Deliver on Strategic IT Priorities With These Essential Skills

Equip your technical teams with the capabilities needed to execute your digital strategy and meet enterprise outcomes. 

Essential skills are the CIO’s execution engine

CIOs today face accelerating demands: deliver AI and automation, fortify security, drive data value and evolve infrastructure — all with leaner teams and rising complexity. But while strategy sets the direction, execution depends on the people.

That’s why identifying and closing essential skills gaps across your architecture, engineering and delivery teams is a top priority. According to Gartner, 85% of IT leaders say their current IT workforce is unprepared to meet their enterprise’s future skills requirements. Given this reality, CIOs must invest in the right capabilities and create cultures that support continuous learning and agility.

The CIO’s Guide to Essential Skills for Technical Teams

Discover core, valuable, and emerging skills and team competencies across all IT areas

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Upskilling at scale: Redefine your IT talent strategy

Building and maintaining competitive advantage demands continuous skill development, strategic reskilling and modernizing cultures across every layer of IT. Gartner research shows that only 15% of IT leaders believe their current workforce is prepared for future needs — a gap that directly impacts the ability to deliver on transformation goals.

Attract and retain talent by cultivating essential skills to meet business leadership innovation demands

Most IT organizations are struggling to hire for niche skills in cloud, security, automation and architecture. As a result, 84% of CIOs and IT leaders are actively engaged in reskilling their current employees to ensure they possess the necessary skills to execute digital strategies successfully.

A staggering 85% of IT leaders acknowledge that their current IT workforce is unprepared to meet the future skills requirements of their enterprise. This emphasizes an urgent need for upskilling and reskilling initiatives to address the skills gap and ensure the workforce is equipped for upcoming challenges and opportunities.

Foster a culture of continuous essential skills learning with talent development in a rapidly evolving technology landscape

It’s crucial for organizations to foster a culture of continuous learning and ensure their workforce possess the necessary skills for success. Gartner’s principle of progressive layering provides a framework to achieve this by categorizing skills into foundational, role-specific and new skills.

This principle ensures employees are well-rounded with the skills needed for the present and future, but also enables organizations to cultivate a continuous agile learning culture.

Expand and modernize technical teams’ essential skills to execute strategic initiatives, and address operational challenges

Technical architects play a critical role in designing and implementing robust and innovative IT solutions that drive business success, so it’s increasingly important to prioritize the development of technical skills, especially in the rapidly evolving technology landscape.

Gartner offers an approach that prioritizes the skills to learn based on specific criteria, which considers the relevance and positive impact of each skill, as well as the challenges involved in learning and applying them effectively. Plus, Gartner identifies and outlines the essential architecture skills that technical architects should focus on.

Essential skills FAQs

What are the key areas that IT leaders effectively contribute to enterprise growth?

According to Gartner, IT leaders must align their efforts with the enterprise’s mission-critical priorities, specifically around:

  • Digital transformation

  • Cybersecurity and data privacy

  • Talent management and digital skills


What tools and research does Gartner have on essential IT skills?

Gartner has extensive essential skills coverage designed for architects and engineers in areas like: software engineering, enterprise applications, data and analytics, cybersecurity and risk management and infrastructure and operations.

Drive stronger performance on your mission-critical priorities.