A recent study by Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work found that the world’s largest retailers show a renewed focus on combining the best of physical and online shopping to reignite sustained growth in the decades to come.

From Sacramento to Songdo, from Dundee to your den, we’ve identified 21 places around the world where the future of work is being built right now, reveals Robert Brown, a futurist in Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work.

As enterprises around the world attempt to chart a course for the post-COVID environment, one thing is clear. Digital competency is the primary competency – for individuals and organizations – moving forward.

COVID-19 pushed us deeper into our digital addictions. Internet use rose 70%, and social media traffic surged, in some cases by 50%, compared with pre-lockdown levels and Zooming became the new buzzword of 2020.

Cognizant’s “Jobs of the Future Index” posts a 29% increase as tech-oriented job markets begin to return to normal, notes Robert Brown, a futurist within the company’s Center for the Future of Work.

As some countries begin to pull out of pandemic-induced lockdown, and the corporate engines of “return to the office” begin to whir, an open question hangs: What kind of jobs will people return to following months of work-from-home exile in “Remotopia”?

The Coronavirus pandemic has changed how we all live and work and reports already suggest we will see a mass movement out of previous economic hubs such as London.

With intelligent machines all around us, it is only natural for them to follow us to work. Companies today are redefining their approach towards analytics, and AI and robotics are well on their way to complement human effort across industries.

While digitally enabled "jobs of the future" are still below their pre-pandemic level, new data suggests they are on the way back.

Life has changed in many ways in the year since the pandemic hit. Countless millions have been forced to work from home, offices have closed, livelihoods have disappeared and videoconferencing and online shopping have made huge inroads into everyday life. What will be the long term impact on the world of work?