Do you think you’ll be in the same job you’re in now in 20 years time? Do you think the job you’re in now will even exist in two decades time?

The latter question is perhaps the one you should be more concerned about, and if you think back 15 to 20 years it’s easy to see why. If you had had told your parents you wanted to be a web designer or SEO specialist back then, you would have been burnt as a witch. Harboring aspirations to be a political Spin Doctor would have seen you sectioned under the mental health act.

Yet today these are fully legitimate and well-paid occupations that play a significant role in shaping the online and political worlds alike.

In the same breath, try making a living as a Betamax manufacturer nowadays and you’ll be soon be sat outside Wendy’s begging for a Jr. Cheeseburger.

This highlights the frightening pace at which occupations can change form or even disappear completely.

“Enormous shift of occupations”

According to futurist Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock and Revolutionary Wealth, there’s going to be an “enormous shift of occupations” during which most jobs are going to change.

And one has to say, Toffler has a point. It’s hard to think of an industry that isn’t experiencing upheaval.

The digital age is transforming the publication industry forever, with traditional journalism currently living a charmed life – and you can add to that movie-making and advertising business.

The presence of the global market place has put pressure on America’s big three auto-manufacturers – GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler – to shape up or face extinction.

The rise of the computer is perhaps having the biggest influence on the job market, threatening to send a number of human jobs into the abyss.

But technology will also help to create new jobs, and here we will take a look at some of the jobs you or your kids might be applying for in the future…

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Dirigible Pilot

And according to futurist Joel Barker, author of Five Regions of the Future, dirigibles will revolutionize life in the developing world. Relatively cheap to operate, these blimp-like crafts do not require expensive infrastructure like runways and can stop in midair to drop off passengers or deliver goods.

A company named Worldwide Aeros have developed the Aeroscraft ML866, and has received lots of applications in the Private, Executive and Commercial arenas. Outfitted as an airborne yacht, a floating business center or a cruise liner and cargo ship, the ML866 requires no runway and can travel up to 3100 miles.

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Space Tour Guide

The digital revolution will lead to jobs for virtual lawyers, virtual clutter organizers and waste data handlers, while breakthroughs in space travel will lead to people swapping the office for the final frontier as space pilots, space architects and space tour guides, that’s according to a report released by the UK government.

Virgin Galactic, a unit of Virgin Group, is already planning just such a space program. The trips, which cost $200,000, were originally scheduled to start in 2008. We’re still waiting.

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Teleport Specialist

Forbes magazine imagines a world where we simply walk to a teleport station at the end of the block, dematerializing and reappearing at work. This would mean no cars, no buses – no pollution.

But there would be teleport mechanics and specialists in charge of fixing the technology when it fails…far fetched, but exciting nonetheless.

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Quarantine Enforcer

If a deadly virus starts spreading rapidly (like swine flu), few countries, and few people, will be prepared. Nurses will be in short supply. And as death rates rise, and neighborhoods are shut off from society, someone will have to make sure the infected don’t escape.

All that practice on Resident Evil could actually become profitable!

Very bleak, very dangerous, but probably very well-paid.

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Geo-engineer

As we fail to sufficiently cut our carbon emissions, more drastic (and far more expensive) methods must be developed to help cool our warming planet.

As a geo-engineer you could help construct a “space-based solar radiation obstructor” – basically hundreds of thousands of mirrors in the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s radiation back into space.

Or maybe you could build the first fleet of “cloud-makers” that sail the seven seas pumping more clouds into the sky to help stop global warming.

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Robots and Artificial Intelligence Engineer

How about being a personal bot mechanic? Domestic assistants will work 24/7, but will still need the occasional tune-up.

Or how about a Powered exoskeleton engineer? You will design wearable robots that assist and protect soldiers, construction and rescue workers or other people working in dangerous environments.

Come back tomorrow when HRM Report will take a closer look at the jobs how population growth, climate change and developments in science and technology will make some jobs obsolete.