Seventy-four per cent of IT managers in India have found the shortage of professionals with IT skills as one of the main threats to their businesses, a study by Equinix, Inc. revealed.

According to the survey, 2,900 respondents across the world said employers are struggling to retain people with the right skill sets to meet present and future challenges.

Many businesses are gearing up to tackle the challenge by reskilling employees. A staggering 86% of Indian IT leaders said they reskill workers from similar industries, while 50% are trying to bolster their workforce with recruits from unrelated sectors. 

The respondents said recruiting talent is still a challenge. The most common sources of reskilled workers are administration and business support (41%), people returning to work after a period of absence (34%), manufacturing (32%), and educational services (32%). 

These reskilled workers tend to help businesses bridge the tech skills gaps by working in cloud computing roles (57%), data protection (50%) and IT technicians (46%).

In India, there is a prominent tech skill gap for IT technicians (38%), followed by professionals with data protection skills (33%) and security software developers (30%).

Looking into the future, IT decision-makers in India also anticipate that the biggest tech skills gap will lie in data protection (30%) in 2025, followed by AI/machine learning (29%), cloud computing (27%), and security administrator (26%). IT leaders also consider retention of current talent (43%), pay and compensation packages for employees (40%), and candidates with the wrong skill sets applying for jobs (40%) as the top three biggest skill challenges their businesses to face.

Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India, said, “The survey shows that retention of current talent is reported as the biggest challenge for businesses along with compensation, underqualified applicant pools, need for reskilling for roles that change over time, and a lack of diversity.”