Advances in materials are probably going to reduce the need for skilled workers. You used to have a wide range of machinist jobs in the US. Now with CNC everywhere everyone is either a "production engineer" (or some title like that) that programs everything or a parts loader/button pusher that makes a few bucks more than minimum.

Obviously this kind of stuff takes many years but someone getting into a skilled trades career today would do well to keep on top of industry developments because the people that do will be the programmers and the people that don't will be replaced by button pushers.