23+ Top Transferable Skills Employers Want in 2025

Transferable skills are abilities that can be applied across various industries and are, therefore, valuable for all candidates, regardless of their knowledge and expertise. However, they are particularly useful for individuals seeking a career change; transferable skills from their previous jobs can compensate for their lack of experience.

In this article, we will show you what skills are transferable, which fields they could be useful in, and how to effectively add them to your CV to impress your potential employer.

Why Include Transferable Skills on Your CV?

You should include transferable skills on your CV because they help you secure jobs that you might not be fully qualified for. Or rather, you may have the necessary qualifications, but not the hard skills or the experience the employer wants.

In other words, transferable skills are particularly important when you’re a student, a recent graduate, or an individual looking for a career change. Writing a CV is especially difficult in these situations, and transferable skills can facilitate the process to some degree.

That’s because these skills are versatile enough to apply across different industries, seniority levels, and roles. Both CEOs and waitpeople need to be good communicators, for instance, so they could include this skill on their CV if they were to apply for each other’s jobs.

Of course, transferable skills are useful even when you possess the required hard skills and experience. Overall, they paint an image of a versatile, adaptable employee who can take on many responsibilities and be comfortable in numerous roles.

Let’s take a look at these examples of transferable skills in more detail.

#1. Communication

No matter what career path you choose, communication is an essential transferable skill that can help you build professional connections and climb up the ladder faster. After all, most jobs nowadays are done in teams, and even those that aren’t benefit from someone who can openly express their needs, issues, and concerns.

Since communication is such a widely used skill, it’s suitable for every application, regardless of your level, experience, and profession.

However, it’s most often included on CVs for people-oriented jobs, as an invaluable transferable skill for teaching, customer service, healthcare, and management.

Furthermore, communication is a broad term and may include many related skills, such as:

As a result, it’s vital even in solitary jobs, particularly those that rely on writing emails to clients or other types of content for broader audiences.

#2. Time Management

Time management is the capability to organise your schedule most efficiently and complete as many of your responsibilities as possible. This is another skill that most employers appreciate, but it’s particularly valued in managerial roles or among directors and executives.

Additionally, healthcare always needs individuals who are great at organising their time, as dealing with patients and their needs can be overwhelming otherwise. For instance, time management is a crucial transferable skill in nursing, especially in large hospitals where each nurse must handle 5–10 patients daily.

Then, there are freelancers and remote workers, who must be able to manage their time efficiently to stay on top of their tasks. In these cases, there is no one else to hold them accountable but themselves; yet, tasks pile up if they aren’t consistent.

#3. Problem-Solving

As the name implies, problem-solving is the ability to effectively resolve issues, often by analysing the situation and thinking outside the box. Most jobs require some degree of problem-solving, as you likely won’t find a position where nothing unexpected ever happens.

That said, some careers demand better problem-solving skills than others; for instance, programming, software development, architecture, engineering, and medicine. Make sure to include this skill if you’re applying for any of these, as it might give you a significant edge.

#4. Adaptability

Next comes adaptability; the ability to adjust to any situation, even the unexpected ones or those outside of your comfort zone. Adaptability is crucial for entrepreneurs, executives, law enforcement, IT support, and marketing experts, as these people work in dynamic professions where change is inevitable.

In general, adaptability is crucial for careers that put you in direct contact with people, as their behaviours and demands can be unpredictable.

For instance, it’s an important transferable skill for baristas, who interact with a diverse clientele every day. They must adapt to their customers’ communication styles, learn how to approach different types of people, and how to deal with difficult and unpleasant clients.

Even if you don’t want this kind of dynamic job, surprises and changes are part of every career. Adaptability allows you to remain cool-headed and quickly find solutions to problems that might overwhelm others.

#5. Teamwork

Teamwork entails many essential interpersonal skills, such as communication, collaboration, compromise, and negotiation. All these help you successfully work with others, simultaneously paying attention to their needs and your own.

Though teamwork is often reduced to getting along with other coworkers, there’s much more to it than that. It’s one thing to be pleasant to talk to, and another entirely to be a good team member. For starters, you must learn to balance your needs with those of your team, which many employees struggle with.

However, the more you work in teams and understand your role, the better you become as a team player. Then, even when you join a new team, you’ll find it much easier to adjust to others’ personalities and work towards your shared goals.

#6. Creativity

Creativity is considered a crucial transferable skill in art, writing, and related professions, but its usefulness actually goes far beyond that. After all, it goes hand in hand with problem-solving, which is a vital skill in many fields.

So, careers that aren’t usually viewed as creative, such as programming, software development, entrepreneurship, and engineering, often attract highly innovative individuals. The best of them employ creativity to devise unique strategies to speed up and streamline different tasks and processes at their workplaces.

In other words, creativity is a must on CVs for fields such as graphic design, marketing, and content writing, but don’t hesitate to include it in technical applications, too. It can be a huge plus, especially if you can back it up with a range of technical skills.

#7. Attention to Detail

No employer wants to hire someone who constantly makes mistakes due to carelessness, so attention to detail is held in high regard in all professions. Even when you lack in other areas, being able to spot your errors and correct them significantly contributes to your professionalism.

Still, attention to detail is more valued in some fields than others; for example, it’s a crucial transferable skill for accountants, editors, data analysts, and quality assurance managers. Any profession based on finding and correcting mistakes requires someone with a trained eye who can see what others might miss.

#8. Research

Research is the ability to find accurate information from various sources, typically so it can be used for specific purposes later. This skill is particularly handy in analytical and scientific careers, which rely on facts to reach conclusions, identify trends, or pose hypotheses.

So, make sure to include research skills on your CV when applying for the role of data analyst, historian, scientist, biologist, researcher, or any kind of investigator.

It’s worth noting that research encompasses a few other important skills, such as:

However, usually it’s enough to include “research” without further explanation; recruiters know what this may entail.

#9. Decision-Making

Decision-making can be helpful in any job, as it allows you to choose the best course of action after considering and evaluating different possibilities. Good decision makers aren’t rash, but they also don’t take too much time pondering over every minute detail to the point of mind paralysis.

Your job determines how important decision-making is for you; it’s a crucial transferable skill for airline pilots, air traffic controllers, CEOs, medical professionals, and firefighters. In fact, any high-pressure, dynamic profession requires excellent decision-making skills, as anything less can lead to significant losses or endangerment.

#10. Critical Thinking

Finally, critical thinking is the ability to objectively analyse data or a situation to make sound decisions or logical conclusions. All professions that require you to use your mind also highly value critical thinking, as it’s difficult to be successful in them otherwise.

For instance, most scientists possess this transferable skill, as do account managers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, judges, and software developers. However, it can be a difficult skill to learn, as it requires questioning everything and refusing to follow even the most trustworthy sources blindly.

Critical thinking can also be broken down into several skills:

So, like other transferable skills on this list, it’s a complex ability that doesn’t follow the same patterns in everyone.

#11. Leadership

Leadership skills encompass many of the capabilities we’ve already mentioned, but they also entail motivation, emotional intelligence, and the ability to help others see your vision. It’s not enough to give directions and delegate responsibilities; true leaders understand how their teams function and how to bring out the best in them.

If you work by yourself or as an employee who isn’t in charge of anything, you won’t necessarily need strong leadership skills. However, every managerial role can benefit from them, and the higher up the ladder you go, the more important they are.

13 More In-Demand Transferable Skills

The skills we’ve described above are the most important ones to include on your CV, but there are others to consider. Here is a comprehensive list of transferable skills that could improve your application’s strength:

How to List Transferable Skills on Your CV

Now that we’ve covered some of the most essential transferable skills, let’s explore how to list them on your CV effectively.

As is the case with all other skills, these should be added to the skills section of the CV, usually under the more industry-specific hard skills. Of course, if you’re a recent graduate or someone looking to change their career, transferable skills will be your ultimate trump card, so feel free to list them first.

None of the skills included in the skills section requires explanation, as recruiters typically know what they entail. So, it’s best to include them as short bullet points and leave elaboration for the job interview.

Keeping that in mind, here is what transferable skills on a CV should look like:

Furthermore, transferable skills can easily be incorporated into other sections of your CV; in particular, the professional summary or work experience. These sections are more descriptive, so they allow you to elaborate on them through examples or include them as traits.

So, here is how you can add them to a CV summary:

And this is how transferable skills can be included in the work experience section:

How to Improve Your Transferable Skills

To improve your transferable skills, you need to develop a separate strategy for each. These skills are highly diverse, so there’s no one-size-fits-all method for each one we listed.

For example, consider communication and attention to detail; these two hardly have anything in common, and working on one certainly won’t affect the other. Granted, some are connected, like research and critical thinking, but it’s still important to focus on each skill separately.

Nevertheless, here are some general tips that might help you improve some of the skills or steer you in the right direction:

Final Thoughts

Now that you have a better understanding of transferable skills, you should realise their importance on your CV. This is particularly true if you’re at the very beginning of your career or making a drastic shift towards a new field. If you need extra help with transferable skills on your CV, use our builder to show you how to include them effectively and which ones might be suitable for your role. In just a few minutes, you’ll have a job-winning application for any career.