By 2020 the elite - workers in technical, professional and managerial posts - will occupy a more powerful role, pressuring employers to radically rethink how they attract and retain their specialist skills.

On the other side of the jobs scale almost a million workers, typically unskilled men, with poor prospects and limited expectations, will fall into the "excluded" bracket.

The research carried out by Future Foundation for Friends Provident, the pensions and insurance group, says that by 2020 elite workers will be able to demand more in salary and benefits and experience a higher degree of personal and professional fulfilment than ever before.

By contrast, the excluded will be complacent and unwilling to change. Almost 60pc of them expect a salary increase every year and more than two-thirds feel their job is safe despite an uncertain economic climate.

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