Human Capital in the Digital Environment 2019 Report

The second edition of the annual IAB Europe Human Capital in the Digital Environment Report highlights a series of findings which come to support the efforts of the industry to combat the skill gap and talent shortage currently affecting it.

Employers continue to focus recruitment on technical roles, with programmatic and analytics the most sought-after skills (59% and 51%, respectively), followed by social media positions and cross-media (44% and 43%, respectively).

The main barrier to recruitment in digital is by far the shortage of available talent (75% of respondents having marked this as critical). This is followed by the salary expectations of candidates that do come forward (cited as a main hurdle by 54% of respondents). A smaller pool of available candidates translates into a greater demand, which, in turn, means that those candidates who do pass the scrutiny of recruiters, have high salary expectations.

Training levels within companies are not spectacular, for either junior- or senior-level staff with the majority of respondents reporting that only fewer than 30% of the employees in their organisation have received training in the past 12 months. The outlook on training budgets is not particularly bright either. 44% of respondents are optimistic about budgets growing, whereas 30% estimate that training budgets will stagnate.

Potentially as a result, the appetite for training remains high, with over 90% of respondents willing to take courses, even if they have to pay out-of-pocket for them.

In terms of skills, employers and candidates are largely aligned. Programmatic and analytics rank highest on the list of what candidates believe employers are most interested in (55% and 51%, respectively). Soft skills also sit on a top position (41%), again reflecting the needs expressed by  employers.

Download the full report here