100+ workforce skills statistics for 2026

The organisations pulling ahead aren't the ones with the best technology. They're the ones that know what their people can do – and act on it.

Most organisations today are being asked to do several things simultaneously: deploy AI at scale, retain and develop talent, execute on ambitious strategy, and adapt faster than their competitors. Yet the majority are attempting all of this without reliable intelligence about their most important asset – the skills and capabilities of their own workforce.

This is the skills fog. And its cost shows up in misstaffed projects, missed opportunities, and misdirected investment.

This playbook cuts through it. It brings together data from the world's leading workforce research institutions – Deloitte, Gartner, WEF, McKinsey, Mercer, PwC, BCG, IBM, Gallup, LinkedIn, and Lightcast – with insights drawn from the MuchSkills platform, which hosts skills profiles from more than 100,000 professionals in skills-first organisations worldwide. Where most research looks at skills from the top down – through employer surveys, job postings, and labour market signals – MuchSkills data captures the view from the other direction: the skills employees themselves identify, use, and are matched to projects on every day.

Together, these two perspectives point in the same direction. The skills gap is real, it is widening, and the organisations that build the infrastructure to see and act on workforce capability are pulling decisively ahead. The ones that don't are making their most consequential business decisions in the dark.

Use this playbook to understand the scale of the challenge – from skills-based hiring statistics to the returns on AI – make the business case internally, and see what the organisations getting this right are doing differently.

You're making critical talent decisions without reliable skills data

This is the foundational problem – and the root cause of the skills fog. Before anything else – before the AI strategy, the workforce planning, the upskilling investment – most organisations are navigating blind.

Only 8% of organisations have reliable data on the skills their workforce currently possesses, according to Gartner's HR research. The other 92% are making staffing decisions, development investments, and succession calls based on CVs, job titles, and manager memory. None of these remain reliable at scale. None of them update themselves.

The consequences compound quietly. Talent gets overlooked. Projects get staffed with the wrong people. Training budgets get spent on guesswork. And when the board asks whether the organisation has the capabilities to execute its strategy, nobody can answer with confidence.

This is why a skills gap analysis has become one of the most important exercises a leadership team can run – not as a one-off project, but as a continuous practice. To go deeper on what that looks like in practice, see our complete guide to skills gap analysis.

The data on the visibility gap:

• Only 8% of organisations have reliable skills data on their workforce (Gartner, 2024)
• Only 10% of organisations have a skills database or inventory with profiles for all employees (i4CP, 2021)
• 27% of organisations believe LinkedIn knows more about their workforce than they do (i4CP, 2021)
• Only 14% of organisations rate themselves at the top of LinkedIn's talent velocity scale – the ability to see their skills, build or acquire what's missing and move talent in real time (LinkedIn, 2026)
• 50% of HR leaders agree their organisation does not make effective use of the skills it already has (Gartner, 2024)
• 41% of HR leaders agree their workforce lacks the skills their organisation requires (Gartner, 2024)
• 62% say uncertainty around future skills poses a significant risk to their business (Gartner, 2024)

Skills are changing faster than your frameworks can keep up

The pace of skills change is now one of the defining business risks of the decade. What your workforce knows today is not what your business will need in three years. The gap between the two is widening – and most organisations have no systematic way to track it.

According to Lightcast's Beyond the Buzz report, 32% of skills in the average job have changed in just three years. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 – which surveyed over 1,000 leading global employers representing more than 14 million workers – found that 39% of existing skill sets will be transformed or become outdated between 2025 and 2030. LinkedIn's Work Change Report goes further: by 2030, 70% of the skills used in most jobs will change, with AI as a catalyst.

The implication is stark. A skills matrix built last year is already partially wrong. A job description written in 2022 may bear little resemblance to what the role actually requires today. Static frameworks do not just become less useful over time – they actively mislead.

The data on the pace of change:

• 39% of existing skill sets will be transformed or outdated by 2030 (WEF, 2025)
• By 2030, 70% of the skills used in most jobs will change, with AI as a catalyst (LinkedIn, 2025)
• The rate at which LinkedIn members add new skills to their profiles has risen 140% since 2022 (LinkedIn, 2025)
• 32% of skills in the average job have changed in just three years (Lightcast, 2025)
• 59 out of every 100 workers globally will need training by 2030 (WEF, 2025)
• CEOs expect 29% of employees to need reskilling for a different role between 2026 and 2028, and 53% to need reskilling to do their current role more effectively – based on 2,000 CEOs in 33 geographies (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026)
• 65% of workers say the skills required to perform their job have changed in the past two years (Deloitte, 2022)
• 72% of employees say AI has changed expectations for the skills they need, but only 36% feel they've had adequate upskilling (BCG, 2026)
• Generative AI adoption in non-tech roles has grown approximately 800% since 2022 (Lightcast, 2025)
• 51% of AI job postings are now outside IT and computer science (Lightcast, 2025)
• 48% of HR leaders agree the demand for new skills is evolving faster than existing talent structures can support (Gartner, 2025)
• AI literacy skills added by LinkedIn members have risen 177% since 2023 – nearly five times faster than skills overall (LinkedIn, 2025)
• 53% of employees worry about lacking future-ready skills (Mercer, 2026)
• 63% of employees would trade a 10% pay rise for opportunities to upskill in AI and digital skills (Mercer, 2026)

The skills gap is now a board-level risk – not just an HR concern

Talent and skills have moved decisively from the HR agenda to the boardroom. CEOs, CHROs, and investors are all treating the skills gap as a primary strategic risk. Organisations that continue to treat it as an operational people matter are misreading the moment.

PwC's 2026 Global CEO Survey – based on 4,454 CEOs across 95 countries – found that CEO confidence in revenue growth has fallen to its lowest level in five years. The biggest question on their minds is whether they are transforming fast enough. Meanwhile, Mercer's Global Talent Trends 2026 – which surveyed nearly 12,000 C-suite executives, HR leaders, investors, and employees worldwide – found that 54% of C-suite leaders identify talent scarcity as the top force influencing their people plans.

The investor community is paying close attention. In the same Mercer research, 77% of investors say they are more likely to invest in companies committed to AI education and training for their employees.

There is also a striking internal contradiction worth noting: 89% of executives say skills are becoming important for how organisations define work, deploy talent, manage careers and value employees, according to Deloitte – yet only 8% of organisations have reliable data on the skills their workforce actually possesses. The conviction is near-universal. The infrastructure to act on it is almost entirely absent.

Together, these pressures – mounting talent scarcity and a widening skills gap – converge on a single constraint: whether organisations have the skills required to execute their strategy.

The data on the business stakes:

• 63% of employers identify skills gaps as the biggest barrier to business transformation – the top barrier globally (WEF, 2025)
• 54% of C-suite executives identify talent scarcity as the top force influencing their people plans (Mercer, 2026)
• 59% of HR leaders say difficulty attracting talent with vital digital skills is their top people challenge (Mercer, 2026)
• Only 30% of CEOs are confident about revenue growth in 2026 – a five-year low (PwC, 2026)
• 42% of CEOs cite keeping pace with technological change as their top concern (PwC, 2026)
• 72% of employers report difficulty filling roles, down from 74% the year before – based on 39,000 employers in 41 countries (ManpowerGroup, 2026)
• 78% of board members and C-suite executives regard skills and talent availability as a major source of risk – nearly 500 respondents in more than 50 countries (Deloitte, 2024)
• 72% of investors agree companies combining human and AI capabilities are positioned to gain competitive advantage (Mercer, 2026)
• 77% of investors are more likely to invest in companies committed to AI education and training for employees (Mercer, 2026)
• 83% of investors say organisations led by adaptable, resilient executives will outperform peers during disruption (Mercer, 2026)

Most orgs have more capability than they can currently see or utilise

One of the most consistent – and underappreciated – findings across all the research is that most organisations already have more of the capability they need than they realise. The problem is not always a skills shortage. It is a visibility failure. Skills are there, but nobody can find them.

According to Gartner, 1 in 3 employees feel they could have a bigger impact in another role within their organisation. Yet fewer than 1 in 5 leaders say their organisation can effectively move talent based on business need. The talent is present. The systems to see and deploy it are not.

The cost shows up in engagement too. Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, according to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026. Unused skills are part of that picture: employees who feel their skills are not being well used are 10 times more likely to be looking for a new job, according to LinkedIn, and Deloitte found that skills-based organisations are 79% more likely to provide a positive workforce experience. The research shows a link rather than proof of cause – but it points the same way.

In consulting and professional services – where skills visibility has the most direct and immediate commercial impact – this failure shows up as lost revenue. A firm that cannot quickly answer "do we have someone with this skill and certification?" either loses the bid or staffs it with the wrong team. According to MuchSkills' analysis of technical skills across 100,000+ professionals on its platform, the foundational technical skill set has remained remarkably stable over recent years – but an entirely new layer of AI-native tools and capabilities has emerged on top of it. Firms with no systematic way to track this are submitting proposals and staffing projects based on an outdated picture of what their people can do.

This is also where CV Inventory, MuchSkills' AI-powered proposal tool, makes the most direct difference – generating tailored, accurate CVs from live skills data rather than from folders of outdated documents. See how it works →

The data on hidden and underutilised talent:

• 1 in 3 employees feel they could have a bigger impact in another role within their organisation (Gartner, 2024)
• Fewer than 1 in 5 leaders say their organisation can effectively move talent based on business need (Gartner, 2024)
• In many organisations, between 20% and 30% of critical roles are not filled by the most appropriate people (McKinsey, State of Organizations 2023)
• 58% of workers believe they have skills that are not clear from their qualifications or job history (PwC data via WEF, 2024)
• Employees who feel their skills are not being well used are 10 times more likely to be looking for a new job (LinkedIn, 2022)
• Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020 – costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity, or 9% of global GDP (Gallup, 2026)
• Organisations with strong employee engagement capability tend to have annual workforce turnover 5.3 percentage points lower – 10.9% vs 16.2% (BCG, 2026)
• 66% of workers would be more likely to stay at an organisation that values demonstrated skills over degrees (Deloitte, 2022)
• Business strategy is the skill most commonly lost when employees leave – followed by strategic planning and project management (LinkedIn, 2025)
• 73% of workers say skills-based practices would improve their experience at work (Deloitte, 2022)
• 79% of workers are open to sharing their skills data to help their organisations make better decisions (Deloitte, 2022)

Organisations that adopt skills-based approaches consistently outperform

The business case for skills-based working is no longer theoretical. The data on outcomes is consistent across every major research body: organisations that adopt skills-based approaches – including improved skills visibility and capability deployment – consistently outperform those that have not, across results, talent placement, retention and innovation.

Deloitte's landmark research into skills-based organisations is the most comprehensive study of what separates skills-led organisations from the rest. The performance gaps it identifies are not marginal. They are the differences that separate category leaders from everyone else – and they show up across every dimension that matters to a CEO. Speed is one of them: in Deloitte's 2026 Global Human Capital Trends, 7 in 10 business leaders say their primary competitive strategy is to be fast and nimble. In our view, that speed depends on knowing who can do what.

BCG's Creating People Advantage 2026 report – which drew on responses from more than 7,000 HR and business leaders – found that organisations with stronger strategic workforce planning capabilities tend to fill critical roles faster than those with weak capabilities (38 days vs 55 days).

For consulting and professional services firms, the return is even more direct. By MuchSkills' own calculation, a 1% uplift in utilisation across a firm of 400 consultants billing at €120 per hour generates approximately €614,000 in additional annual revenue. Skills visibility is what makes that uplift possible – ensuring the right consultant reaches the right project faster, and that proposals reflect what the firm can actually deliver. See how MuchSkills works for consulting firms →

The data on performance outcomes:

• Skills-based organisations are 63% more likely to achieve results (Deloitte, 2022)
• 107% more likely to place talent effectively (Deloitte, 2022)
• 98% more likely to retain high performers (Deloitte, 2022)
• 52% more likely to innovate (Deloitte, 2022)
• 79% more likely to provide a positive workforce experience (Deloitte, 2022)
• 57% more likely to anticipate change and respond effectively (Deloitte, 2022)
• Career development champions are 42% more likely to be frontrunners in AI adoption (LinkedIn, 2025)
• Organisations with strong strategic workforce planning tend to fill critical roles faster – 38 days vs 55 days (BCG, 2026)
• 7 in 10 business leaders say their primary competitive strategy is to be fast and nimble (Deloitte, 2026)

Skills-based hiring is growing – but it stalls without skills data

Skills-based hiring has moved from a fringe idea to mainstream policy. Seven in ten US employers hiring new graduates now say they use it, according to NACE, and BCG found that 73% of companies used skills-based hiring in 2023. Many have dropped degree requirements from job ads along the way.

The hiring itself has changed far less. Research from Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute found that skills-based hiring produced new opportunity in fewer than 1 in 700 US hires. Removing a degree requirement from a job ad is easy. Assessing skills, comparing people on them and trusting that data when a hiring, promotion or redeployment decision is made is much harder, especially without reliable skills data to compare people against.

Where it does happen, it pays off in retention. Non-degreed workers hired into roles that dropped degree requirements stay longer than their degree-holding colleagues, and BCG found that skills-based hires stay 9% longer than traditional hires. The same logic applies inside the organisation: the people you could promote or redeploy on their skills only become visible when their skills are. That is the job of internal mobility built on skills data.

The data on skills-based hiring:

• Skills-based hiring produced new opportunity in fewer than 1 in 700 hires – about 97,000 of 77 million US hires a year (Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute, 2024)
• Non-degreed workers hired into roles that dropped degree requirements have a 10-percentage-point higher two-year retention rate than degree-holding colleagues – 58% vs 48% (Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute, 2024)
• Non-degreed workers moving into those roles see an average salary increase of about 25% (Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute, 2024)
• 70% of US employers hiring new graduates use skills-based hiring, up from 65% a year earlier (NACE, 2026)
• 73% of companies used skills-based hiring in 2023, and 27% adopted it in the previous 12 months (BCG and Lightcast, 2023)
• Skills-based hires – people without a bachelor's degree in roles that usually require one – stay 9% longer than traditional hires and are only 2% less likely to be promoted, based on Lightcast data from 13 million US profiles (BCG and Lightcast, 2023)
• Companies with the most skills-based recruiter searches are 12% more likely to make a quality hire. Globally, 13% of recruiter searches filter by skill, against 3% by degree (LinkedIn, 2025)

The AI gap is a skills gap – and it isn't closing on its own

The AI productivity story is not playing out the way most CEOs expected – and workforce capability is a major part of the reason why. Investment is high. Returns are rare. 56% of CEOs say they have seen no significant financial benefit from AI to date, according to PwC's 2026 Global CEO Survey, and just 1% of companies believe they have reached AI maturity, according to McKinsey. The gap between investment and return is largely a human capability problem – organisations cannot deploy AI effectively without knowing who has the skills to use it, who needs development, and which roles will be most affected.

Gartner's 2026 Future of Work research puts a number on how far expectations have run ahead: of the layoffs in the first half of 2025, just 1% came from AI making employees more productive. Many organisations are reducing headcount on the strength of gains they have not yet seen – and may not see without the skills to back them up.

Deloitte's 2026 Global Human Capital Trends report makes the point directly: organisations taking a purely tech-focused approach to AI are 1.6 times more likely not to see AI returns that beat their expectations than those taking a human-centric approach. The differentiator is not the technology. It is how the organisation approaches its people – and whether it knows what they can actually do.

Talk is also running ahead of delivery. Only 28% of frontline employees see a strong connection between what leaders say about AI and what the organisation does, according to BCG's AI at Work 2026. And the skill that matters most is judgement, not technical know-how: 71% of CHROs say the ability to supervise, validate and override AI outputs is the workforce's most essential skill, yet 41% believe employees may not feel safe challenging AI outputs, according to the IBM Institute for Business Value. Managers make a visible difference: Gallup found that employees whose manager actively supports their team's AI use are 7.4 times as likely to say AI gives them more opportunity to do what they do best.

Hiring your way out is getting harder. AI skills are now the hardest skills for employers to find globally, according to ManpowerGroup, and PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer puts the average wage premium for AI skills at 62%. For most organisations, the realistic route is to build AI capability in the people they already have – which starts with knowing what those people can do.

The data on AI and skills:

• Only 1% of layoffs in H1 2025 were the result of AI actually increasing employee productivity (Gartner, 2026)
• Only 12% of CEOs say AI has delivered both cost and revenue benefits (PwC, 2026)
• 56% of CEOs say they have seen no significant financial benefit from AI to date (PwC, 2026)
• Just 1% of companies believe they are at AI maturity (McKinsey, 2025)
• Just 8% of employees fully capture productivity gains from GenAI, based on a survey of more than 3,400 knowledge workers (Gartner, 2025)
• C-suite confidence that their organisation is well prepared to succeed in the human-machine era fell to 51% in 2026, from 65% in 2024 (Mercer, 2026)
• 63% of C-suite executives agree they need to move towards skills-powered talent practices to prepare for the AI era (Mercer, 2026)
• 65% of executives expect 11–30% of their workforce to be redeployed or reskilled due to AI in the next two years (Mercer, 2026)
• AI and big data top the list of fastest-growing skills. Analytical thinking is the most sought-after core skill, essential for 7 in 10 companies, followed by resilience, flexibility and agility, then leadership and social influence (WEF, 2025)
• In the US, jobs requiring AI skills command a 28% salary premium – up to 43% for roles requiring multiple AI skills, according to Lightcast's analysis of US job postings (Lightcast, 2025)
• Globally, the average wage premium for AI skills has reached 62%, up from 57% – based on more than 1 billion job ads across 27 countries and territories (PwC, 2026)
• Companies most able to use AI are growing headcount faster than the least AI-exposed (52% vs 36%), with higher wage growth (24% vs 17%) (PwC, 2026)
• AI skills are now the hardest skills for employers to find globally, overtaking engineering and IT (ManpowerGroup, 2026)
• 29% of PwC's "front-runners" – workers with strong AI capabilities and scarce skills – say they are very or extremely likely to change employer in the next year (PwC, 2026)
• 67% of leaders are familiar with AI agents, against 40% of employees (Microsoft, 2025)
• 71% of CHROs say the ability to supervise, validate and override AI outputs is the workforce's most essential skill – yet only 29% of employees rank judgement as important (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026)
• 41% of CHROs believe employees may not feel safe challenging or overriding AI outputs (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026)
• Only 28% of frontline employees see a strong connection between what leaders say about AI and what the organisation does (BCG, 2026)
• Only 26% of AI users say their leadership is clearly and consistently aligned on AI – based on 20,000 workers who use AI at work (Microsoft, 2026)
• 42% of frontline AI users save a full workday a week, but 66% get limited or no guidance on what to do with the time (BCG, 2026)
• In organisations investing in AI, employees whose manager actively supports their team's AI use are 7.4 times as likely to say AI gives them more opportunity to do what they do best every day – yet fewer than a third say their manager does (US data) (Gallup, 2026)

Human skills are rising in value – not falling

The labour market data is unambiguous on this point. As AI takes on more technical and routine tasks, the capabilities that define human performance – problem-solving, communication, judgement, adaptability – are not becoming less valuable. They are becoming more so.

Lightcast's analysis of US job postings finds that eight of the top ten skills demanded in AI-enabled roles are human capabilities. In the US, roles requiring AI skills command a 28% salary premium – and that premium rises to 43% when multiple AI skills are required. But the jobs attracting that premium are not purely technical. They require people who can think, communicate, and exercise judgement alongside the technology.

This top-down view from the labour market is consistent with what MuchSkills sees from the other direction. The platform's dataset – drawn from more than 100,000 professionals in skills-first organisations, primarily in consulting and technology – captures the skills employees themselves identify, use, and are matched to projects on. Unlike employer-driven research derived from job postings or workforce surveys, this is a bottom-up view of the capabilities that are actually shaping performance at work every day.

The most frequently listed skills in the MuchSkills dataset are: problem-solving (by a significant margin – more than twice as many mentions as any other skill), empathy, teamwork, willingness to learn, active listening, communication, critical thinking, leadership, attention to detail, and adaptability. The pattern is consistent with what Lightcast and the WEF see in the labour market: as AI spreads, human capabilities are what employers ask for most.

Daniel Nilsson, CEO of MuchSkills, notes where most organisations fall short: "Many organisations assume their employees already have strong problem-solving abilities, but few invest in structured training to develop them. Without formal frameworks, even talented employees may struggle to apply problem-solving consistently or in new contexts."

The data on human skills:

• Eight of the top ten skills demanded in AI-enabled roles are human capabilities (Lightcast, 2025)
• Problem-solving is the most frequently listed skill among 100,000+ professionals in the MuchSkills dataset – with more than twice as many mentions as any other skill (MuchSkills, 2026)
• Creative thinking, resilience and curiosity are all expected to keep rising in importance through 2030 (WEF, 2025)
• 60% of employees worry AI is eroding their skills, with critical thinking cited most often as declining (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026)
• Asked which human skills matter more as AI takes on more work, AI users put quality control of AI output (50%) and critical thinking (46%) at the top (Microsoft, 2026)
• In the US, entry-level roles most exposed to AI are seven times more likely to require traditionally senior-level skills such as judgement and leadership (PwC, 2026)

HR knows what needs to change – but is struggling to execute

Across every major research report, HR and L&D leaders are aligned on what matters. Strategic workforce planning, upskilling and reskilling, talent management, and digital capability are all ranked as high priorities. The problem is that the gap between priority and current capability is enormous – and it is widening.

BCG's Creating People Advantage 2026 makes this gap visible with striking clarity. Strategic workforce planning is the #2 HR priority globally – rated high or somewhat high importance by 80% of HR leaders. Yet it ranks only 15th in current capability. Upskilling and reskilling ranks 7th in future importance and only 14th in current capability. Digital solutions made the biggest jump in future importance – up 13 places – yet current capabilities in this area rank 27th out of 28.

HR leaders know exactly what they need to be doing. The infrastructure to do it is missing.

The data on the execution gap:

• Strategic workforce planning is the #2 HR priority globally but ranks only #15 in current capability (BCG, 2026)
• Upskilling and reskilling ranks #7 in future importance but only #14 in current capability (BCG, 2026)
• Digital solutions jumped 13 places in future importance rankings yet ranks 27th in current capability (BCG, 2026)
• Only 10% of HR executives say they effectively classify and organise skills into a taxonomy (Deloitte, 2022)
• 46% of organisations don't involve the CHRO when AI strategy is being defined (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026)
• 72% of organisations make limited or no use of AI inside the HR function (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026)
• 49% of L&D professionals agree their executives are concerned that employees don't have the right skills to execute business strategy (LinkedIn, 2025)
• Only 18% of business leaders strongly agree their workforce is using its skills and capabilities to their fullest potential (Deloitte, 2022)
• Only 15% of employees say their manager helped them build a career plan in the past six months – down 5 percentage points in a single year (LinkedIn, 2025)
• Just 51% of workers say they have access to the learning and development resources they need, down from 59% a year earlier – based on 49,364 workers in 48 countries and regions (PwC, 2026)
• Only 30% of leaders rate their digital agility as high – despite 75% acknowledging the need to become more digital to compete (Mercer, 2026)
• Fewer than 1 in 5 organisations are adopting skills-based approaches to a significant extent (Deloitte, 2022)
• Only 36% of organisations qualify as career development champions with well-developed programmes that yield business results (LinkedIn, 2025)

What the organisations getting this right are doing differently

The research is consistent on what separates the leaders from the rest. They are not doing more of the same things – they are doing fundamentally different things. They have moved from managing jobs to managing skills. From point-in-time snapshots to continuous visibility. From intuition-based staffing to data-driven deployment. And the outcomes are measurable.

Companies that excel at internal mobility retain employees for an average of 5.4 years – nearly twice as long as companies that struggle with it, according to LinkedIn. BCG's 2026 data shows that organisations with strong strategic workforce planning capability tend to fill critical roles faster (38 days vs 55 days), and those with strong employee engagement capability tend to have annual turnover 5.3 percentage points lower. These are not theoretical benefits. They are operational advantages that compound over time.

The organisations getting this right share one thing: they have closed the skills fog by building systems that make capability visible and actionable – combining skills visibility, internal mobility, and continuous development infrastructure.

Becoming a skills-based organisation is not a one-time project. It is a shift in how the business understands and deploys its most important asset. The organisations doing this well are investing in employee development infrastructure that makes skills visible, searchable, and continuously updated – not static snapshots that age the moment they are created.

The data on retention, mobility and upskilling:

• Companies that excel at internal mobility retain employees for an average of 5.4 years – nearly twice as long as those that struggle with it (LinkedIn, 2022)
• Workers who make an internal move at the two-year mark have a 75% chance of remaining – compared to 56% for those who have not (LinkedIn, 2023)
• Career development champions are 32% more likely to be deploying AI training programmes and 88% more likely to offer career-enhancing project-based learning (LinkedIn, 2025)
• Upskilling the existing workforce is leaders' top priority for the next 12–18 months (47%), ahead of expanding team capacity with AI agents (45%) (Microsoft, 2025)
• 79% of L&D professionals agree it is less expensive to reskill a current employee than to hire a new one (LinkedIn, 2022)
• 88% of organisations are concerned about employee retention, and providing learning opportunities is their No. 1 retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025)
• 85% of employers plan to prioritise upskilling their workforce over the next five years (WEF, 2025)

See what your organisation actually knows

The data in this playbook points in one direction. The organisations that can see their workforce capabilities clearly – and act on that picture continuously – will outperform those that cannot. In talent retention. In delivery quality. In AI adoption. In resilience to change.

If you lead or manage a consulting or professional services firm: MuchSkills gives your resource managers a live, searchable view of every consultant's skills, certifications, and availability – so once skills data is in place, you can find the right people in minutes rather than days, and submit proposals that reflect what your firm can actually deliver. See how MuchSkills works for consulting firms →

If you lead HR, L&D, or workforce planning: MuchSkills gives you the skills intelligence layer your organisation is missing – a continuously updated picture of workforce capability that connects directly to development planning, succession, internal mobility, and strategic workforce planning. See how MuchSkills works for HR and L&D teams →

Whatever your role, the starting point is the same: seeing what your organisation actually knows.

Book a demo with our team and we'll show you what that looks like in practice.