The Professions Growing Fastest, and Those Disappearing
Employers expect the fastest growth in AI, data and cybersecurity roles, and the steepest decline in clerks, cashiers and data-entry work.
When employers are asked which jobs will grow and which will shrink, the answers are consistent enough to be useful, as long as you read both lists and note what they have in common.
Growing fastest
By percentage growth, the roles employers expect to expand most are technological: AI and machine learning specialists, big data specialists, fintech engineers, software and application developers, security management specialists, data analysts and scientists, and user-interface and user-experience designers.
Those map closely onto the fields TAJI covers in depth, which is not a coincidence. Three of our four career guides sit squarely in this list.
The bigger story is volume
There is a trap in that first list. Fastest-growing by percentage is not the same as most jobs created. By sheer numbers, the biggest growth employers expect is in frontline and human roles: delivery drivers, care workers, nursing professionals, and teachers.
A field can be growing fast in percentage terms and still be small. Technology roles are growing quickly from a modest base; care and frontline work is growing slowly from a huge one. Both facts matter when you are choosing where to compete.
Declining fastest
The roles employers expect to shrink most are strikingly consistent:
- Bank tellers and related clerks
- Data-entry clerks
- Cashiers and ticket clerks
- Administrative and executive secretaries
- Accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks
- Graphic designers, newly appearing on the decline list
They share one feature. Each is built on routine, rule-following tasks of exactly the kind software now automates. That is the same mechanism we examine in what AI does to entry-level work.
The caveat
This is a survey of large global employers, and the technology roles at the top of its growth list are, in Botswana, attached to a small sector growing slowly. Information and communication produced 2.8% of GDP in the first quarter of 2025 with real growth of 0.9%, and employed 6,043 people, as the size of the ICT sector sets out. Global direction and local demand can diverge sharply.
Use these lists to understand which way the wind is blowing, not as a forecast for Gaborone. The safest position is the one the declining roles lack: work that requires judgement, not just rule-following. That is the through-line of what a junior engineer now needs.
Frequently asked
What jobs are growing the fastest?
Employers expect the fastest percentage growth in AI and machine learning specialists, big data specialists, fintech engineers, software developers and data analysts. By volume, though, the largest growth is in frontline roles like delivery drivers, care workers and teachers.
What jobs are disappearing?
The fastest-declining roles are clerical and rule-based: bank tellers, data-entry clerks, cashiers, administrative and executive secretaries, and accounting and payroll clerks. They share a reliance on routine tasks that software now automates.
Are these job forecasts accurate for Botswana?
Treat them as direction, not a local forecast. The survey covers large global employers, and the technology roles at the top of its growth list sit in a sector that in Botswana produced 2.8% of GDP in the first quarter of 2025, grew 0.9% in real terms and employed 6,043 people. Global trends and local demand can diverge sharply.