The civil engineering profession has a long history of successfully adapting to change, whether it be technology, social, environmental, or economic in nature. A key aspect of adaption is meeting the requirements for basic and applied skills over the short and long term. In turn, this should involve a perspective on what will be the needs and prospects facing the profession, from those with reasonable certainty to others that are uncertain, as described in the paper. Teaching and training are obviously fundamental to acquisition of required skills, and this ranges from engineering and science fundamentals to areas with inadequate coverage such as business, communication and knowledge management to areas representing a major challenge such as creativity and innovation. Skill sets requirements as identified by a cross sectional representation of public, private and academic sectors is described in the paper. They consist of the following categories: technical, non-technical, adaption, sustainability, people and services provision. Subsets are provided within each category. As well, priorities are assigned as critical, necessary or useful to each subset, according to whether an entry level, mid career or senior level is involved. While the focus of these skills requirements is the civil engineer of 2020, they are shown to be really applicable to the engineer of today, as well as in 2020, and beyond.
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