81 per cent firms facing shortage in ‘power’ tech skills globally in AI era

81 per cent organizations globally are encountering a shortage in "power user or developer" tech skills

New Delhi: About 81 per cent organizations globally are encountering a shortage in “power user or developer” tech skills, a report showed on Thursday, as the enterprises scout for new-age skill sets in the generative AI era.

The shortage of future tech skills is expected to arise from the high demand for application developers and business app users, as indicated by 76 per cent and 62 per cent of the surveyed organizations, respectively, according to the report by EY and iMocha, a skills intelligence and skills assessment platform.

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Merely 19 per cent of the organisations reported having established a skill taxonomy, while 43 per cent had conducted skill benchmarking at the employee level.

There is an estimated global tech talent pool of over 26 million people with 65 per cent in software engineering roles followed by 27 per cent in IT roles and 8 per cent in business app-related roles.

“The adoption of skill taxonomy and benchmarking is a clear indicator that the increasing complexity of tech skills is necessitating leaders to reconstruct their talent acquisition, development, and management strategies,” said Amit D Mishra, Founder and CEO, iMocha.

The report highlighted India’s standing as one of the top tech talent markets, with a market share of 16 per cent, putting it on par with Europe’s 16 per cent and the US’s 20 per cent.

“It is clearly evident that technology skills are seen as valuable across job roles, functions, and industries. With the increasing usage of different tools, the complexity of skills needed across various functional areas (software engineering, IT, and business application power user) is also increasing,” said Alpana Dutta, Partner, People Advisory Services, EY India.

It is not surprising that 62 per cent of employers believe that 5-15 per cent of their talent base will require skills transformation in the next 2-3 years, with 33 per cent of employers estimating that 15-35+ per cent of their talent base will require this upgrade, Dutta explained.