specific skills were the gap Canadian businesses most wanted closed (30.7%). (Statistics Canada, Analysis on employee skills gaps, Q1 2026)	All courses Every course in the catalogue is job-specific, 28 to 96 instructor-led hours.

Other findings worth knowing

Building an AI-savvy workforce is one of the four 2026 priorities Gartner sets out for learning and development leaders. (Gartner, L&D leader imperatives for 2026)
49% of L&D professionals told LinkedIn their executives worry employees don't have the skills to carry out the business strategy. (LinkedIn, Workplace Learning Report 2025)
Only 12.8% of Canadian businesses used an outside training provider to close skills gaps in the past 12 months. Among businesses with 20 to 99 employees the share was 23.5%, and 33.4% for those with 100 or more. (Statistics Canada, Analysis on employee skills gaps, Q1 2026)
Formal learning hours per employee fell to 13.7 in 2024, from 17.4 in 2023, in ATD's benchmark. Direct spending was US$1,254 per employee, down $29 from 2023. (ATD, 2025 State of the Industry)

A note on the Ontario Job Grant

Trend data doesn't change what the grant funds. The Ontario Job Grant supports job-specific training tied to a job, and the Ministry decides every application. If your team needs AI, cybersecurity or automation skills, start from the job the person will do and pick the course that covers it. The training needs check can help with that.

Sources

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