Soft skills can prepare children for various aspects of life, from excelling in careers to forming healthy relationships. Yet these skills are sometimes underestimated, considered easily learned, intuitive or even common sense. The importance of soft skills is often only clear when missing — if someone has strong interpersonal abilities, it can go unnoticed.
Hard skills, in comparison, have historically been highly valued, as the outcomes are much more tangible. However, the advancement of technology, especially AI, is predicted to make many hard skills like coding, data analysis, and bookkeeping redundant in the future.
Instead, soft skills have risen in demand due to a greater need for human connection, judgement, and thinking. A recent report found the need for human skills is even greater than the digital skill demand. While soft skills have previously been difficult to measure, we have created a quiz to help young people assess their strengths across six key areas.
Children learn soft skills in various settings, including socialising with friends, extra-curricular activities, and in school. However, parents also play a crucial role in helping children develop these abilities. So, we asked a selection of parents which soft skills they believe will be most impactful for their children’s future and should be prioritised.
In this blog, we’ll explore the survey results, the benefits and importance of each soft skill, and how parents can help children learn these abilities.
Parents cited emotional intelligence as the top soft skill for students
Almost a quarter of parents said emotional intelligence — having self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and empathy — would have the biggest impact on their child’s future.
Having emotional intelligence (EQ) is an important soft skill for students as it enhances the ability to understand your own emotions, why they’re occurring, and how they influence your actions. This knowledge allows you to manage and communicate feelings in healthy ways, contributing to a more positive mindset and emotional wellbeing.
A high EQ also entails recognising the emotions of others and how to respond appropriately. This ability helps increase compassion, resolve conflict and have mature conversations around feelings, which in turn can create respectful and honest dynamics.
Behaviours of a child with high emotional intelligence include:
- Recognising and naming their emotions
- Expressing their emotions appropriately
- Recognising non-verbal emotional cues in others
Signs a child may lack emotional intelligence include:
- Having unregulated emotional outbursts
- Creating misunderstandings through ineffective communication
- Failing to understand different perspectives
The Dukes Plus Soft Skills Quiz assesses emotional intelligence in students through scenario-based questions, such as asking how they would navigate disagreements and respond to someone they had upset.
Children can learn some aspects of EQ naturally, but developing emotional skills at a high level often needs teaching. Parents can nurture emotional intelligence by modelling the behaviour themselves, as well as encouraging children to share their feelings with open-ended questions.
Additionally, ask them to identify their feelings and ensure you acknowledge and accept these emotions. Pointing out how their peers and even fictional characters might be feeling can also help them form empathy.
Ricky Tavares, Director of Dukes Plus, said: “The conversation around mental health and its importance is much more prominent now than it was for previous generations. Many parents are now aware of the far-reaching effect of high emotional intelligence and understand it’s a solid foundation for healthy wellbeing, mature relationships, and job satisfaction.”
Parents consider teamwork and collaboration least impactful
Just 9% of the parents surveyed thought teamwork and collaboration were priorities for their children — ranking these soft skills last. In the study, the ability was described as ‘how well a student works within a team, understands group dynamics, and contributes to a collaborative environment’.
Ricky Tavares added: “This result is surprising as teamwork and collaboration are relevant to and helpful in various situations, including social, school and future work environments. It might be that parents are solely focused on the skills that directly influence their child’s individual performance and personal growth rather than shared achievements. However, children can learn a lot from teamwork.”
Working with others and being exposed to different opinions, experiences, and skills can promote open-mindedness and spark creativity. Effective collaboration also teaches young people how to provide and receive support to achieve goals more productively.
In April 2025, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) released a new report investigating cross-country differences in young people’s skill development. The research cited English teenagers as having the worst socio-emotional skills, which included cooperation, collaboration, and peer relationships. If left unaddressed, the NFER warns these weaknesses could impact the future employability of young people.
Examples of strong teamwork and collaboration skills are:
- Listening to other people’s ideas and giving feedback
- Working towards shared goals as well as personal ones
- Offering opinions and ideas confidently
Signs a child may struggle with these skills include:
- Dominating or not engaging in the team conversation and tasks
- Struggling to speak up
- Being unwilling to find a compromise
Children will often work in groups for school and extra-curricular activities, but parents can help them develop these skills further at home. For example, assign them collaborative projects or chores with family members and guide them on how to work together to achieve the goal.
Parents can also ask their children questions from the Soft Skills Quiz to test their teamwork and collaboration skills, including reaching decisions and managing deadlines as a team.
How essential are problem-solving skills?
A student’s ability to problem solve — classified as identifying problems, thinking critically, and implementing solutions — was voted as the most important by 23% of parents, placing it second.
Ricky Tavares said: “Problem solving can ensure children don’t give up when learning a difficult subject at school, which builds resilience and encourages creativity. This mindset can help them become self-reliant in adulthood, making thoughtful choices, standing out for job opportunities, and confidently making decisions in stressful scenarios.”
Behaviours of a child with strong problem-solving abilities include:
- Trying different methods after a failed first attempt
- Asking questions to understand the challenge
- Thinking carefully about how to respond
Signs that a child may struggle with problem-solving include:
- Getting quickly frustrated by the problem
- Continuously trying the same failed strategy to solve the problem
- Avoiding unfamiliar or challenging tasks
The wide use of search engines like Google and AI Chatbots like ChatGPT provides a relatively new method for finding instant answers, potentially negating the need for problem-solving abilities.
A previous study argued that incorporating ChatGPT in classwork significantly improved students’ critical, creative, and reflective thinking. However, recent research from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University stated: “While GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving.”
Problem-solving games, such as board games, video games, and age-appropriate escape rooms, can be a fun way to teach children these skills. Providing positive feedback for the process of looking for solutions and normalising making mistakes can also encourage their development.
Students can test their problem-solving abilities in this short self-assessment, which includes questions about how they would approach new challenges and complex problems.
The importance of communication skills
Parents ranked communication skills — the ability to clearly and effectively convey information, listen actively and tailor communication to varying audiences — as the third most important soft skill for students.
Ricky Tavares commented: “Communication can drive children’s academic progress, as it enables them to request more support, contribute ideas, and ask questions. It also helps them listen effectively so they can follow instructions and absorb lessons.
“As well as benefitting their education, eloquent communication can strengthen a child’s social skills and their overall emotional intelligence. In a work environment, strong communication can help with interviewing successfully, presenting confidently, and developing a professional rapport.”
Behaviours of a child with strong communication skills include:
- Maintaining eye contact
- Actively listening to other people speak
- Understanding when to talk in a conversation
Signs a child may lack communication skills include:
- Interrupting when others are speaking
- Avoiding in-person communication
- Misinterpreting the tone of conversations
To evaluate communication abilities, the Soft Skills Quiz asks students how they would approach certain scenarios, such as explaining a complex idea and communicating with a diverse team where English is a second language.
Previous LinkedIn analysis ranked communication as the most in-demand soft skill among businesses. However, in recent reports, employers said ‘digital natives’ were too afraid to speak on the phone or do job interviews. The Guardian article referenced challenges, including Covid, climate change, and the internet, as reasons for Gen Z lacking key social skills. To help combat this issue, a new programme from UNESCO partner Higher Health UK has launched in Manchester to provide soft skills training for 10,000 young people.
However, parents can also help by modelling good communication, such as active listening, speaking clearly, and nonverbal communication.
Additionally, parents can introduce conversation-based games, such as a story circle (each person adds a sentence to create a story) or using a dice with conversation prompts.
Are adaptability and flexibility vital soft skills?
In the fourth position, just 15% of parents said adaptability and flexibility were high-priority. The skills were described as how well a student adjusts to new situations, their openness to new ideas and their resilience in facing challenges.
The Future of Jobs Report 2025 from the World Economic Forum revealed that 67% of respondents considered resilience, flexibility, and agility as core skills for their workforce. Despite this, a separate survey found that almost half of employers think graduates lack resilience.
Ricky Tavares added: “With technology advancing constantly and continuing to change job roles and industries, adaptability equips young people for navigating these changes effectively. Even without external factors causing dramatic shifts, everyone will experience changes, whether that’s in their personal or professional life.
“Those who are open-minded will adjust quickly, accept change, and find ways to thrive in challenging situations. This attitude nurtures career progression and personal growth.”
Behaviours of children with strong adaptability and flexibility include:
- Easily adjusting to plans changing
- Enjoying new situations and experiences
- Working well with new people and different personalities
Signs a child may struggle with these skills include:
- Giving up quickly when challenges arise
- Having difficulty accepting criticism
- Clinging to familiar situations
Students can explore how they would respond to real-life situations, such as changes to a project and receiving feedback from peers, with our interactive assessment.
To help children develop adaptability and flexibility, parents can introduce small changes to their usual routines and guide them through their reactions. Try to normalise negative responses to change while still encouraging them to persist and praising their efforts to adapt.
Parents rank leadership skills as low priority
Only 11% of parents said leadership skills — the ability to inspire and guide others, make decisions, manage projects and take responsibility — were a priority.
While the surveyed parents placed leadership skills low, the World Economic Forum’s report predicted the abilities to teach and mentor would increase in importance by 2030. Almost two-thirds of employers also considered leadership and social influence as core skills.
Ricky Tavares added: “Not everybody wants to be a leader, but leadership isn’t just about being in charge. Strong leadership abilities can enhance many other soft skills, such as empathy, effective communication and creative problem-solving. Leadership can help young people take responsibility for their actions, feel confident in their own ideas, and take initiative, too.”
Behaviours of strong leadership skills include:
- Supporting and encouraging group members
- Providing clear direction
- Making fair decisions
Signs of poor leadership skills can include:
- Struggling to commit to decisions
- Being dismissive of other people’s ideas and contributions
- Making excuses or blaming others for mistakes
Respondents can practice various leadership situations in our quiz, including managing different opinions, motivating the team to meet targets, and supporting quiet team members.
Ricky Tavares continued: “It’s a misconception that leadership is an innate skill that students can’t learn. Some might have natural traits that make leadership easier at first, but it’s fundamentally a skillset that anyone can learn and develop over time.”
Parents can improve a child’s leadership skills by assigning them regular tasks to complete, encouraging them to make decisions, and providing feedback and praise on their leadership behaviour.
Ricky Tavares concluded: “The results of our research are clear — soft skills matter. Emotional intelligence, empathy, resilience, communication — these are the traits shaping our children’s futures. Knowledge opens doors, but soft skills carry them through.”
All of these soft skills can benefit a child’s development and future achievements. As many of these skills overlap, children will likely learn aspects of each. However, actively practising and building various soft skills habits can ensure their abilities are well-rounded.
Take the Dukes Plus Soft Skills Quiz to discover your child’s abilities and identify the areas they need further development. After completing all the questions, they will receive a personalised breakdown of how well they performed overall, and in each of the six skill areas.
Certain mental health and neurodevelopment conditions, like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and social anxiety can influence a child’s development of soft skills. However, they can still learn with the right tools and support. In these cases, consult medical professionals for guidance.