5 High-Income Skills To Learn For Free In 2025

We’re approaching that time of year again. You’re gearing up to put pen to paper (or open your phone’s note app) and jot down your New Year’s goals. Only this time, it’s a little different, because we’re now halfway through a decade.

How will your career improve or progress differently this year? What steps do you need to take to achieve your career goals? Whatever goals you write down, you’ll likely need to develop skills to achieve them.

Just think about the past half decade. Can you believe it’s been five years since the pandemic and lockdowns first struck the globe? But since that time, so much has happened which has likely made a significant impact on your career. From having no choice but to quickly adapt to a remote working environment due to lockdown restrictions, to being mandated back to the office, to the introduction of artificial intelligence at the mainstream level in 2022, with all the economic challenges and layoffs in between, your career has seen a lot of change.

All of these changes have necessitated a new set of skills so that you could adapt accordingly and remain competitive in the job market. If there’s one thing that the last five years has taught us, it’s that work in itself, and the state of the workforce, can go from one position to another, literally overnight. And if you choose not to keep learning something new every day, pretty soon you’ll fall behind and be irrelevant to the needs of your industry.

5 High-Paying Skills To Learn In 2025

The skills you need to acquire to enable you to achieve your career goals for next year will vary depending on what specifically you’re looking to accomplish. However, overall, here are just a few of the core skills you should definitely have on your radar and add to your list for your 2025 New Year’s resolutions:

1. Entrepreneurship
2. Remote collaboration tools
3. Emotional intelligence
4. Data science and analytics
5. Coding and AI skills

Here’s why each one matters and how they translate into achieving your goal of a salary increase, promotion, or higher earnings as a freelancer or business owner:

1. Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship skills, such as self-motivation, creative thinking, customer focus, and a problem-solving mindset are not just for entrepreneurs. In fact there is countless evidence that proves that employers value workers who demonstrate these competencies in their everyday work, especially for companies who are focused on driving innovation and change.

A background in entrepreneurship, or having an entrepreneurial mindset and skills, can position you for high earning roles such as being part of the founding team of a start-up. Even if you work within a low-profile role in that start-up, this strategically positions you for success because you would usually have stock options.

Most importantly, having a start-up on your resume (especially if it is a successful one) leads you to more favorable and lucrative opportunities with other employers.

And of course, entrepreneurship skills benefit you personally as a freelancer or professional with a side hustle. This is because when freelancing, it’s not good enough just to know how to deliver a great service; you need to think like a business owner.

2. Remote Collaboration Tools

Google, Zoom, and Microsoft have all capitalized on the virtual workplace demand since the pandemic, and this trend is set to continue, as most employers will be adopting structured hybrid remote models. Some even specify that they would prefer candidates who have proven experience with remote collaboration tools previously.

So, the better you are at using these tools and their connected apps, the smoother your negotiation and sales meetings will be, and the easier your communication across projects.

3. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is all about having a growth mindset, and being able to recognize and address your own emotions and those of the people around you. This enables you to respond to situations in a mature way instead of reacting to them, leading to regrets later. It also helps you build relationships with people within your work environment, including stakeholders, direct reports, co-workers, and your boss, and build trust, which leads to higher earnings overall.

This is especially the case if you are a business leader. Emotionally intelligent leaders are often the most successful at driving positive change and motivating their workers, which of course leads to increased productivity and drives business revenue.

4. Data Science And Analytics

Having data skills enables you to make better decisions whether you are freelancer or business leader, because decisions backed by data and research help you to avoid costly mistakes in the long run. Additionally, data science and analytics is a highly in-demand industry with the United States Bureau of Labour Statistics projecting a 36% increase in jobs within this field. Additionally, the rise of artificial intelligence requires professionals with data science and data analytical skills for it to work.

5. Coding And AI

While you might not think that you need to learn coding or artificial intelligence because you don’t work directly in tech, these skills are actually transferable skills, meaning that you can use them across a wide range of use cases, industries, and roles, regardless of whether you consider yourself a techie or not.

Learning to code can be invaluable for your career, helping you get a product to market faster, making you an invaluable resource to your employer, and enabling you to make money through developing apps and time-saving web applications as a side hustle, which is a high-paying gig in itself.

Where To Learn These High-Income Skills For Free

There are plenty of resources available online to help you develop these five lucrative skills, without breaking your bank account. Resources such as Coursera, Harvard Online, MIT OpenCourseWare, Microsoft Learn, Kaggle, Codeacdemy, and LinkedIn Learning (free with an existing premium subscription) are some examples of places that you can learn and practice your skills on. And of course, searching any subject on YouTube opens a plethora of useful and educational tutorials, videos, podcasts, and talks.

So, as you write down your New Year’s resolutions for your career in 2025, remember to include these five high-income skills (at least) on your list. Determine to make time in your busy schedule to develop and practice these skills; make them a priority. As you make upskilling your priority, your earnings will simultaneously begin to increase as well, and you’ll have a greater chance at career longevity.