When it comes to skills development in South Africa, waiting for the “right time” is no longer an option. The reality is that there isn’t a perfect time to invest in skills. If we delay, we only fall further behind, widening the gap between where we are now and where we want to be going forward.
Image source: DC Studio from
FreepikAnd right now, we are nowhere near where we should be. According to a 2024 survey from the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA), up to 65% of businesses are affected by the technology skills gap. The same survey found that in some of the most in-demand areas - AI/machine learning (ML), big data/data science, cybersecurity, and DevOps, among others - demand exceeds supply by a clear margin.
Putting the ‘buts’ to bed
A common theme in conversations between HR and IT about skills development is the idea that “now just isn’t the right time”. But budgets are tight. But our real need is for intermediate skills. But we haven’t seen a return on our skills development investments in the past. When we focus on all the buts, what we are doing is thinking too much about immediate business pressures and not prioritising longer-term initiatives. This might serve us right now, but it will definitely mean that we come up short in the future.
If budgets are tight, as they are for so many businesses right now, it’s important to consider the costs associated with not having the right skills and with bringing in external resources. When businesses lack the right skills, they can’t innovate, access new revenue streams or take on new projects, which drives your customers elsewhere and allows your competition to pull ahead.
Case for upskilling over recruiting
Similarly, when businesses assume they can recruit the skills they need instead of upskilling current employees, they often find themselves spending months looking for the right people. This is especially true in highly competitive talent markets where certain skills are hard to come by.
In addition, hiring new employees is expensive. New hires take time to onboard and ramp up, which can have a negative effect on productivity because existing team members are pulled away from their own work to train and support them. This puts further strain on your current staff.
Not a tick-box exercise
Many believe that skills development programmes fail to deliver value because they tend to produce someone who is theoretically trained but doesn’t know how to apply these principles and concepts in a complex, real-world system.
In my experience, this often happens because businesses think of skills development as a box-ticking exercise, where success is a numbers game rather than being measured by how much value it adds or the impact it makes on your business.
Similarly, people regularly associate skills development with a process of training up juniors to become generalists who have very basic, theoretical skills. Again, this is only true when you’re doing skills development poorly.
Skills Integration as a Service
When your approach to training is strategic, this isn’t the case. Real-world skills are best developed by embedding learners into live client environments so that learning is tailored to what the client really needs. We call this approach Skills Integration as a Service (SIaaS).
As we move towards the end of the year, most businesses will be planning their 2026 budgets and finalising their spending in the months ahead. While doing this exercise, take a moment to review your 2025 skills strategy. Did you get what you hoped for from your talent programmes, your onboarding plans, and your skill development investments? If not, why not do something different in the new year?
Now is the perfect time to invest in tech skills. As you plan your budget for the coming year, why not allocate funds towards closing critical skills gaps and future-proofing your organisation? If not now, then when?
