Real talk from a senior UX Manager ... this generation of designers are pretentious pixel pushers. A secretary can download an IOS template with pre-made icons, colour pick from someone elses work on Dribbble, and claim to be a UI designer. Image hot spot prototyping has been available since Adobe Fireworks... it's childs play, lets stop pretending it's super technical. UI Designers don't even need to know how to code HTML these days... they create squares and mask images. In addition they claim to understand user centered design, and cover quant and qualitative user research... and get paid an additional 50k. I make sure to mentally break (in interviews) anyone who wastes the time of recruitment and HR, pretending to walk the talk... but only downloads other designers assets, and colour picks from Pinterest and Dribbble..
That is a quote from comment youtube section and he/she is so right about that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt2troF-Eyc
That is one of greatest challenge and fears in this UI Design field. UI Designer should not only create an "aesthetic visuals" but also a case study who covers the complete process from ideation, research, analyze, design and prototype. Case study is really important to practice critical thinking.
Moreover, critical thinking is also one of must have skills in 2020 if we want to survive based on World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/