Key takeaways
- Managers read their teams as far more anxious than employees report: 46% of managers and executives think their employees feel anxious about job stability, while 10% of non-managers describe themselves that way.
- Workers are funding their own reskilling, spending an average of $1,367 out of pocket on work skills in the past year.
- 82% of managers and executives would rather train current employees than hire someone new, and 87% say their company would help pay for an employee to retrain.
- AI adoption tracks industry: 59% of tech workers and 48% of finance workers have been asked to learn AI chatbots, compared with 25% in education and 18% in healthcare.
Career cushioning means quietly preparing a backup plan while you're still employed, and a new TripleTen study shows how common it has become. The poll of 2,000 American full-time workers found that 48% have considered a backup career in case their current one doesn't meet their expectations.
Over three-quarters (77%) of them have started to prepare for their backup career, just in case something happens in their current career.
Why nearly half of workers want a backup career
Workers said they'd be motivated to pursue their backup career if it allowed them to do something they actually enjoy (29%), allowed for a better lifestyle or less stress, even at the same pay (29%), and if they lost their current job (29%).
Younger workers are the most likely to have a plan B
Interest in a backup career falls steadily with age. Nearly six in 10 Gen Z workers (59%) have considered one, compared with 54% of millennials, 40% of Gen X, and 22% of baby boomers. Younger workers are also further along: among those who have considered a backup career, 49% of Gen Z strongly agree they've already started preparing, compared with 33% of Gen X.
Seniority points the other way. Executives and business owners were the most likely to have considered a backup career (54%), and entry-level employees the least likely (41%).
Among workers who have considered a backup career. The baby boomer base is too small to report.
What backup careers workers have in mind
When asked to name their backup career, 767 workers gave an answer. Tech came up most often: roughly one in six named a role in IT, software, data, cybersecurity, or AI. Healthcare, mostly nursing, came next at about one in 10, followed by teaching, starting their own business, and skilled trades such as HVAC and mechanical repair.
Most don't see their backup plan as a fresh start from zero. Among workers who have considered a backup career, 83% said the skills from their current job would be useful for it, and 46% called them very useful.
Based on TripleTen's categorization of open-ended answers. Some answers named more than one area.
Pay ranks last among reasons to switch
Money was the least common motivator on the list. Only 22% said they'd pursue a backup career if their job didn't pay enough, fewer than those who'd make the move because it's something they've always wanted to try (26%), because they felt they needed a change (26%), or because their job became too stressful (25%).
Among the 957 workers who have considered a backup career.
Time, age, and starting over: what stops workers from changing careers
Meanwhile, 52% of respondents haven't considered a backup career, with many of them stating they feel held back by not having the time (27%), worries over being too old to start over (26%), and fears about having to start at an entry-level position again (20%).
Worry about being too old for a career change rises with age
The fear of being too old to start over grows sharply with each generation. Among workers who haven't considered a backup career, 13% of Gen Z cite it, compared with 20% of millennials, 28% of Gen X, and 52% of baby boomers. Gen Z's most distinctive hurdle is different: 23% say they don't know what to learn, roughly twice the rate of any older group.
Cost weighs on every age group. Overall, 18% said they can't afford to prepare for a backup career, and 8% said their partner or family isn't on board. Three in 10 (30%) said nothing is holding them back.
Among the 1,043 workers who haven't considered a backup career or weren't sure.
Job security and career stability: why 91% of workers stayed put
Although workers believe in preparing for a second career, the study revealed 91% have stayed in their current job for the past two years.
Workers said they feel optimistic (27%), calm (20%), excited (19%), and hopeful (18%) about the stability of their jobs. And 54% believe there's low or no risk of them losing their current job or needing to find a new one within the next two years.
Who feels most at risk of losing their job
Job security feels different depending on age and rank. Gen Z workers are the most likely to see a high or extremely high risk of losing their job in the next two years (35%), compared with 16% of Gen X and 8% of baby boomers.
Leaders feel more exposed than the people they manage. Among executives and business owners, 34% see a high or extremely high risk, compared with 15% of entry-level employees.
Managers think employees feel more anxious than employees report
Leaders read the room more pessimistically than their teams do. Nearly half of managers and executives (46%) think their employees feel anxious about the stability of their jobs, and 35% think they feel calm. When non-managers described their own feelings, 10% chose anxious, and 19% saw a high or extremely high risk of losing their job in the next two years.
Note: Managers and employees answered differently worded questions, so the size of the gap is indicative. The direction holds on both measures.
How the job changed for workers who stayed
However, nearly half of those who have stayed put (46%) said their responsibilities and duties have significantly changed over the past two years. Across all workers surveyed, the most common changes were learning new technologies (36%), facing economic shifts (24%), picking up extra work for peers (20%), and even layoffs (18%). Others said their industry isn't in as high demand as it once was (15%), they haven't had a raise or promotion (14%), or they're working fewer hours (12%).
Changing duties push people to switch jobs
Only 14% of workers who stayed in the same job said their duties hadn't changed at all in two years. For the smaller group who did switch (189 respondents), changing responsibilities mattered: 75% said they played a part in the decision, and 43% said they were the full reason.
How much AI has changed the workday
Almost half of workers (47%) say AI has massively or significantly changed how they do their job in the past two years, while 26% say it hasn't changed their job at all. The divide tracks closely with age: 63% of Gen Z workers report a major change, compared with 38% of Gen X and 14% of baby boomers.
Tech and finance lead AI adoption, while healthcare and education trail
How much AI is changing work depends heavily on where you work. AI has massively or significantly changed the job of 69% of tech workers, compared with 40% of workers outside tech. Finance is a clear second to tech: 48% of finance workers have been asked to learn AI chatbots, and 32% have been asked to automate part of their job.
Healthcare sits at the other end. Only 18% of healthcare workers have been asked to learn AI chatbots, and 41% say AI hasn't changed their job at all. These broad categories mix clinical, instructional, and hands-on roles with back-office staff, and compliance-heavy, human-facing work tends to bring in new tools more slowly.
The AI skills workers picked up at work
The poll found 79% have been asked to learn new skills for their current job that they didn't previously have, from using AI chatbots for everyday work tasks (34%) to using AI features built into their work software (33%) and keeping up with new technology and business lingo (30%).
As a result, many of them believe the skills they recently learned have given them more confidence (44%) and a better sense of job security (36%), and led them to teach peers the same new skills (30%).
And most of those who learned new skills (87%) believe the skills will still be relevant two years from now.
Tech workers are asked to learn the most AI skills
The skills tech workers are learning now offer a preview of what other industries are likely to ask for next. Tech workers were nearly twice as likely as all workers to be asked to use AI chatbots for everyday tasks (59% vs. 34%) and to automate parts of their job (42% vs. 23%). In healthcare and education, fewer than one in five were asked to judge whether AI output is right or wrong.
Most workers are learning AI skills without being asked
Seventy-eight percent of workers have started learning AI tools on their own, without their employer asking, and 60% already feel confident about it. That initiative is concentrated at the top: 96% of executives and owners say they've started, compared with 63% of mid-level employees and 51% of entry-level employees.
The trade-offs of learning new skills
New skills pay off unevenly. Among workers who learned something new for their job, 27% said it led to a raise or promotion, while 28% said it meant more work for the same pay and 16% reported burnout. Those outcomes split by level: 34% of executives saw a raise or promotion from new skills, compared with 17% of entry-level employees, who were also the most likely to report burnout (23%).
Among the 1,589 workers who learned a new skill for their job.
The AI skills managers now call an "absolute must"
Managers expect more than workers have been asked to learn. For every skill on the list, a larger share of managers and executives called it an absolute must for employees today than the share of workers who said they'd been asked to learn it. The widest gaps were in keeping up with new technology and business lingo (41% vs. 30%) and automating parts of the job with AI (33% vs. 23%). Only 8% of managers said no new skills are required.
Note: Manager figures are among 955 owners, executives, and managers. Worker figures are among all 2,000 respondents.
One skill gets less attention than it should. Only 30% of managers and executives call judging whether AI output is right or wrong an absolute must, which puts it sixth on a list of seven. As AI tools reach more industries, this is the skill that catches mistakes before they cause problems. It's also where work experience helps most: to spot a wrong answer, you need to know what the right one looks like.
When employees teach their managers
Learning moves up the chain, too. Three in 10 managers (31%) could name a skill an employee had shown them that they'd never considered before, and 88% of them said it became standard practice in their workplace.
Many of those skills involved AI or automation. Managers described everything from "a shortcut for using an AI tool" to automating repetitive tasks with simple scripts. By TripleTen's count, about four in 10 of the skills managers named involved AI or automation.
Workers who adopt AI early get more than time back.
Everyone talks about saving time, but the real win with early adoption is expanding what you can actually do. People who get ahead are using it to handle things they used to have to hand off. It doesn't matter how senior or junior you are. You keep your core skills, but suddenly you aren't boxed in by them anymore. Ana Riabova, AI strategy and enablement lead at TripleTen.
How workers upskill and reskill
To learn new work-related skills, respondents said they were provided training by their employer (47%), took online courses (32%), turned to free tutorials (30%), used an AI chatbot as a tutor (27%), or had a colleague teach them (21%).
Fewer workers turned to formal programs: 12% took a college or university course and 9% a bootcamp or intensive program, rising to 22% and 14% among Gen Z. One in six (17%) hadn't used any of these in the past year.
Tech workers use more ways to learn. They're nearly twice as likely as all workers to use an AI chatbot as a tutor (48% vs. 27%) and more than twice as likely as workers outside tech (21%), which means they use AI to learn other skills faster. Only 4% of tech workers didn't use any learning channel in the past year, compared with 17% of all workers.
Who workers trust to teach them a new skill
When learning a new job skill, workers trust someone currently doing that job more than any other source (31%), ahead of an official certification program (19%), a manager (18%), or an AI tool (16%). Trust in practitioners rises with age, from 23% of Gen Z to 40% of baby boomers, while Gen Z is more likely than older workers to trust an AI tool (19%) or a university professor (11%).
How much workers spend to upskill on their own
Workers spent an average of $1,367 of their own money on learning work skills in the past 12 months. Nearly half (46%) spent $1,000 or more, while 29% spent nothing. Spending climbs with seniority: executives and owners averaged $2,081 and entry-level employees $627, with 52% of entry-level employees spending nothing at all.
By generation, Gen Z spent the most, averaging $1,735, and only 10% spent nothing. Among baby boomers, 62% spent nothing.
Spending also splits by industry. Tech workers spent the most on their own learning, while nearly half of healthcare and education workers spent nothing out of pocket in the past year.
How ready workers and companies feel for the next technology shift
A third of workers (34%) feel extreme or significant pressure to stay relevant as their industry changes. That pressure is higher in tech than in other industries (46% vs. 30%). Tech workers also feel the most ready: 90% think their workplace would adopt a new technology quickly, compared with 67% of workers outside tech.
Note: Based on 500 respondents who work in the tech industry and 1,500 who work in other industries.
The same gap shows up by job level. Managers and executives feel more pressure than employees without direct reports (41% vs. 27%) and are more confident that both their workplace and they personally would adopt new technology quickly.
Note: Based on 955 owners, executives, managers, and team leads and 1,045 senior, mid-level, and entry-level employees and interns without direct reports.
Leaders are the most confident about their companies. Among managers and executives, 88% say their company would be prepared to adapt if a new technology emerged within the next two years, and 46% say very prepared. In tech, that rises to 94%.
Would employers pay to reskill workers?
Of those polled, 48% hold management or executive roles. According to them, 82% would rather train their current employees to learn new skills for their job than hire someone new.
Similarly, 87% believe their organization would play a role in paying for an employee to retrain for a new role in the organization, with 52% willing to fully fund it.
Research methodology
Talker Research surveyed 2,000 American full-time workers who have access to the internet, including 500 tech-industry workers; the survey was commissioned by TripleTen and administered and conducted online by Talker Research between Sept. 4 and Sept. 11, 2026.
A link to the questionnaire can be found here.
To view the complete methodology as part of AAPOR's Transparency Initiative, please visit the Talker Research Process and Methodology page.
