Skills gap: what it is and how to close it

A skills gap is the difference between the skills someone currently has and those required by a job, an industry or the wider labour market. It can appear when looking for a new role, aiming for a promotion or simply trying to keep up with changes in an existing profession.

It does not mean that previous experience has lost its value. More often, the job has evolved and some of the skills needed to do it well have changed.

Take marketing as an example. Someone with years of experience in campaigns may now find job descriptions asking for data analytics, automation or artificial intelligence. Their background still matters, but it may need to be complemented by new capabilities.

This is why identifying the gap matters before choosing a course or qualification. A skills gap analysis helps separate what a professional already knows from what needs updating and what is genuinely missing.

What is a skills gap?

The term skills gap describes a mismatch between existing capabilities and the skills needed to perform a role successfully.

That mismatch can affect an individual, a team or an entire organisation. At an individual level, it might mean lacking experience with a tool that has become standard in the industry. For a company, it may mean having a business objective that the current workforce does not yet have the skills to deliver.

A useful way to think about it is to divide skills into three groups

• Skills already mastered, backed up by experience or practical results.
• Skills that exist but need updating, perhaps because technology or working methods have changed.
• Skills that are missing altogether and now appear regularly in relevant jobs or projects.

This distinction is important because not every gap requires the same type of training. Learning a new software platform may take a short course. Moving into a highly technical field may require a broader programme, such as a Master in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

It also explains why lifelong learning has become so closely connected to employability. Training is no longer something that necessarily ends when formal education does. Skills continue to develop throughout a career.

Why does the skills gap occur?

One of the main reasons is speed. Jobs are changing faster than some professional skills can be updated.

The Future of Jobs Report 2025 estimates that 39% of workers' existing skills will be transformed or become outdated between 2025 and 2030. The findings are based on more than 1,000 employers across 55 economies, representing over 14 million workers (World Economic Forum, 2025).

Several factors are behind that shift

• New technologies are changing how established jobs are carried out.
• Artificial intelligence and automation are becoming part of everyday workflows.
• Roles themselves are expanding, especially when professionals take on management or strategic responsibilities.
• Skills can become outdated when they are not used or refreshed for several years.
• Education and labour-market needs do not always move at the same pace.

Employers are feeling the effects too. The World Economic Forum reports that 63% of employers see skills gaps as a major barrier to business transformation (World Economic Forum, 2025).

Artificial intelligence is making one part of the problem particularly visible. The OECD notes that workers with advanced AI capabilities, such as machine learning or data science skills, still account for around 1% of the workforce, despite growing demand for these capabilities (OECD, 2026).

This digital skills gap does not mean every professional needs to become an AI specialist. For many jobs, the priority will be learning how to use AI tools, judge their outputs and understand where they can genuinely improve a task.

Career progression can create another type of gap. A strong specialist does not automatically have the skills needed to lead a team, manage conflict or plan workforce development. A Master in Human Resources, for example, may help when the next professional step requires a broader understanding of people management and organisational strategy.

This is where Upskilling and reskilling become useful concepts. Upskilling develops capabilities that help someone progress within their current field, while reskilling prepares them to move towards a different role or area.

What types of skills gaps are there?

Skills gaps do not all look the same. Identifying the type of gap makes it much easier to decide what to work on next.

The most common ones can be grouped into three broad categories

• Technical skills gaps
  These involve knowledge directly linked to a job, such as using specialist software, applying a methodology, working with a programming language or understanding a specific process.
• Digital skills gaps
  These cover areas such as data analysis, automation, digital platforms and AI tools. They now affect far more than technology roles.
• Transferable or human skills gaps
  Communication, leadership, negotiation, critical thinking, adaptability and problem-solving fall into this group. These power skills often become more important as professional responsibility increases.

There is another distinction worth making. A missing skill is not the same as an outdated skill.

Someone who has never worked with a particular tool needs to build that capability from the beginning. Someone who used an earlier generation of the same technology may only need to update their knowledge. The starting point is different, so the training should be different too.

The scale of the gap also matters. A professional moving into business leadership may need a broader combination of financial, strategic and management skills. In that situation, a Master of Business Administration can address a wider gap than a short course focused on one isolated capability.

At company level, these individual gaps can add up to a global skills gap. An organisation may have ambitious growth plans but struggle to find or develop enough people with the expertise required to deliver them.

This is also why technical knowledge should not be considered in isolation. Skills such as communication, collaboration and power skills can determine how effectively technical knowledge is used in real working environments.

How can a skills gap analysis identify the skills missing from your profile or company?

A skills gap analysis compares current capabilities with the skills required to reach a specific goal. That goal might be getting a new job, moving into management, adopting a new technology or delivering a business strategy.

Job adverts are one of the simplest places to start. One mention of a particular tool may reflect the needs of a single employer. If the same requirement appears across ten or fifteen similar vacancies, it starts to signal a broader change in the role.

For an individual, the analysis can be broken down into four questions

• What can I already do confidently?
• Which skills do I have but need to strengthen or update?
• Which capabilities appear repeatedly in the roles I want?
• Which of those gaps would make the biggest difference to my next career step?

The last question matters most. A skills gap analysis should not produce an endless list of things to learn. Its value comes from deciding what deserves attention first.

Other sources can help build a clearer picture. Performance reviews, feedback from managers, practical assessments, competency maps and completed projects can reveal gaps that a CV alone will not show.

For a company, the process works at a larger scale. The organisation first defines what a team needs to achieve and then compares those requirements with the skills already available internally. This makes it possible to identify whether the right response is recruitment, internal development or skills gap training.

The analysis can also expose gaps linked to a particular business function. A company expanding internationally, for example, may discover weaknesses in planning, procurement or logistics. A programme such as a Master in Supply Chain Management & Logistics can make sense when the missing capabilities are broader than learning a single tool.

External professional connections can also help reveal how roles are changing. Online networking gives professionals access to peers, recruiters and industry conversations that can highlight emerging skills before they become standard requirements in every vacancy.

The OECD Skills Outlook 2025 reinforces this need to keep comparing skills with changes in the labour market. It highlights lifelong learning and better use of labour-market information as important parts of adapting skills to changing professional needs (OECD, 2025).

How to close a skills gap step by step

Closing the skills gap starts with prioritising, not with signing up for as much training as possible.

The scale of the challenge is significant. According to the World Economic Forum, if the global workforce were represented by 100 people, 59 would need training by 2030. At the same time, 85% of employers surveyed plan to prioritise upskilling their workforce (World Economic Forum, 2025).

A practical approach can be broken down into five steps

1. Define the gap precisely
   "I need better digital skills" is too broad. "I need data-analysis skills to move into an analytics role" gives a clear direction.
2. Check whether the market really values that skill
   Compare job adverts, industry requirements and professional profiles. Repeated demand is a stronger signal than a single job description.
3. Choose training that matches the size of the gap
   A short course may be enough to learn one tool. A major career change or a broad technical gap may require postgraduate study or another longer programme.
4. Apply the new skill in practice
   Knowing the theory is not the same as being able to use it. Projects, workplace responsibilities and practical exercises turn knowledge into a capability that can be demonstrated.
5. Measure the gap again
   A skills analysis is not a one-off exercise. Roles continue to change, so the useful question is not only what is missing today, but what may become important next.

The OECD points to a similar balance in the age of AI. Alongside technical expertise, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration remain important for working effectively with AI and adapting to changing tasks (OECD, 2026).

That is why closing a skills gap is not simply about collecting more technical knowledge. It means deciding which capabilities will make a measurable difference, choosing the right skills gap training and giving those new skills enough practical use to become part of a professional profile.

The same principle applies throughout a career. The aim is not to chase every new tool, but to understand where the labour market is moving, identify the distance between current skills and future goals, and invest in the learning that can genuinely close that gap.