Why skills intelligence is the key to bridging the skills gap

Over the past five years, several studies have highlighted how organisations are facing a growing skills gap – one that’s directly affecting their ability to stay competitive and achieve key business outcomes.

In 2020, for example, 87% of the executives interviewed for a McKinsey study said that they were facing skills gaps in their organisations. A separate study by Gartner found that 64% of managers believed their employees were struggling to keep pace with future skill needs, while 70% of employees admitted they weren’t even proficient in the skills required for their current roles.

Clearly, business leaders are aware of the problem. In the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Survey 2025, 63% of employers pointed to skill gaps as the biggest barrier to business transformation in the 2025-30 period. And yet, despite this recognition, most organisations aren’t doing nearly enough to address these critical gaps. In Deloitte’s 2024 Ready Set Upskill on Australia’s workforce, 45% of employers confessed that they simply did not treat training budgets aimed at bridging skills gaps as a business priority.

Unfortunately, that’s only part of the story. While some companies are aware of their skills gaps and choose not to act, others don’t even realise a problem exists. For them, the first challenge isn’t a lack of skills – it’s a lack of visibility into the skills that already exist within the organisation. Without that foundation, identifying and addressing gaps is nearly impossible. In 2024, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a report based on its adult skills assessment programme across five European countries. It found that 18% of firms in the Netherlands and 15% in Hungary did not know if they even had skills gaps.

It is clear then that countering the skills crisis requires a dual approach – first, improving visibility into skills within organisations, and, second, identifying and addressing skills gaps before they become critical. Using skills intelligence in this mission can be the differentiator, leading to more successful workforce planning strategies.

All about skills intelligence, skills gaps, and skills visibility

But first, let’s understand what we mean by these terms: skills intelligence, skills gaps and skills visibility.

Skills intelligence: Skills intelligence is a systematic, data-driven approach that helps organisations identify the skills they need to succeed, understand who possesses those skills internally, identify current and emerging skills gaps, and use these insights to drive strategic workforce planning, optimise talent allocation, and inform critical business decisions – enabling the organisation to remain agile, competitive, and future-ready. Read more: ‘What is skills intelligence and why is it important?

Skills gap: A skills gap is a mismatch between the skills available in a workforce and those required to meet current and future business needs. Factors such as rapid advances in technology, global talent shortages, outdated workforce practices, antiquated education systems, and generational shifts all contribute to this gap. The problem has been further  exacerbated by the shrinking half-life of skills – 39% of employees’ current skill sets are expected to become obsolete by 2030.

Skills visibility: Skills visibility refers to an organisation’s ability to accurately see, understand, and track the skills, capabilities, and proficiency levels of its workforce in real time. It enables leaders to know what skills exist across the organisation, where they are located, how they are being applied, whether they are underutilised, and where critical gaps may exist. High skills visibility underpins effective workforce planning, talent deployment, and learning and development. It forms the foundation for an agile skills-based organisation – one that can respond quickly to change, allocate talent with precision, and align workforce capabilities with evolving business strategy. To a great extent, visibility gaps are a data problem, caused by a lack of reliable, accurate, and actionable skills data. 

Why traditional workforce planning falls short

Globally, skills gaps are widening. The demand for talent far outstrips the development of employee skills and competencies to meet that demand. Legacy approaches are among the biggest contributors to skills gaps and visibility gaps.

For example, many organisations still rely entirely on external hires to fill skills gaps. What’s more, they prioritise candidates with formal degrees over those with actual skills – an approach that is both inefficient and short-sighted. Research by HR management service provider ADP demonstrates that skills-based hiring is, in fact, more effective. A huge 94% of companies surveyed by ADP said employees hired for their skills outperform those hired on the basis of degrees. This is one of the reasons the trend of dropping formal degrees as a hiring requirement is gaining traction.

Similarly, traditional methods of acquiring skilled talent, such as offering higher pay and perks, only work in the short term. Sooner or later, they are bound to lead to high turnover rates as in-demand employees hop from organisation to organisation amid a bidding war. A far better approach to meeting talent demands and building workforce capability is to identify employees with potential and offer them opportunities to upskill and/or reskill.

Another traditional approach that aggravates the problem of skills gap is a narrow focus on jobs and titles. Conventional job titles are often outdated and misleading. Fixating on them can lead to hiring errors, misaligned expectations, and overlooked internal talent. In contrast, skills-based organisations prioritise skills over job titles and achieve better results. By focusing on the skills and competencies required for a specific task or role, they make more precise and impactful workforce decisions. This approach also accounts for the fact that skills are highly contextual and nuanced – their effectiveness depends on the situation or environment in which they are applied.

Instead of focusing on rigid job titles, organisations that shed legacy mindsets and take a skills-first approach gain significantly in terms of workforce agility, operational efficiency, and employee retention. And, yes, this approach is also far more effective in addressing the skills, experiential, and institutional knowledge gaps that exist in our workplaces.

How skills intelligence closes the gaps

With skills-based approaches to workforce planning fast replacing traditional processes, the use of skills intelligence has proved to be particularly effective in identifying and closing skills and visibility gaps. Skills intelligence tools such as MuchSkills improve skills visibility, providing organisations with a clear and complete picture of their workforce’s capabilities. Beyond that, skills intelligence shines a spotlight on employees with transferable skills and identifies opportunities to relocate them to different roles as new business requirements emerge.

Here is how skills intelligence takes a two-pronged approach to closing knowledge gaps:

1. Identifies real skills gaps

As a skills intelligence platform, MuchSkills understands that the best skills intelligence tools help organisations make optimal use of their skills data. This often starts with establishing a common language around skills and competencies – the first step toward building a skills taxonomy. A universal language harmonises skills data from multiple sources, consolidating it into a centralised system. It eliminates redundancy that can distort workforce planning and helps standardise the entire skills management process. Because this language reflects industry norms, it also enables leaders to benchmark their workforce against their competitors. By applying this universal skills language and using a skills intelligence tool like a skills taxonomy, business leaders gain a clear view of the  critical skills and competencies available in their workforce as well as those that are missing.

Once the knowledge gaps have been exposed, the next step is to act on them. Once again, skills intelligence tools make the process simple by offering up real-time data insights. This helps leaders fully understand their priorities and plan targeted and relevant interventions to shore up those shortages, whether through skill-building exercises or internal mobility programmes.

2. Fixes the visibility problem

Skills intelligence improves skills visibility in more ways than one. Here’s how MuchSkills does it.

First, it gathers all skills data in one place, providing a unified view of workforce capabilities.

Second, through the use of skills mapping and competency mapping tools, it creates dynamic profiles of an individual’s, team’s, or organisation’s skills, competencies, proficiency levels, certifications, experiences, interests, and values. With a clear overview of team capabilities, leaders can easily check for role fit, spot underutilised talents, identify skills gaps, plan employee development strategies, and make mentorship recommendations.

Third, skills intelligence enables organisations to deconstruct traditional job roles into tasks and projects, enhancing visibility into the specific skills required for each and supporting more precise talent deployment. This breaks down departmental silos, allowing leaders to easily spot candidates with skills across the organisation. This, in turn, creates opportunities for talent mobility where employees are matched with roles based on skills and interests rather than just educational credentials and influence.

How MuchSkills enables smarter workforce development

As a skill management and skills intelligence platform, MuchSkills helps its clients spot skills gaps before they turn critical and adopt a data-driven, skills-based approach to strategic workforce planning. Here is how MuchSkills can enhance any workforce development programme:

Skills gap analysis

A skills gap is the difference between the skills an organisation needs and the skills it has. With MuchSkills, organisations can map existing skills and expertise levels and then conduct a skills gap analysis to  help identify what is missing. By spotting and prioritising these gaps – deciding which ones require immediate attention and which can wait – organisations can take targeted, effective steps to close them. Because MuchSkills captures both skills and expertise levels, our clients gain access to a richer, more detailed dataset that helps them shape smarter and more strategic workforce development plans.

Here’s a detailed guide to conducting a skills gap analysis with MuchSkills.

Workforce and talent insights

MuchSkills gives organisations access to a range of workforce and talent insights, including skills gap and utilisation reports based on real-time skills intelligence data. Use these reports to allocate resources with precision – matching the right people to the right roles based on skills, proficiency, and availability; assess whether your team has the capabilities needed for a project or client engagement; and get smart suggestions for best-fit internal candidates. By reducing bench time, avoiding under- or overutilisation, and supporting internal mobility, MuchSkills enables smarter workforce planning and informed business decisions. This also boosts job satisfaction and employee engagement – factors that contribute to higher retention and long-term organisational success.

Learning path suggestions

A one-size-fits-all approach to learning and development is rarely effective. Employees have diverse skills, goals, and learning needs – so personalising L&D strategies leads to better engagement and outcomes. Using skills intelligence obtained from MuchSkills, organisations can not only bridge critical skills gaps but also use it to design personalised learning paths for their employees. Customised learning allows employees to take ownership of their development journeys, making them more receptive to learning and more effective in applying that learning.

For a detailed roadmap on creating personalised learning paths, click here to go to our playbook.

Internal talent marketplace

Skills intelligence is key to finding internal candidates for projects, workgroups, and emerging roles. External candidates are not only more expensive to hire, onboard, and train but also lack the organisational insights that internal candidates possess. The MuchSkills skills management platform also functions as an internal talent marketplace with a powerful search tool and smart filters to help organisations quickly find candidates with the required skills and competencies. Internal talent marketplaces help organisations fully utilise their internal talent and reduce dependence on expensive external hiring. An additional benefit: Employees who make internal moves are 40% more likely to stay, according to a LinkedIn study.

Case study 

Workflow collaboration software provider Appfire collaborated with MuchSkills for a complete skills management solution. Here’s how we responded to the challenge:

• First, we helped Appfire map all of its employees’ skills, competencies, and certifications, creating a comprehensive, simple, and centralised repository of skills data.
• Through this exercise, we helped Appfire create its own internal talent marketplace that employees and leaders could tap to find colleagues with certain skills within a matter of seconds. This made it easier for leaders to recruit team members with the relevant skills or for employees to seek advice from experts.
• Next, we helped Appfire perform skills gap analysis at various levels, empowering its leaders to instantly spot missing skills and its employees to check their personal role fit. We also helped the company address skills gaps by ensuring its employees found relevant learning material connected to each skill or role.
• Furthermore, to strengthen Appfire’s manager development programme, we provided guidance on conducting effective one-on-ones with employees and on helping employees set personal growth goals.
• We also offered guidance on creating a culture of learning and development around specific skills through upskilling initiatives and mentorships.
• With impeccably organised company data at their fingertips and MuchSkills’ skills intelligence tools at their disposal, Appfire’s HR and L&D teams now generate relevant, actionable reports and design successful, data-backed workforce development strategies based on these reports. They have also found success filling skills gaps with internal candidates, lowering dependence on expensive external hiring.

Summing up

Seeing is believing. This holds true for addressing the skills gaps that plague our workplaces. Only if we start seeing our employees’ capabilities clearly can we plan confidently to build an agile, future-fit workforce. Bridging skills gaps requires reliable and actionable data, complete skills visibility, and skills intelligence. As a skills management platform, MuchSkills provides all three and helps organisations smoothly navigate the pressing challenge presented by knowledge gaps.