Foreword Welcome to Issue 25 of Fifty Four Degrees. Professor Claire Leitch Executive Dean Lancaster University Management School FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 5 The world of work today is almost unrecognisable from 40 years ago. Even the workplaces of the 1990s and early 2000s compared to those of the 2020s are a different world. Who knows what our working lives will be like in 10 years’ time? Will workers of the 1970s be able to walk into their former businesses in 2030 and understand what is going on? Will those businesses still exist? The speed of change in the shape of what jobs people do, the skills they need to do them, and how they get roles in the first place, is unprecedented. With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – moving at such a swift pace as to render anything written about it today obsolete months, even weeks from now – shifting attitudes and actions around climate change and sustainability, and new societal norms and structures, the (r)evolution is constant. Universities and business schools are at the front line of such disruption and development. We shape the workforce and leaders of tomorrow. Our alumni tell us decades later how we have moulded their lives; the same will be true for today’s students. We are responsible for equipping young people with the skills and knowledge they will need for careers that will last well into the second half of the 21st century. Across Lancaster University Management School we have researchers working to understand just what our graduates can expect when they take their first career steps, and to help positively shape that professional world. We also engage with organisations beyond our walls, gaining influence where pure academia cannot reach. In this edition, we capture aspects ranging from recruitment to employment rights, jobs market shifts to house buying trends. You will not be surprised to see AI come up more than once; you might be more intrigued by mentions of avocados, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the supersuper aged population of Monaco. Hilary Ingham’s career path veered away from youthful tennis ambitions to see her become an expert on labour markets, and Head of our Department of Economics. She outlines the jobs that might become more common and important in years to come. Our graduates will be applying for roles that do not even exist as you are reading this. How those graduates apply for and obtain those positions is covered in two articles. The first, from Keith Rosser – Chair of the Better Hiring Institute – looks at how hiring can be made faster, fairer and safer for both employers and candidates. Keith shows the work that has already taken place in collaboration with Lancaster to make it so. The second, from Huw Fearnall-Williams and Emrah Ali Karakilic, examines specifically the influence of AI on hiring, and how it requires proper oversight to avoid bias creeping in. We also have a pair of articles from the Work Foundation, Lancaster University’s thinktank, which works to influence government policy. Alice Martin’s overview of what we might find over the horizon with regards to employment rights paints an interesting picture in the wake of the Employment Rights Act of 2025, while Rebecca Florisson outlines a recent Work Foundation report that shows how the Act might help to create a secure and inclusive working world for those who need it most. The Work Foundation has collaborated with Stavroula Leka in recent years on understanding how we might shape healthier workplaces. Stavroula contributes to our pages with her insight into the importance of healthy psychosocial work environments and sustainable work. We need workplaces where we feel well in all sense of the word to have successful and enduring careers. Our Entrepreneur in Residence Sanjay Rishi is an experienced leadership coach, who has worked with established and aspiring leaders across the world. He has previously written about healthy mindsets in Fifty Four Degrees, but here he talks to us about how we can all become CEOs of our own careers, taking ownership of our paths, and finding convergence between our principles and those of our employers. Eman Gadalla and Mahmoud Gad go on to discuss their partnership with Egypt University of Informatics, helping students and alumni by equipping them for today and tomorrow’s workplace via specially designed programmes that deliver skills employers want. Even if everyone is successful in work, however, who can say what the future brings? Renaud Foucart shows us that a booming career does not guarantee a step on the increasingly expensive housing ladder; while our alumna Qisha Quarina looks at the economic impacts of an increasingly ageing society all around the world and asks who will care for us in our elderly years, and who will pay for it? It is a long road from student classrooms to retirement communities. Our undergraduates of today are setting out on a journey that will take them into an unimaginable world of tomorrow. Subscribe online at lancaster.ac.uk/fiftyfour SUBSCRIBE
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