A growing IT skills shortage will impact more than 90% of organisations worldwide by 2026 at an estimated cost of $5.5 trillion in losses caused by product delays, impaired competitiveness, and loss of business, according to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC)
► IT ops a close second to AI for most sought skills
► Cloud skills needed by most organisations
A recent IDC survey found that nearly two thirds of IT leaders in North America believed a lack of skills had resulted in missed revenue growth goals, quality issues, and a decline in customer satisfaction. While AI is currently the most in-demand skill, ‘IT operations’ are a close second, the firm noted, and a variety of cloud skills – including architecture, data management and storage, and software development – are among the ten most needed skills identified by the survey.
This situation is further compounded by the need for additional, non-technical skills, such as digital business skills, human skills, and leadership skills.
‘Getting the right people with the right skills into the right roles has never been so difficult,’ said Gina Smith, PhD, research director for IDC's IT Skills for Digital Business practice. ‘As IT skills shortages widen and the arrival of new technology accelerates, enterprises must find creative ways to hire, train, upskill, and reskill their employees. A culture of learning is the single best way to get there.’
Among the challenges organisations face when trying to expand the skills of their employees is resistance to training. Employees complain that the courses are too long, the options for learning are too limited, and there isn't enough alignment between skills and career goals.
To overcome these challenges, IT leaders need to employ a variety of strategies to encourage a more effective learning environment within their organisation. These include everything from classroom training to hackathons, hands-on labs, and games, quests, and mini-badges. 70% of survey respondents indicated that they are already making use of experiential learning methods, which includes labs, games, and hackathons. Generative AI has also found its way into the training environment, with more than half using or piloting it for IT training.
IDC noted that fostering a positive learning environment in an organization requires more than just materials, courses, and challenges. Culture change begins at the top and leaders need to demonstrate why learning matters to the organisation. This can be done by aligning employee goals with business goals, promoting continuous learning throughout the employee's journey, and creating a rewards program that recognizes process as well as performance. It also requires the allocation of adequate time, money, and people resources.
The IDC report, Enterprise Resilience: IT Skilling Strategies, 2024, presents a framework for enterprises hoping to stay ahead of a worsening global IT skills shortage. It includes data from IDC's 2024 North American IT Skills Survey as well as best practices for cultivating a culture of learning in the enterprise.
