Navigating the Talent Gap: Building a Workforce for Digital Transformation

Digital transformation jobs are multiplying, but many organisations face the same challenge: a growing gap between the skills they need and the capabilities they have. While technologies like AI, data, and cloud platforms advance rapidly, teams often struggle with outdated skills, change fatigue, and limited digital fluency.

So how can leaders close this gap and prepare their people for a digital-first future?

In this blog, David Catmur-Lloyd, Consultancy Director at Crimson, shares practical steps for upskilling, hiring, and fostering adaptability, backed by market insights from Crimson’s IT Salary Survey.

Step 1: Map Your Skills Landscape

The first step is clarity. Conducting a skills audit helps you understand where legacy expertise is strong and where digital fluency is lacking.

For example, you may have excellent operational knowledge but little exposure to data analytics or AI. By mapping transformation goals against current competencies, you’ll identify the critical gaps to close.

According to Crimson’s IT Salary Survey, 86% of technologists cited insufficient staffing as a barrier to achieving objectives. A skills audit ensures you align resources with strategy before that shortfall becomes a blocker.

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) is a globally recognised competency framework that provides a common language and structure for defining digital, data and technology skills within organisations. It outlines a set of professional skills across seven levels of responsibility, from entry through to strategic leadership, and links those skills to real world roles, behaviours and impacts. In the context of closing skills gaps, SFIA enables organisations to clearly map current workforce capabilities, identify where shortages or mismatches exist, and then articulate the precise development, recruitment or redeployment interventions required instead of relying solely on generic job titles or qualifications.

Additionally, the (KSA) model, Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude, is another simple but powerful way to frame a skills gap analysis. It helps you break down what employees know, can do, and are willing to do in relation to digital transformation or any organisational change.

The KSA Framework

   1. Knowledge (K) – What people know

• Facts, concepts, and understanding.
• Example: Awareness of cloud technologies, GDPR principles, or AI basics.

   2. Skills (S) – What people can do

• The practical ability to apply knowledge.
• Example: Configuring cloud platforms, running data analysis, managing agile projects.

   3. Attitude (A) – How people approach work

• Mindset, motivation, and willingness to adapt.
• Example: Openness to change, curiosity, collaboration, resilience.

Applying KSA to a Skills Gap

When doing a gap analysis, you can assess each of these dimensions:

• Knowledge gap → Do employees understand the concepts and frameworks needed?
  • Fix: Training, knowledge-sharing, workshops.

• Skills gap → Can they actually apply it in practice?
  • Fix: Hands-on training, mentoring, projects, certifications.

• Attitude gap → Do they have the motivation and adaptability to embrace it?
  • Fix: Culture change, leadership modelling, incentives, coaching.

Step 2: Upskill with Purpose

Upskilling shouldn’t be treated as a one-off training exercise. It needs to be embedded into transformation programmes and budgets. Effective approaches include:

• Microlearning: bite-sized modules that fit into the flow of work.
• Bootcamps: immersive training on technologies such as cloud or AI.
• Certifications: formal credentials that boost confidence and credibility.
• Mentorship: pairing digital natives with experienced colleagues to accelerate knowledge transfer.

It’s important to offer a range of training opportunities to suit people’s different learning styles.

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle is a great way to thinking about learning in the workplace.

• Actively experiencing an activity or situation.
• Example: Taking part in a project using a new digital tool.

• Stepping back to reflect on what happened.
• What worked? What didn’t? How did I feel during it?
• Example: After the project, discussing with colleagues what challenges came up.

• Drawing conclusions and learning from the experience.
• Identifying patterns, models, or theories that explain what happened.
• Example: Realising that poor communication slowed the project and linking it to theories of teamwork or change management.

• Testing new approaches based on what you’ve learned.
• Example: In the next project, setting up clearer communication channels and seeing how it improves outcomes.
  
  

Why it matters in business & digital transformation

• Upskilling: People don’t just learn from courses, but from applying knowledge in real contexts.
• Change management: Employees need space to try, reflect, and adapt when adopting new tech.

At Crimson, we’ve invested in developing talent pipelines through our own award winning, IT Apprenticeship Academy, a strategy that organisations can replicate to grow digital skills locally and cost-effectively.

Crimson’s Academy is at the heart of our strategic growth plan, and our entire business has a vested interest in the success of our apprentices. Our current cohort includes school leavers, graduates and career changers who made the decision to switch to a tech career. Successful applicants receive a full salary plus benefits while undergoing a structured training programme. Crimson partners with Digital Native UK, a tech-dedicated training provider.

Step 3: Recruit for Agility in a Fast-Changing Tech Landscape

Digital transformation requires a workforce that can learn quickly, adapt to emerging technologies, and evolve as business needs shift. Hiring should not be about filling vacancies but about building resilience for the future.

• Skills over credentials: In a landscape where tools and platforms change rapidly, the ability to adapt is more valuable than traditional qualifications. Many successful IT professionals have not followed conventional academic routes. Skills based hiring is gaining momentum because it prioritises problem solving, curiosity, and the capacity to learn at speed.
  
  
• Employer branding: Attracting adaptable, future ready professionals also means rethinking what your organisation offers. Our Salary Survey reveals that candidates are increasingly valuing flexibility, hybrid working, meaningful benefits, and an inclusive culture. Positioning your workplace as digitally forward and supportive of wellbeing and continuous development will help secure the talent that thrives in changing environment.
  
  
• Partnering for speed: Crimson’s IT Recruitment Agency helps organisations hire with both urgency and foresight, often within two weeks, from developers and architects to CIOs. By combining strategic recruitment with a focus on agility, organisations can assemble teams ready not only for today’s projects but for tomorrow’s transformations.

Step 4: Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Technology evolves faster than traditional training cycles. The only way to keep pace is to build learning into everyday work.

• Model learning at the top: leaders who actively learn set the tone for their teams.
• Recognise and reward: celebrate milestones like certifications or new skills applied in projects.
• Psychological safety: employees need confidence to experiment and innovate without fear of failure.

At Crimson, our ‘Communities’ initiative is designed to do just that, bringing together colleagues to explore emerging technologies, share knowledge, and innovate collaboratively.

Step 5: Build for Adaptability

The ultimate competency in digital transformation isn’t a specific skill, it’s adaptability. With Agentic AI and connected digital employees reshaping the workplace, organisations must be able to pivot quickly.

Ask yourself:

• Are our teams continuously regenerating their skills?
• Do our processes flex with changing demands?
• Are we embedding AI-first thinking at every level of leadership?

Adaptability ensures that when disruption comes, and it will, your workforce doesn’t just survive but thrives.

In Summary...

Digital transformation is as much about people as it is about technology. By auditing skills, investing in upskilling, hiring strategically, and embedding a culture of continuous learning, leaders can bridge the talent gap and build resilient, future-ready teams.

As David notes: “The talent gap is real, but with the right approach, it’s bridgeable.”

If you need support sourcing IT professionals or designing transformation strategies that last, Crimson can help.