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7.5%

growth in job postings requiring AI skills (while overall postings fell –11%). (PWC)

56%

wage premium for AI-skilled talent, and it’s still climbing. (PWC)

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Right now, the market is flooded with ambition but short on supply. The roles are new, the skills are evolving, and the pace of change is only accelerating. There’s no playbook — yet. Which means TA leaders aren’t just hiring; they’re navigating a strategic shift that will define the next decade of work.

This is about more than plugging gaps. It’s about building future-ready capabilities across your business — even as the ground keeps moving.

The AI talent crunch is real

Let’s get specific. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs report found that big data specialists, AI and machine learning (ML) specialists, and software and app developers are set to be the fastest-growing jobs between 2025 and 2030. PwC found job postings requiring AI skills grew 7.5%, even as overall postings declined by more than 11%. At the same time, wage premiums for skilled AI talent are spiking — hitting 56% above market rate in some sectors.

But this isn’t just a tech team issue. As AI becomes embedded across entire organisations, every function is feeling the impact — from marketing to design, from ops to product.

“The big differentiator right now isn’t just engineering — it’s design-led thinking,” says Matt Bradburn, founder of PeoplexAI. “User experience is key to standing out, and that takes a new kind of creative, human-led talent.”

As organizations rush to capitalize on the AI opportunity, it has ushered in a stark new reality for recruiters.

So what’s driving the gap?

The AI talent gap isn’t just that there aren’t enough people to go around — it’s that talent is being snapped up faster than the system can replace it. This is being driven by three deeper, interlinked dynamics:

1. Adoption is outpacing reskilling

Companies are going full steam ahead on AI — simultaneously trying to integrate into everyday workflows and build capability across the organization. But the main levers to close this gap — learning and development and career pathing — are still underdeveloped. This leaves recruiters stuck plugging near-term gaps, rather than focusing on internal talent development.

2. Emerging roles without a playbook

Beyond engineering and developers, new roles like AI product managers, AI designers, and marketing specialist roles still have fluffy career paths and standardized job descriptions. And because those roles aren’t yet defined, the skills required don’t quite map neatly to candidate resumes.

3. Concentration at the top

The gravitational pull of bigger and better means that the talent pool that is available is being soaked up by those who can compete on huge salaries. Downstream, this means talent scarcity, inflated salaries, and longer time-to-hire.

The result, says Bradburn, will ultimately be a bifurcated workforce — and talent teams will need to think carefully about balancing near-term versus long-term hiring needs.

“It’s going to be about asking, ‘what is the impact of hiring someone who has the skills we need today?’ versus hiring someone whose deep contextual knowledge can evolve with AI,” he says. “Get it wrong, and those skills you need right now could quickly lose relevance. But get it right and you could see those skills compound 10x over time.

“Across every function, ultimately, we’re going to see a huge K-shaped divergence within the job market,” he adds. “You’re going to see those folks who learn the right skills and stay ahead of the game. Those that are reluctant to change will stagnate.”

What talent teams need to do next

1

Hire for adaptability and potential, not the skills you need now.

In the race to become AI-driven, many organizations have been focused more on near-term skills and talent acquisition. But the trouble is, those skills are quickly being eclipsed by how quickly the technology is evolving. 

One of the biggest challenges is that traditional routes to building AI-adjacent skills — such as college and university — are quickly losing ground as curriculums fail to adapt with the speed of change. So how can talent build a more forward-looking strategic hiring function?

Bradburn says this is the million-dollar question — and it’s about balancing the skills you need now with future potential. TA teams need to look beyond just skills and focus on the essence of how people work and learn.

“What’s their capacity to learn, capacity to take on new knowledge, capacity to work with others and collaborate effectively? What’s their kind of mental elasticity? Can they grow and develop that over time, or are they going to simply hit a level and level out?”

2

Create strong internal mobility pipelines.

In a tight labor market, many organizations are doubling down on specialist skills and technical talent. But the more important opportunity is making the most of the talent you have.

Talent teams have a critical role to play in shaping this internal talent mobility strategy — identifying which employees have adjacent or adaptable skills, and creating strong internal pools and pipelines that can address future gaps.

This effort starts with data. Monitoring metrics like time-to-fill, salary changes, and capability mapping will help teams identify where external demand is exceeding supply, forecast upcoming gaps, and build systems to identify opportunities from within.

When done well, this effort can pay off double — because employees who feel that their company supports their growth are more likely to stay.

3

Work more closely with hiring managers.

When new roles are popping up faster than the speed of light, focusing purely on a checklist of specific skills, programming languages, or years of experience no longer makes sense. Instead, talent teams need to work more closely with hiring managers to help define what the business needs, and map capabilities in alignment with strategic objectives. 

In practical terms, this could look like:

  • Co-creating scorecards and hiring criteria for new or emerging roles.
  • Regular feedback loops to identify emerging skills gaps.
  • Calibrating managers on how to assess candidates more accurately for skills adaptability and future potential, rather than just for specific skills.
  • Co-owning sourcing and outreach strategy for key candidates or roles.

4

Dial in on your EVP and retention strategy.

When skilled technical talent is this thin on the ground, you can’t only focus on who you bring in — you have to know how to keep them. Building a strong employee value proposition and knowing exactly what you offer means you can bring the right offer to the right candidates, reducing the likelihood of early turnover or poor fit hires.

Your EVP should give your candidates a clear understanding of exactly what candidates can expect day-to-day when joining your company, including:

  • Your compensation philosophy — which explains the logic behind how people get paid
  • Your values, beliefs, and behaviors — how your culture is lived
  • Operational habits, including how you communicate and collaborate
  • How you support career and skills development

Much like your employer brand, this should stay consistent across your markets — but you can lean on different aspects of it depending on your candidate’s career stage, role, and values.

 

 

Focus on future potential, not just skills

The AI skills shortage isn’t going away any time soon — but getting ahead is about fundamentally rethinking what constitutes AI capability and skills. This means looking beyond narrow parameters for technical expertise, and recentering talent strategy around assessing candidates for future adaptability, curiosity, and skills transfer.

For talent teams, this means shifting strategy across the entire hiring process. Strong internal mobility and EVP will help keep talent strategies proactive and focused on retention, rather than external hire. Meanwhile, working closely with hiring managers will help define emerging capability gaps earlier, and drive interviews that assess accurately for potential, not a checklist of skills.

If you’re looking to build a smarter AI talent strategy, we can help. Talentful’s embedded RPO model works alongside your team to develop hiring approaches that actually scale with the technology.


Find out more by booking a call with our team.