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It is not so much that COBOL and its contemporaries are obsolete; it is that people are not familiar with them.
My magic ball sees redevelopment into modern languages as a reaction to the lack of expertise on these perfectly fine programs of yesteryear.
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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That's always been a pretty tough part of the business for a lot of folks thinking about getting into it. It takes a certain type of person.
So to skills, it's hard to say. One hope I have is that we get small fuel cell technology worked out and suddenly phones and wee tablets can (once again) make the trip back up to real computers just like the PC did. Then we get rid of the hacky crap that makes up most of mobile programming, and use real languages with real threads and programs that just run till the user stops them and they can have normal ongoing processing in the background without playing tricks and so forth.That would open the door for much more unified development across the whole ecosystem.
Hopefully, though it probably won't happen, the browser finally gets shot in the head a dumped in a ditch beside the road in Jersey. If a quarter of the effort that's gone into making the browser a crap development environment had gone into cooperation between the major players to create a portable API, we'd all be so much better off. Leave the USB drive... take the cannoli.
Given that most all of the trends are making it harder and harder to just sell software as a business, and that this is pushing more and more companies towards cloud based systems and becoming service companies, sadly, this probably means a lot more of this kind of silliness is in the future. Obviously for some kinds of things it makes sense, where harnessing large amounts of shared processing power for small amounts of time are involved. But mostly now it's a business decision to get out of having real products and obligations to users and just have monthly revenues from services. And of course that puts a small set of very large companies into control of a lot of businesses, since most cannot afford to create such a setup themselves.
And more and more folks looking to get rich quick will continue to encourage this trend, to just use someone else's infrastructure and make no real commitments themselves. If it doesn't work in quickly, dump it and all the customers and move on to the next one. So presumably a lot of jobs will end up moving in this direction as well.
Explorans limites defectum
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Dean Roddey wrote: And more and more folks looking to get rich quick will continue to encourage this trend, to just use someone else's infrastructure and make no real commitments themselves. If it doesn't work in quickly, dump it and all the customers and move on to the next one. So presumably a lot of jobs will end up moving in this direction as well.
I hope not, but seeing how it is going lately... I think you can have a point here.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Seems like basic skill is still missing. 
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well said! 
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Can be applied to any field in programming.
No matter what is hyped at the moment.
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With the explosion of robotics, IoT, drones and industrial automation, knowing low-level coding to control all the new hardware will be in strong demand. There are elements about embedded software that one never sees when working at the app-level, like use of the keyword, volatile, and knowing how to read a datasheet and understanding what its saying about all those control and status registers!
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xReally, it's important to me -- pays the rent.
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I only even know what one of those is.
Explorans limites defectum
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Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality / Mixed Reality / eXtended Reality
Some people try to draw fine distinctions between them; I'm not one of those. For me, it's a continuum between "virtual" and "augmented" depending on how much of the real world leaks through. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are VR headsets; the Microsoft HoloLens is an AR headset.
But others like to wax philosophic on distinctions, and drag MR and XR into the discussion. Fine, I guess it's important to them.
In my career, VR was just a smooth and natural extension of geometric modeling and computer graphics for computer-aided architectural design. Compute two perspective images instead of one. Use shutter glasses, polarized glasses, or a head-mounted display to deliver a different perspective to each eye. Voila, VR. Use head-tracking to modify the viewpoint. Use hand-tracking to interact in three-dimensions instead of two.
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These two are a must. All others on this list are a crapshoot and depend on where you want to work.
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Of course, having people skills is the best way to get around security.
Truth,
James
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If we have learned nothing else from Covid19 the future is impossible to predict. Trying to predict the future in the next 3 years, a ridiculously short period is PARTICUARLY IMPOSIBLE.
Any number of disasters, natural or man made could wipe us all off of the face of the earth.
Slow Eddie
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Not only this, but the set of answers is far too limited for the scope of the question. Just having basic, decent skills in analysis will mean you can get a development job. There are millions of LOB applications needing* to be developed and supported.
A friend of mine sent a link the other day that New Jersey is looking for COBOL programmers, for example.
*I use "needing" in the broadest possible sense here. Nobody needs crap like facebook and twitter, but the business needs those applications to stay afloat.
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Quote: New Jersey is looking for COBOL programmers
For a new episode of Jurassic Park ? 
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Apparently those idiots never upgraded their unemployment system, and now it's overloaded.
An old friend sent a link and said he bet we could make a ton if we went and did this. I said that I've been to Trenton, there isn't enough money.
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That'd be handy ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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That'd be like Blockchain, early to grow and early to go.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Will always be the most important skill. Just spend some time in QA if you disagree. 
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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Interestingly enough QA as a discipline is disappearing. It is much easier to use customers as free QA.
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: QA.
I meant the Quick Answers section of this site.
Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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It's funny that assuming you meant the other QA didn't invalidate his comment.
Besides having customers do QA, another trend is having developers do it. No need for a separate QA function, just like there's no need for an external auditor to look over the company's books!
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