Is a College Degree Still Worth It? Why Skilled Trades Are Surging in the Job Market
New data reveals explosive growth in demand for skilled trades—particularly those enabling AI infrastructure—while job prospects for many recent college graduates continue to weaken.
The long-held assumption that a university degree is the surest path to a high-paying career is under serious pressure. Fresh employment figures show skilled tradespeople enjoying the fastest wage growth in the labor market. At the same time, a significant portion of recent graduates are experiencing "degree regret" as the return on their expensive education diminishes.
Growing Regret Among Graduates
A May 2026 Kickresume survey of 1,052 recent graduates worldwide found widespread second-guessing:
- **20%** expressed strong doubt that their degree would ever feel financially worthwhile.
- **52%** had milder regrets but questioned its overall value in today’s economy.
- Only **20%** said their degree was truly relevant to their current job.
- Another **20%** reported it was rarely or never applicable, while nearly a third said it was only occasionally useful.
Regret was highest among graduates in science, law, education, and humanities (61–71%).
This disillusionment stems from two converging trends: employers increasingly prioritizing skills and experience over credentials, and the rapid adoption of AI reshaping office-based knowledge work.
The Skilled Trades Boom
While many degree-holders struggle, workers with in-demand manual and technical skills are thriving. According to Randstad’s analysis, salaries for skilled trades have risen sharply—**up 30%** in the U.S., with solid gains across Europe as well.
Particularly strong demand exists for roles critical to AI deployment and data center expansion:
- **Robotics technicians**: +113% in job opportunities (U.S.) since 2022
- **HVAC engineers**: +78%
- **Industrial automation specialists**: +51%
- Electricians, welders, and construction specialists: average **+30%**
These aren’t just niche gains. Businesses need people who can build, maintain, and power the physical backbone of the digital revolution.
What Business Leaders Are Saying
Randstad CEO Sander van Noordende has been blunt about the shift:
> “I would say the days of going to college and doing something in an office, they are over. You’ve got to be smarter than that… The skilled trades are coming up rapidly. You can make a good career and good money in skilled trades. That’s definitely a career track.”
He argues that companies now want immediate productivity and are willing to pay premium wages for workers who can deliver it. While AI may disrupt some white-collar roles, it is simultaneously creating massive demand for human expertise in physical infrastructure.
> “AI cannot build its own data centers,” van’t Noordende notes. “The digital revolution requires a massive physical foundation.”
Supporting this view, entry-level workers with AI-related skills are earning **25% more** than peers and getting promoted over **three times faster**.
A college degree still makes sense for certain careers (especially those requiring specific credentials like medicine or law), but for many others, it’s no longer the automatic high-ROI move it once was. The data increasingly favors those who develop high-value, practical skills—particularly in areas where AI creates more work than it destroys.
The winners in the emerging economy won’t necessarily be those with the most impressive diplomas, but those with the most useful capabilities. For a growing number of young people, learning a skilled trade may prove to be the smarter, faster, and more lucrative path.
Forget Biz Ops—the new frontier for fresh graduates is **AI Ops**.
According to Jiaona Zhang, Chief Product Officer at Laurel (an AI-powered timekeeping platform that raised $100 million in Series C funding last year), one emerging role is poised to become essential for new talent entering the workforce: the **AI Workflows Specialist**.
What Is an "AI Workflows" Role?
At its core, the position is about spotting opportunities where AI can streamline, automate, or enhance business processes—and then building those solutions. It's part strategist, part builder, part change agent.
> "It's the new Biz Ops," Zhang says. "That's the role I'd really push every single new grad to be going into."
Unlike traditional siloed roles, AI workflows span every department:
- **Sales**: Automate cold outreach sequences or demo-call prep
- **Marketing**: Build agents that personalize content at scale
- **Operations**: Create internal tools that reduce manual reporting
- **HR**: Design onboarding bots or feedback-analysis systems
Zhang points to a recent hire at Laurel—a new graduate tasked with this exact mandate—who built an AI agent that acts as a "personal chief of staff" for the sales team. The result? The employee became "the most celebrated person at this company," and Laurel has since expanded its AI Ops team.
You Don't Need to Wait for the Title
Here's the empowering part: You don't need a company to post this job to start doing it.
Zhang encourages graduates to **create the role themselves**:
1. Identify a repetitive or time-consuming process in your current role
2. Prototype an AI-powered solution (using no-code tools, APIs, or simple scripts)
3. Measure the impact: time saved, errors reduced, revenue influenced
4. Share the results—and scale it across your team
> "Instead of being the single salesperson hitting your quota, you're able to scale your impact across the entire sales team," she explains. "If you could start proving to everyone in the world that you've saved a group of people this much time and you created this much leverage, that is the way to scream your worth to every employer out there."
The Market Is Already Moving
Zhang isn't alone in seeing this shift. Earlier this month, Box CEO Aaron Levie announced openings for an "AI Business Automation Engineer"—a role with a salary range up to $183,000. Levie described it on X as "akin to a forward-deployed engineer for internal functions," adding: *"I expect most companies will have many flavors of this going forward."*
Why This Matters Now
As AI reshapes entry-level work—from automating routine tasks to redefining skill requirements—graduates face a critical question: *How do I stay relevant?*
Leaders from NVIDIA's Jensen Huang to NYU's Scott Galloway have weighed in on the skills of the future. But Zhang's advice cuts through the noise: **Don't just learn AI—apply it to solve real business problems.**
The AI Workflows role isn't about becoming a machine learning engineer. It's about becoming the person who bridges the gap between AI's potential and an organization's actual needs. For new grads willing to experiment, iterate, and demonstrate tangible impact, it could be the career launchpad of the decade.