VK Education surveyed 1,000 IT faculty members from Russian universities in August 2026. The study reveals that 81% of respondents expect the developer role to shift from writing code to managing AI agents within the next 3 to 5 years.
Respondents identified specialists in AI business process integration as the most promising new role, cited by 62% of participants. Other key roles include AI quality assurance engineers at 47% and AI ethics and security specialists at 45%.
Regarding essential skills, 50% of educators prioritize the ability to verify and interpret AI outputs. Prompt engineering was highlighted by 46%, while 30% emphasized systemic thinking. Only 24% still consider programming languages a core competency.
Furthermore, 76% of surveyed teachers advocate for integrating information security and responsible AI usage into all IT curricula. Logistics and transport were named the most promising sectors for IT applications by 53% of the respondents.
