Top 50 Skills-Based Hiring Trends and Statistics for 2026

The use of skills-based hiring is becoming more prevalent in the world as companies are dealing with the shortage of skilled workers, fast-changing nature of job roles, and ineffectiveness of relying on resumes for hiring signals. Organizations are no longer making decisions based on educational qualifications but rather on a skill basis, assessing individuals’ capabilities rather than their education.

The focus of this article is to present key trends and statistics regarding skills-based hiring that will impact HR and L&D leaders in 2026.

Shift from Degrees to Skills in Hiring Practices

• In 2024, around 45% of organizations stopped requiring a bachelor’s degree for some jobs, in addition to the 55% that already did so in 2023. 
• According to a poll among 800 U.S. employers, about 80% said when it comes to hiring, they would rather consider a person with relevant experience than a college graduate. 
• Approximately 64.8% of companies report applying skills-based hiring practices to new recruits, with more than half of the respondents claiming they do so consistently or most of the time. 
• Companies like IBM, Google, Delta Air Lines, and Bank of America have eliminated the requirement of a four-year degree for a large number of job positions. This trend has already begun to expand from just technology into finance, aviation, and retail.
• The percentage of U.S. job postings requiring a bachelor’s degree dropped from around 20% in 2018 to 17.8% by early 2024. At the same time, listings with no formal education requirement increased. Indeed data shows 52% of job postings included no education requirement in January 2024, up from 48% in 2019. 
• Many companies are giving more importance to behavioral and interpersonal skills, such as communication, adaptability, and problem-solving. A 2022 survey of tech employers revealed that 40% of them included behavioral skill assessments in their hiring process.
• Around 75% of employers have already developed competency-focused job descriptions that state skills required for a successful candidate in a given position explicitly. Additionally, over half of the companies have developed interview scoring  systems based on skills to ensure uniformity and fairness in the hiring process. 

Tackling Skill Gaps and Workforce Development

• In 2023, 77% employers complained about not being able to fill vacancies. This situation is closely linked to reports indicating that nearly 87% of companies already have or are expecting skill shortages in the near future.
• The international job market is expected to undergo a significant realignment by 2027. It is anticipated that 23% of the total job roles will undergo change, and millions of new positions will be created. 
• Employers' opinions indicate that a change in 44% of the present basic skills is expected to occur by 2027. 
• According to projections, by 2027, 60% of the workers will have to take upskilling or reskilling measures to remain competent in their job positions. Only about half of the workers currently feel that they have sufficient access to training.
• Approximately 48% of firms consider strengthening internal career development and promotion processes as one of the most effective ways to address the skills gap, ranking even higher than salary increases and relying on contractors. 
• In the U.S., PwC has calculated that the talent shortage could result in a $8.5 trillion revenue loss by 2030 if nothing is done to close the gap. 

Technology’s Growing Role in Recruitment

• HR Research Institute data shows AI usage in recruitment nearly doubled from 2023 to 2024, rising from 26% of organizations to 53%. By late 2024, roughly 43% of organizations globally were also using AI across broader HR activities such as recruiting and onboarding, up sharply from 26% in 2023.
• Around 36% of HR leaders say AI has helped reduce hiring and interviewing costs, largely by automating time-consuming tasks. Another 24% report improved ability to identify top candidates, as AI tools can quickly evaluate large volumes of resumes and assessment data to surface the strongest matches. 
• A survey in late 2024 indicated that only 25% of the respondents welcomed AI making final hiring decisions with human supervision while up-to 79% job seekers demanded that the hiring process where AI is involved should be communicated. 
• Companies are investing into skills inventories, talent analytics, and digital workforce platforms to improve the hiring process and plan their workforce better. The World Economic Forum mentions that 81% of firms are looking forward to using education and workforce technology tools by 2027. 
• More than 75% of companies are planning to apply big data analytics, cloud computing, and machine learning/AI by 2027. 
• The World Economic Forum observes that digital platforms and apps are at the top of the list of technologies (86% adoption expected) that companies plan to acquire in the next five years, while e-commerce and digital trade tools have 75% expected adoption. 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Benefits of Skills-Based Hiring

• Workforce diversity was a significant motivating factor for 70% of the employers who conducted a survey that included removing degree requirements. 
• A Revelio Labs analysis found that employees without a four-year degree stay 34% longer in similar roles compared to degree-holders. 
• Research from LinkedIn shows that if hiring based on skills becomes a norm then the percentage of women in the candidate pool could be increased significantly, in case of certain AI-related positions, up to 24% maybe even more. 
• IBM was one of the first companies to adopt skills-based hiring extensively through its "New Collar" program, which mainly hires technicians without four-year degrees and then trains them in-house. 

Talent Management and Skills-First Culture

• Almost a third of employers acknowledge the use of digital badges and micro-credentials in the hiring process and the number is predicted to rise along with the improvement of credential standards. 
• One company from the hospitality sector that started the practice of AI-assisted skill matching reported a staggering 126% growth in the number of candidates who accepted their first job match, coupled with a decrease in drop-out during the hiring process. 
• It is anticipated that the transition to hiring and developing talent based on skills will further accelerate after 2025. This will be mainly influenced by the continuing labor scarcity, fast aging of skills, and workers asking for unambiguous growth opportunities. 

Global Initiatives and Outlook

• The European Union (EU) set an ambitious target for 2030, which is the yearly participation in training of 60% of adults as opposed to the current level of approximately 37%. Moreover, the EU made the commitment to 78% employment by 2030. 
• In Europe, 2021 was the year when 28 different jobs were classified as shortage roles which were mainly found in the health sector, teaching, construction, driving, hospitality, and STEM such as cybersecurity specialists. 
• Initiatives like the OneTen coalition in the U.S. aim to hire or promote one million Black Americans without four-year degrees into family-sustaining roles over a decade by shifting more jobs to skills-first requirements and connecting talent to training pathways. 
• At the same time, national initiatives like India’s Skill India Mission and employer-recognized credentials such as Google Career Certificates demonstrate how governments, industry, and education providers are building faster, more accessible skill pipelines. 

Conclusion

Skills-based hiring is a must-have part of modern talent strategy. The trends and statistics show that there is a global trend from degree and pedigree filters toward measurable skills that are job-relevant.

Companies are getting rid of unnecessary degree requirements, using objective skill assessments, and creating stronger internal mobility to overcome continuous skill shortages and improve hiring results.

FAQs

1. How do employers assess skills in skills-based hiring?

Employers assess skills through role-related skill tests, job simulations, competency-based interviews, work samples, and situational judgment assessments. Moreover, many of them rely on AI-based platforms that provide a neutral and measurable evaluation ofskills.

2. Why are companies adopting skills-based hiring?

Companies would rather go for skills-based hiring because of the benefits it brings such as enlarging the talent pool, reducing the number of wrong hires, increasing diversity, speeding up hiring, and better aligning hiring with business needs. 

3. What challenges do companies face when implementing skills-based hiring?

Companies often struggle with issues such as unclear skill definitions, the absence of reliable methods for assessment, the disconnect between the HR and L&D efforts, limited visibility of skills data and the challenge of aligning skills-based hiring with career advancement.