Whose skills are these, anyway?
The issue of skills has been an ever present in the IT industry for many years. It’s not just an IT problem, of course. Skills can be in short supply in all manner of industries and sectors at any given time.
One of my bug bears regarding the subject is the way in which things have shifted so dramatically in the modern era (by which I mean any time after the 1970s and I’ll explain why shortly) that the expectation (and pressure) is on employees to develop the necessary skills (and pay for the privilege) to match employers’ requirements.
I like to fix the start of this trend in the 80s because it feels like that is the point at which many larger firms that had traditionally subsidised the university costs of prospective future employees and developed career development plans that were clear, consistent and well defined began to abandon them.
It’s easy to see why in some ways. Over the past 40 years, the trend away from centralised relations between businesses and employees (mainly through union recognition and agreements) to a fractured model where employees negotiate individually with their employer has been inexorable. The onus has also shifted to the individual to become more responsible for acquiring and developing skills that will make him or her more attractive to a prospective employer.
Unfortunately, this is not as simple as it looks. In the IT industry, for example, in-demand skills can become obsolete almost overnight. This can be traumatic for individuals who have developed particular skills to meet the market only to find employers asking for something different. It’s also a problem for those in employment who suddenly find their skills surplus to requirements.
This is compounded by the fact that employees frequently graduate from university courses that have been shaped with the input of businesses to meet their requirements only to find that those requirements have changed. Under our present model, employers do not feel the same level of responsibility to employees. Few, if any, are prepared to take on the role of retraining or re-skilling their workers to meet their new requirements. Instead, they abandon them and join their competitors in the battle to attract new employees with new skills. And so it goes.
Retain, retrain or begin again
This reluctance to retain and retrain employees is partly down to insecurity. First of all, today’s businesses operate in an environment that is rarely anything but insecure or precarious. That’s something which is the backdrop for so much employment as well. The vast majority of workers don’t expect to stay at any one company for a significant amount of time, assuming they are directly employed in the first place. Companies don’t expect their employees to do so either.
No wonder they place so little emphasis on retraining or re-skilling. In any case, our insecure environment makes them reluctant to do so when they fear that developing a worker’s skills would only make him or her more likely to get a job at a rival. Why risk that expense when it’s cheaper to get rid of someone and try and poach a more skilled employee from another company?
Set against this backdrop, I guess we should take any good news where we can find it and it was heartening to see things might be starting to shift. According to the Hays Ireland Salary & Recruiting Trends Guide 2026, 76% of employers reported that they were willing to hire candidates without all the required skills and invest in upskilling them. More than two-thirds (67%) would hire young professionals without industry experience and only 25% would not hire a candidate without a third level degree.
It’s possible that those responses are indicative of employers acknowledging the reality of present circumstance and this shift in mindset is merely temporary but I truly hope it represents the beginning of something more substantial. While it’s difficult to be confident that we will break out of the current age of precariousness any time soon – and I haven’t even mentioned the potential impact of AI – there’s always hope.
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