The global IT paradox in 2025— massive layoffs in contrast to a record number of job applications—carries an important message for IT professionals in particular, and others as a whole. There are two meanings of this paradox: employers are firing employees because the latter lack the skills needed for new types of jobs, while the former face difficulty finding the right manpower to do new tasks. Technology has reshaped the job market for centuries. However, today, AI is accelerating the nature of jobs.
And here emerges the current problem. As employers demand workers with new skills and new tasks, the IT labor market cannot meet their expectations, despite the availability of skilled workers. The reference of this article is Techreviewer’s 2025 IT labor market research. The reference article provides valuable insights that will be useful in 2026 and beyond.
The IT Labor Market Snapshot
The IT labor market picture in 2025 is depicted in Techreviewer’s research report. Here are some important findings of the report.
- The IT labor market was volatile in 2025, with 29.9% companies reporting stable hiring demand, 43.3% growth, and 26.8% decline.
- The respondents of the survey reported difficulty in finding the right skills, which increased from 28.6% to 49..3%.
A careful analysis of this data implies that there are plenty of available talents. This is evident as 53.7% respondents reported they are not finding the required skill, which means they interviewed the same number of skilled workers, but the applicants lack the skills they sought.
What Skills Mismatch Really Means in 2026
Skills mismatch is a discrepancy between the skills that employers require and the skills individuals possess. In the context of IT, a skill mismatch occurs when job seekers’ IT knowledge does not align with the employers’ required skills. Research conducted by the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) and reviewed by management professor Peter Capelli concluded that there are no major shortages of workers with basic reading or math skills, or of workers with engineering or technical training. In fact, there are too many overeducated workers, which could be a problem. Employers’ real difficulty is hiring workers with the new skills needed to address new technological challenges.
Common hiring friction points include talent scarcity (SHRM reported 70% organizations face challenges to fill full-time positions), diversity hiring difficulties, extended hiring timelines(averaging 44 days), candidate ghosting, and dropout. critical skill gaps, especially in technology roles, and managing high application volumes with a limited number of qualified candidates.
IT is one of the major industries affected by skill shortages. Here are some of the numbers
- A majority of IT decision-makers(75%) have identified skill gaps within their IT staff, according to Skillsoft
- Skill gap is a shared experience in 6 out of every 10 large enterprises (CompTIA)
- Skill shortage will negatively impact 90% organizations by 2026(IDC)
Although skills shortage affects every area of IT, the strongest mismatch is seen in some of the highly demanding contemporary IT jobs, including AI and ML specialists.Cloud and DevOps engineers, and cybersecurity professionals. Why does the skills gap exist, while according to Techriviewer report, there are plenty of available talents. Several factors contribute to skills shortages in specialized IT roles.
Rapid pace of technology
Technology has been updating for centuries. Humans have also managed to keep pace with the changes. However, tech analysts now suggest that there is a surge in technological development that leaves humans behind. When technological innovations outpace humans, new technologies and tools emerge in workplaces. A mismatch occurs when workers’ current experiences are not compatible with new technologies and tools.
In education, the rapid pace of technology means that STEMS( science, technology, engineering, and math) programs cannot develop new, updated courses to train graduates with the emerging skills.
The rapid pace of technology throws the education sector into a challenging situation as STEM(science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs cannot prepare curricula for new emerging technologies to train workers.
Limitations in skills development
Skills development opportunities are not fully accessible. According to D2L, a leading global learning company, while 80% of U.S. adult workers expressed interest in developing additional skills, 35%, or less than half of them, participated in a skil development courses. The reasons why the full participation of the willing workers did not happen could be that full-time workers may not have time out of the office to participate in a course, or not all workers can afford the course fees. Workers may also not know where to enroll for training.
High demand for tech Talents
Another reason responsible for causing the IT skills gap is the demand and supply effect. While the demand for IT-skilled workers is high, the IT labor market lacks available manpower, resulting in a shortage. Companies that cannot offer competitive packages cannot retain skilled workers, which also exacerbates the situation.
Burnout issue
Burnout is an occupational-related stress that affects workers’ personal well-being, reduces their motivation, and leads to poor work performance. The World Health Organization recognized the burnout issue, and it is on the rise among IT professionals. The issue causes many IT professionals to leave the industry altogether, creating a vacuum. Filling many of those positions is difficult since many IT positions require specialized roles.
Roles Most Affected by the Gap
In 2025, the skills gap across industries became a major roadblock to progress. As per industry-wise Skill shortages, technology and software are the worst hit, as 90% tech leaders face hiring difficulties, especially for AI and ML specialists
- Cloud and DevOps engineers
- Cybersecurity professionals
Companies cannot fill these positions despite the availability of IT professionals because these roles require specialised skills with practical experience that candidates cannot offer. Lack of cybersecurity specialists is a perfect example of a skills gap. Skills such as threat modeling, penetration testing, cloud security, SOC operations, and incident response are critical for cybersecurity specialists. Yet, a pool of IT professionals with these skills is quite low, and many experts moved to consultancy positions or government defense roles.
Skill shortages also affect the roles of Cloud and DevOps engineers. Critical skills required in this position are Kubernetes orchestration, Terraform, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipeline automation, observability tools, and FinOps (cloud cost management). The candidates’ limited practical experience in these skills led to a shortage of Cloud and DevOps engineers.
How Companies Are Responding
Companies adopt four strategies to solve the skills shortages in the IT industry. These are
- Reskilling and Upskilling
- Skill-based hiring
- Internal training
- Hiring remote talent
Companies that want to retain workers adopt a reskilling approach, which involves training employees for new jobs. For example, manufacturing companies are reskilling employees in the use of robots, or retail agents in digital marketing.
Similar to reskilling is upskilling, which involves advanced training of the present skill. Many organisations, for example, are upskilling their HR department employees through digital HR courses. Training on these courses will bring more automation and efficiency in HR process.
Skills-based hiring is a ready-made solution to skills shortages. The hiring process of this approach emphasises candidates’ real ability, and potential to do a certain job, and less importance on their academic credentials, or previous years of experience. Many tech giants and startups adopted Skills-based hiring as their recruitment process. The recruitment criteria of many roles at Google, for example, are problem-solving and programming ability rather than academic degrees. Instances of Skills-based hiring are also found in IBM. For the roles of cybersecurity and cloud computing, the company places more emphasis on practical experiences than academic achievements.
Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, in a partnership program, offer online courses and award certificates to job-ready candidates.
Remote hiring is another good option to fill the skills gap for hiring managers. Remote, a human resources technology company, published a global HR survey report on remote hiring. The key finding of the report is that companies that hire remotely often report finding higher-quality candidates and easier access to specialized skills.
The IT labor market of 2025 taught us some valuable lessons. First, despite the availability of IT talent, companies are struggling to find the right candidates due to job-specific practical experience. Second, in the evolving job market, workers need to be ready to learn new skills or improve their current skills. And, the final words are that how companies respond to the skills shortage will define the future of the IT industry.
