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Legal, social, and cultural professionals: skills opportunities and challenges (2023 update)
Summary
Legal, social, and cultural professionals account for around 3 per cent of all employment in the EU. Legal, social, and cultural professionals fulfill various roles such as conducting research, developing theories and methods, drafting laws and regulations, and advising clients. They also create literary and artistic works and perform in them and are engaged in interpreting and communicating news. Jobs within this group include lawyers, judges, librarians, economists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, authors, journalists, and artists.
Key facts
- Around 6 million people were employed as legal, social, and cultural professionals in 2022, which accounts for 3 per cent of the total EU employment.
- Between 2012 and 2022 overall employment increased by one quarter.
- Between 2019 and 2020, despite the economic lockdowns experienced across the EU, close to 40 thousand additional legal, social, and cultural professional jobs were created, and by the end of 2022, the employment was more than 350 thousand workers above its 2019 level.
- Most legal, social, and cultural professionals – a combined 61 per cent in 2021 - are employed in the professional, scientific, and technical activities, health, and arts, entertainment, recreation, and other service activities sector.
- The vast majority of legal, social, and cultural professionals (86 per cent) have attained a qualification level of ISCED 5 or above in 2021, equivalent to the education level achieved after completing tertiary education. The qualification level of the occupation is not expected to change much over the period to 2035.
- The majority of legal, social, and cultural professionals are women (61 per cent in 2021).
- The employment of legal, social, and cultural professionals is projected to increase by 16 per cent between 2022 and 2035.
- Technological developments, such as algorithms scanning legal documents, electronic library repositories, and streaming services, will drive changes in the skills required of legal, social, and cultural professionals in the future. Sustainability concerns are expected to create some new “green collar” jobs in this occupation, such as lawyers specialising in environmental issues.
Employment and job demand
Employment of legal professionals was growing throughout the last decade, first a bit faster and during the Covid-19 pandemic a bit slower than all professional jobs average.
Figure 1: Year-to-year employment change for legal, social and cultural professionals (2013-2022)
Source: European Labour Force Survey. Employed persons by detailed occupation (ISCO-08 two-digit level) [LFSA_EGAI2D__custom_7778289]. Own calculations.
Two fifths (39 per cent) of legal, social, and cultural professionals are engaged as social and religious professionals. About one third (27 per cent) are engaged as legal professionals. The rest of legal, social, and cultural professionals are engaged as authors, journalists, and linguists, creative and performing artists, and librarians, archivists, and curators.
Figure 2: Employment in legal, social and cultural professionals’ jobs (in %)
Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.
The majority of OJAs for legal professionals are for social and religious professionals, and legal for professionals. The order of importance of each detailed occupation in the OJAs corresponds with their employment share in the whole legal, social, and cultural professional group.
For more details on skills demand and job openings for this occupation, please access the Cedefop’s Skills OVATE tool.
Figure 3: Online job advertisements for legal, social and cultural professionals (2022, in %)
Source: Skills in Online Job Advertisements indicator based on Cedefop’s Skills OVATE. Own calculations. Note: Online job advertisements are by definition not equivalent to job vacancies. See Beręsewicz (2021) or Napierala et al. (2022).
The majority (about 60 per cent) of employed legal, social, and cultural professionals are almost equally distributed across three different sectors, namely the professional, scientific, and technical activities, health and social care, and arts, entertainment, recreation, and other service activities sectors.
Figure 4: The top sectors employing legal, social and cultural professionals (in %)
Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.
The share of employment in each country does not vary substantially, although there is a notable difference between western and northern EU states with higher employment shares, and rest of the countries. Sectoral employment is the main driver of this difference: for example, the importance of social care, legal sector, but to some extent also professional, scientific and technical activities is higher in western and northern parts of EU than in the remaining Member States.
Figure 5: Legal, social and cultural professionals as a share of country employment (2021, in %)
Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.
Note: Data for CY, EE, IS, LV and LU have lower reliability because of small sample size.
LFS data for MT are not available.
Women represent the majority of the workforce in this occupation. Similar to other professional categories, legal, social, and cultural professionals are a bit “younger” occupation, with lower share of people aged 50 or more, and as a whole not aging rapidly.
Figure 6: Legal, social and cultural professionals by age (in %)
Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.
Around two thirds (66 per cent) of legal, social, and cultural professionals are engaged as social, religious, and legal professionals, who often have permanent work contracts. This is, to some extent, reflected in the percentage of workers employed on temporary contracts.
Figure 7: Contract and hiring trends for legal, social and cultural professionals (in %)
Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.
Skill needs and future trends
Interacting with others is the most important aspect of legal, social and cultural professionals’ work. Innovation and literacy skills are also highly needed to conduct the work tasks. Basic to medium level digital skills – use of digital devices, office software or specialised software – is frequently required.
Changing skill needs also indicate higher need for further training – both overall and digital upskilling needs are higher than what is all occupations average.
Figure 8: Skills, training needs and job perception of legal, social and cultural professionals (in %)
Source: European Skills and Jobs Survey. Microdata. Own calculations.
Unless stated otherwise, it is a share of people reporting that a task/skill is part of their job.
*Always or often
** Share of workers reporting these needs to a great or moderate extent.
Overall, employment for legal, social and cultural professionals is expected to increase markedly (by about 17 per cent) over the period 2022 to 2035. Future employment growth varies by country. Employment in the majority of countries (19) grew by more than 10 per cent in the past decade and it is forecast to do so in the next decade as well, while the rest are either stable or represent the opposite trend.
Figure 9: Past and expected future employment trends of legal, social and cultural professionals
Source: European Labour Force Survey. Microdata. Cedefop Skills Forecast.
Note: Data for CY, EE, IS, LV and LU have lower reliability because of small sample size.
LFS data for MT are not available.
Most job openings are a result of people leaving them for other opportunities, or those leaving the labour market completely (retirements; parent leave and such). In the case of the legal, social, and cultural professionals, replacement demand exceeds the new job creation more than threefold, as it is estimated at 3.7 million.
Figure 10: Future job openings for legal professionals (000s)
Source: Future job openings indicator based on the Cedefop Skills Forecast. Own calculations.
Looking forward
Legal, social and cultural professionals perform a variety of jobs. Each such job will be affected in different ways by drivers of change in the economy. Such drivers include digital tools and cloud services, new forms of work, disruptions (e.g., digital artworks), regulatory change and the need to abide by sustainability principles. These create the need for new competences and continuous training for several jobs in this occupation.
- Technological advancements already affect the content of jobs. For example, algorithms are increasingly substituting the tasks performed by paralegals, contract, and patent lawyers. Law firms use systems that scan thousands of legal briefs and precedents to perform document review and to assist in pre-trial research. Automation is not only affecting jobs with high routine rate but also ones with complex cognitive tasks.
- Professionals in this occupation are rather facing changes to their everyday tasks and skillset needed, than a direct risk of job obsolescence. It is less likely that robots will replace human lawyers in courts (as in this case in the US) but there are certain tasks of legal professionals that could be facilitated by the use of technology. Drafting and writing tools, document assembly software, text generators, and document and text analysis tools are examples of such technology (Homoki, 2022). Yet, these tasks are often performed by associate professionals (e.g., paralegals) who are more threatened by digitalization (Sampson, 2020).
- Digital developments also help relieve administrative burdens, and this changes everyday tasks for social workers. A Swedish study reveals that this allows caseworkers more time to work with clients (Nauwerck & Cajander 2019).
- The everyday workload of cultural and creative professionals (visual artists, musicians, dancers, actors, film and stage producers) is already much affected by digitalisation. Many of these are freelance workers whose projects are often of temporary nature. In order to remain competitive and meet audience expectations, they should follow latest technological developments (van Laar et al., 2022). For example, recent news about AI-developed artwork made the headlines, while the use of social media for promoting artwork is now quite widespread. Although such tools do not pose a direct threat to artists’ jobs, they are useful to assist them delivering and promoting their work. Creative professionals have also experienced changes in their remuneration models due to the emergence of digital tools, such as algorithmic platforms, including streaming services (Hesmondhalgh, 2020).
- The digital era also affects regulation – legal professionals need to be trained in GDPR, which is a cross-cutting skill regardless of the sector that they work in. On the other hand, the need to embed future data protection regulation in the architectural design of the new technologies themselves, gives rise to new job profiles such as “data protection lawyers”, who advice digital technology professionals on data protection regulation.
- The same holds for cultural professionals and copyright regulations in the era of digital platforms. Journalists also need to be aware of GDPR and other regulations that relate to digital information sharing. The recent EU Whistleblowing Directive (2019) is another important regulation for journalists and legal professionals.
- Digitalisation also changes the nature of work for library professionals. Demand for digital archiving services has been increasing steadily for the past decades. These workers need to enhance their skillset with digital competencies such as commanding and managing online reference platforms and library cataloguing systems. These needs are extensively investigated in the recent Erasmus+ BIBLIO project. Library professionals are also those training students on digital library tools. Several institutions are organising such tailored training for students (see here for an example of a Greek University). This creates the need for some competencies related to teaching and training.
- Legal social and cultural professionals will have an active role in knowledge production and coping with legal frameworks related to sustainability concerns and the European Green Deal. Sustainable development goals imply a reconfiguration of sectoral employment and global value chains (Cedefop, 2021). For example, Energy law attracts wider student interest nowadays because of the industry transformation due to renewable energy, which leads to job creation in the energy sector for legal professionals. Climate change also infiltrates into other aspects of Law such as property, tort, and corporate and securities law. Climate change forces lawyers to adopt a climate conscious approach in their daily legal practice, which involves being aware of the reality of climate change and how it interacts with daily legal problems. (Preston, 2021). Professionals in this occupation could find employment in “green collar” jobs as environmental researchers, consultants and lawyers, or exhibit changes in legislation related to their everyday work (Stanef-Puică, 2022).
- The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on legal, social, and cultural professionals has been multifaceted. On the one hand, the increased use of IT-tools to perform work under lockdown conditions enhanced their digital competences. On the other hand, lockdowns affected adversely social workers, whose job requires face-to-face contact building human relationships with their clients. These workers resorted to digital tools to work (Amadasun, 2020). The pandemic has had an impact in social worker’s mental health and well-being as well (Banks et al. 2020).
- Restrictive measures affected jobs in the cultural sector much. Venue-based creative sectors (e.g. museums, performing arts, cinemas, etc.) had difficulties in operating due to prolonged social distancing measures. Reduced wages and lay-offs followed in several countries, which may cause a long-term downsizing on the sector (OECD, 2020). Many creative professionals resorted to digital forms of performing during the pandemic. This highlighted the comparative advantages that digital competences can offer for these workers.
- The pandemic accelerated the emergence of new forms of remote work such as hybrid and platform work. This was prevalent in some sectors (e.g., IT) but was rather new to others such as clerical occupations and office assistants. Regulatory changes to accommodate the emergence of these forms of work will demand additional knowledge on behalf of legal professionals.
Owing to the digital and green transitions and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, many sectors where legal, social and cultural professionals work are transforming. Professional development remains key for adjusting to megatrends in the EU.
Meeting future skill needs for legal, social, and cultural professionals will require adapting initial education and training to incorporate material related to digital technologies and the green transition. A recent study indicates that law school students want to be taught climate law and the climate context of law as part of their prescribed learning throughout their core curriculum. As regards economic studies, the area of environmental economics (which encompasses economic studies related to e.g., new sources of energy and climate change), is nowadays an established field. Digital technologies are slowly being integrated in art schools, as a response to emerging needs (see the box below). For example, the Erasmus+ funded EU4Art Alliance for Common Fine Arts Curriculum created the EU4ART European University, which aims to develop common flexible curricula in the field of painting, sculpture, and graphic art. These will be based on an interdisciplinary and international approach, integrating innovative pedagogical methods, and including the study of digital technologies. As regards librarians and archivists, the Erasmus+ BIBLIO project has developed a tailored training programme for digital skills such as electronic resource management and VET curricula for emerging job profiles.
“As software, algorithms, non-conscious cognitive agents and cybernetic thinking increasingly shape the world around us, artists need to have a strong grasp of the practical and philosophical implications of this transformation.” Source: Artnet |
Under the European Skills Agenda 2020, Blueprint for sectoral cooperation for skills is a key initiative to create strategic and cooperative approaches to sectoral skills development. These alliances gather sectoral stakeholders, including businesses, trade unions, research institutions, education and training institutions and public authorities who develop sectoral skills strategies.
- In the cultural sector, the CHARTER (Cultural Heritage Actions to Refine Training, Education and Roles) Blueprint alliance seeks to develop the necessary cultural heritage skills to support sustainability goals, enhance digital competences, and further professionalise the sector.
- In the social field, the B-WISE Blueprint alliance addresses skills needs in the WISE (Work Integration Social Enterprises) sector. The main goal of these enterprises is the social and professional integration of workers with support needs, while also targeting the skills needs of their supporters (such as job coaches, trainers) and their managers.
- Seven Alliances for sectoral cooperation on skills were selected following the call for proposals under the new Erasmus+ programme 2021-2027, including social economy & proximity, and creative & cultural industries.
Continuous professional development is a challenge for workers of this occupational group. Challenges are more pressing for the self-employed (e.g. lawyers) or freelancers (e.g. journalists). Professional experience outside of university is often acquired through traineeships/internships. However, to keep up with labour market changes, alternative credentials (including digital badges, micro-credentials, nano-credentials, and minor awards) are increasingly used to enhance existing qualifications models. Following the 2020 EU Skills Agenda, micro-credentials are considered an impactful resource in staying competitive on the labour market (Cedefop, 2022). For example, the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) aims to enhance and support digitally-enabled research and teaching across the arts and humanities. The DARIAH-EU network has developed a dedicated platform (DARIAH Teach) that offers free community-driven and multilingual learning and teaching materials in areas of the digital arts and humanities.
How to cite this publication:
Cedefop (2023). Legal, social, and cultural professionals: skills opportunities and challenges. Skills intelligence data insight.
Further reading
Allen & Overy. Students and graduates: Belgium, https://www.allenovery.com/en-gb/global/careers/belgium/students-and-graduates.
Amadasun, S. (2020). Social work and Covid-19 pandemic: An action call. International Social Work, 63, 753-756.
Banks, S., Cai, T., de Jonge, E., Shears, J. et al (2020). Practising ethically during COVID-19: Social work challenges and responses. International Social Work, 63, 569-583.
Beręsewicz, M. and Pater, R. (2021). Inferring job vacancies from online job advertisements, Luxembourg: Publications Office, 2021. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-statistical-working-papers/-/ks-tc-20-008
Bouwer, K., Evan, J., Luke, O., & Rozhan, A. (2022). Climate Change isn't Optional: Climate Change in the Core Law Curriculum. Legal Studies (in press). https://doi.org/10.1017/lst.2022.35
Cedefop (2021). The green employment and skills transformation: insights from a European Green Deal skills forecast scenario. Luxembourg: Publications Office. http://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/112540
Cedefop (2022). Microcredentials for labour market education and training, research paper, Luxembourg: Publications Office, https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications/5587
Cedefop (2023). Skills in transition: the way to 2035. Luxembourg: Publications Office. http://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/438491
Compagnucci, MC., Fenwick, M., Haapio, H., & Vermeulen, E.P.M. (2022). Integrating law, technology, and design: teaching data protection and privacy law in a digital age. International Data Privacy Law, 12, 239–252. https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipac012
European Commission (2023). Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion: Skills and qualifications: Blueprint for sectoral cooperation on skills, https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1415&langId=en
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2020). Is music streaming bad for musicians? Problems of evidence and argument, New Media & Society, 23, 3593-3615. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444820953541
Homoki, P. (2022). Guide on the use of Artificial Intelligence-based tools by lawyers and law firms in the EU, published by Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe & European Lawyers Foundation.
Napierala, J.; Kvetan, V. and Branka, J. (2022). Assessing the representativeness of online job advertisements. Luxembourg: Publications Office. Cedefop working paper, No 17. http://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/807500
Nauwerck, G., & Cajander, A. (2019). Automatic for the People: Implementing Robotic Process Automation in Social Work. Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: The International Venue on Practice-centred Computing and the Design of Cooperation Technologies.
OECD (2020). Culture shock: COVID-19 and the cultural and creative sectors, OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19). https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/culture-shock-covid-19-and-the-cultural-and-creative-sectors-08da9e0e/#section-d1e38
Preston, B. (2021). Climate conscious lawyering. 95 Australian Law Journal, 51.
Sampson, S.E. (2020). A Strategic Framework for Task Automation in Professional Services. Journal of Service Research, 24, 122-140. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1094670520940407
Stanef-Puică, M.R., Badea, L., Serban-Oprescu, A.-T., Francu, L.-G., & Cretu, A. (2022). Green Jobs – A Literature Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19, 7998. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137998
van Laar, E., van Deursen, A.J.A.M., & van Dijk, J.A.G.M (2022). Developing policy aimed at 21-st century digital skills for the creative industries: an interview study with founders and managing directors, Journal of Education and Work, 35, 195-209. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036710
Data insights details
Table of contents
Page 1
SummaryPage 2
Employment and job demandPage 3
Skill needs and future trendsPage 4
Looking forwardPage 5
Further reading