Dive Brief:
- Companies at the most advanced stage of AI adoption plan to prioritize hiring of machine learning engineers and AI researchers, according to an EPAM Systems survey of IT leaders published Wednesday. The software services firm surveyed 7,300 C-suite, IT executives and developers in nine countries.
- Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they are familiar with the skills necessary to deploy AI projects at the enterprise level, although nearly half of those that identified as advanced adopters plan to hire for AI-related roles.
- More than 2 in 5 leaders believe their staff needs to upskill to meet the talent needs of AI adoption, according to the report.
Dive Insight:
The enterprise push toward AI adoption has put a strain on the availability of in-demand skills. For CIOs, filling specialized job openings — including AI developers and data scientists — has emerged as a key challenge for AI deployment plans.
“Within the findings, a compelling truth emerges: The success of AI depends not just on technology but on empowering the human expertise behind it,” said EPAM chief learning scientist Sandra Loughlin in the report. “This revelation shows the urgency to upskill and cultivate AI-fluent cultures at scale.”
AI and ML analysts soared to the top of Robert Half‘s list of in-demand roles published in February, another sign of rising enterprise competition to bring specialists aboard. More than two-thirds of executives said the skills shortage had increased year over year, according to Robert Half.
LinkedIn also saw LLM know-how and overall AI strategy rise in a ranking of in-demand engineering skills it published last month. The company evaluated hiring success and demand across multiple engineering domains.
Despite the AI skills surge, overall IT hiring has begun to show mixed signals amid roiled economies in an escalating trade war. IT roles across the economy fell by nearly 30,000 in March, according to a CompTIA analysis.
