AI is the number one technology skills gap identified by tech professionals in 2026. It is ranked the single biggest gap by 35% of respondents and placed in the top three by 70%. It remains the top gap for the second year running.
Over 40% of tech workers are using AI tools in their work that their organisation has not formally provided or approved (20% regularly and 22% occasionally), while 56% do not. This shows that ‘shadow AI’ is something boards and employers should take seriously and for which they should have clear policies and development plans
Tech professionals strongly support mandatory ethics training for all AI users: asked on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being ‘strongly agree’) whether they agreed that anyone using AI at work should hold recognised ethical training or certification, respondents averaged 4.06, with 52% selecting ‘strongly agree’
Upskilling existing staff is the leading way organisations plan to close their skills gaps (75% place it in their top three), followed by using AI and automation (52%)
30% of tech professionals say they do not know their organisation's plans to close digital skills gaps, and 11% say their organisations cannot fill the gap at all
Financial constraints, recruitment freezes and uncompetitive public sector pay are the reasons most often given for gaps going unfilled
The AI skills most in demand fall into four areas: building AI systems, applying AI to everyday work, governing AI, and the literacy and judgement to use it well. The single most cited skill is agentic AI development, followed by process automation and workflow design
Tech professionals rate their own organisations’ AI adoption effectiveness at just 2.84 out of 5 on average
Confidence that AI is being used in an ethical and responsible way averages 3.28 out of 5; this suggests that some baseline requirements for ethical AI use across organisations should be part of strategic planning and expected of CEOs by governance boards
Only 11% consider their organisation's AI retraining ‘very effective’, and nearly 30% say no retraining has taken place at all
The biggest challenges to adoption are accuracy and trust concerns (59%), security and data protection (59%) and a lack of skills (49%)
