The UK is facing a well-documented skills gap – a mismatch between the skills employers need and those available in the workforce.
British companies large and small are struggling to find qualified people for key roles, and it’s becoming a pressing concern for business leaders. Recent figures paint a stark picture: almost six in ten UK employers report having hard-to-fill vacancies, and one analysis found that nine out of ten UK companies are struggling to recruit the skills they require.
Unemployment is near historic lows, meaning the talent pool is stretched thin. In fact, during mid-2022 there were periods when the UK had fewer than one unemployed person for every job vacancy – a record-tight labor market with an unemployed-to-vacancy ratio of just 0.9. This talent crunch isn’t just a minor inconvenience; it has real consequences for productivity and growth. If UK businesses can’t access the expertise they need, projects get delayed, customer service suffers, and innovation stalls.
So what can be done? One strategic solution gaining traction is outsourcing – tapping into the global talent pool to fill skill gaps.
In this blog, we’ll explore the scope of the UK’s skills gap, how outsourcing can help organizations access worldwide expertise with flexibility and cost-efficiency, and why Emapta stands out as a premier outsourcing partner for UK businesses looking to thrive despite local talent shortages.
The Scope and Impact of the UK Skills Gap
The skills shortage in the UK is a broad and deep challenge, affecting many sectors from tech and engineering to healthcare and finance. Low unemployment and strong demand for specialized skills have created a tight labor market. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has reported historically high job vacancies – over 1.1 million vacancies around the start of 2023 – with essentially a one-to-one ratio between unemployed people and open jobs. Such a slim margin means companies are often competing fiercely over a limited pool of candidates. The result? Positions stay vacant for longer, and businesses struggle to meet their goals.
Surveys by professional bodies corroborate the extent of the gap. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that 57% of UK employers have difficulty recruiting for hard-to-fill roles. Similarly, McKinsey & Company’s research highlights that the vast majority of UK firms are feeling the crunch – 90% say they can’t find the skills they need in the current market. This gap spans both high-tech roles (like software developers, data analysts, and engineers) and roles requiring essential skills (like experienced project managers or skilled tradespeople). It’s not just about cutting-edge tech talent; even roles in management, communications, and customer service are seeing shortages of qualified candidates.
The impact of this skills gap is significant. Companies unable to hire the right talent face lost productivity, have to forego business opportunities, or overstretch their existing employees. In the longer term, a skills gap can hinder innovation and erode a company’s competitive position.
At a national level, a widespread talent shortage can drag on economic growth. Global studies warn of huge repercussions if skills shortages persist. For instance, the World Economic Forum estimates that 85 million jobs could go unfilled worldwide by 2030 due to talent shortages, which could result in $8.5 trillion in unrealized revenues. While that is a global figure, the UK – as a major economy – is certainly at risk of losing out on growth if its skills gap isn’t addressed.
Compounding the issue is the fast pace of change in required skills. As technology advances and industries evolve, the workforce needs continuous upskilling. A McKinsey analysis noted that about 94% of the UK workforce will need new skills by 2030 to keep up with the changing job requirements.
In other words, nearly every worker will need some level of reskilling or upskilling over the next decade, meaning the skills gap could widen if we don’t continuously develop talent. It’s a daunting picture, but business leaders are not without options. One immediate way to relieve the pressure is to think globally when it comes to talent.
Accessing Global Talent Through Outsourcing
If local talent is in short supply, why not widen the search? This is where outsourcing comes in. Outsourcing – in this context – means engaging skilled professionals outside your organization (often offshore or nearshore, through a service provider) to perform roles or projects that are hard to fill locally.
Instead of limiting your hiring to a 50-mile radius or the UK labor market, you tap into a global network of talent. As Harvard Business Review observes, companies should consider all talent as part of a worldwide network that they can draw from to meet their needs. In practical terms, outsourcing opens the door to regions where the skill you need might be abundant – whether that’s software developers in Eastern Europe, digital marketers in the Philippines, or design engineers in India. It’s about looking beyond borders to find the expertise that might be scarce at home.
One big advantage of this global talent approach is elasticity. UK business cycles can be volatile, and project needs can spike or drop with little notice. Outsourcing gives companies the flexibility to scale their teams up or down quickly. You can bring on additional experts for a critical six-month project, then scale back, without the long lead times and commitments of traditional hiring. In fact, 78% of businesses say outsourcing provides the flexibility to adjust team size as needed.
This elasticity is incredibly valuable in fast-moving sectors. For example, if a company needs to deploy a new digital platform but can’t find enough local IT specialists, an outsourcing partner can swiftly assemble a remote development team with the right skills. The company gets the job done on time, then can re-size the team afterward, avoiding the overhead of permanent hires for a short-term need.
Outsourcing also helps overcome local limitations by granting access to skills and capabilities that might not exist internally. In a tight labor market, the specific expertise you require could be exceedingly rare (or expensive) to find domestically. But somewhere in the world, there are professionals who have exactly the experience you need. By tapping an outsourcing partner, businesses have been able to plug critical skill gaps – whether it’s finding bilingual customer support reps, seasoned cybersecurity analysts, or developers proficient in a niche programming language. In many cases, the outsourced team members become a seamless extension of the company’s workforce, collaborating virtually with in-house staff.
This model has been so effective that some of the world’s top companies leverage it heavily. Tech giants like Google have relied extensively on outsourced staff – so much so that reports noted a few years ago that Google’s outsourced workers even outnumbered their direct employees. And it’s not just tech behemoths: innovative startups like Slack and Alibaba famously outsourced parts of their early development work to expert teams abroad to accelerate their growth. These examples show that outsourcing isn’t a last resort; it’s often a strategic move that smart companies use to their advantage.
Discover how a global talent strategy
can address the UK skills gap.
Exploring the Advantages of Nearshoring with Our Macedonia Office
While offshoring offers significant benefits, nearshoring can be a compelling alternative, especially for businesses concerned about time zone differences or cultural mismatches. Nearshoring to locations like Macedonia provides a balanced solution, offering the best of both worlds with several distinct advantages:
Macedonia boasts a pool of highly educated and skilled professionals, particularly in sectors such as IT, engineering, and finance and accounting. Partnering with our Macedonia office allows access to this talent, ensuring that your projects are handled by proficient experts who are up-to-date with the latest technologies and methodologies.
Learn more about our Macedonia office and how nearshoring can benefit your business.
Benefits of Outsourcing: Cost, Flexibility, and Scalability
Aside from bridging specific skill gaps, outsourcing brings several tangible benefits to businesses:
Cost Efficiency
Outsourcing can be highly cost-effective. By hiring talent in regions with lower living costs, companies can achieve significant savings on salaries and overhead. For instance, one study found that a software developer in the US can cost 2–4 times more than an equally skilled developer in an offshore location with a lower cost of living.
Beyond wages, companies save on recruitment costs, office space, equipment, and training. It’s no surprise that a major driver for outsourcing is cost reduction. But cost efficiency doesn’t mean compromise on quality – in fact, it can enable businesses to afford top-tier talent that might be financially out of reach locally.
Flexibility
As mentioned, outsourcing arrangements are inherently flexible. You can engage experts on different contract lengths, from a few weeks to ongoing arrangements, depending on your needs. This flexibility applies not only to scaling team size but also to the range of skills you can access. Need a data scientist for one project and a UI/UX designer for another? An outsourcing partner can source both, on-demand. This agility allows business leaders to respond quickly to market changes or new opportunities without being constrained by lengthy local hiring processes. In a recent survey, nearly 80% of organizations indicated that their top workforce challenge is recruiting skilled talent, and outsourcing is a way to meet that challenge with agility.
Scalability
For a growing business, scalability is crucial. Outsourcing provides a ready-made mechanism to scale operations. When your company is expanding into a new market or experiencing a surge in orders, you might need dozens of new employees yesterday. With traditional hiring, that’s a tall order – the recruitment and onboarding alone could take months. But with the support of a reliable outsourcing partner, you can ramp up a team in a matter of weeks, hiring in parallel across multiple talent hubs. Because the partner handles much of the sourcing and vetting, you accelerate the timeline dramatically. This ability to scale quickly can be the difference between seizing a growth opportunity and missing out. Conversely, if conditions change, you can scale down just as smoothly. This scalability is not lost on business leaders – Harvard Business Review notes that companies increasingly “rent” talent via external partners to stay nimble in a post-COVID world, as they simply can’t reskill or hire fast enough internally to meet evolving needs.
Cost Efficiency
Outsourcing firms often specialize in certain domains or functions, meaning they have deep benches of pre-vetted talent in those areas. Whether it’s an outsourced accounting service or a remote IT development team, you’re typically getting people who focus on that craft and bring years of experience. This can lead to quality outcomes and innovations that might not emerge in-house, especially if your existing team is already stretched thin. Furthermore, outsourced teams bring diverse perspectives from working with different clients or industries, which can spark new ideas and best practices for your business.
By leveraging these benefits, companies can turn the skills gap from a threat into an opportunity. Rather than being bottlenecked by local labor constraints, you build a blended workforce – a core local team augmented by global experts. This not only helps you get work done but can also transfer knowledge to your organization (for example, your in-house team can learn new techniques or tools from overseas colleagues).
Emapta: A Best-in-Class Outsourcing Partner for UK Businesses
If you’re considering outsourcing to navigate the skills gap, choosing the right partner is critical. This is where Emapta comes in. Emapta is a leading outsourcing and offshore staffing provider with a strong track record of helping businesses around the world build high-performing remote teams. What makes Emapta stand out in a crowded outsourcing market?
Tailored Solutions
Emapta doesn’t believe in one-size-fits-all. We understand that each business has unique talent needs and cultural nuances. Emapta’s model is built around empowering clients with customized, dedicated teams rather than off-the-shelf outsourcing. As a result, you get a team that is essentially an extension of your in-house staff, hand-picked to fit your requirements. The Emapta approach emphasizes direct collaboration and client control. This approach has set a new standard for outsourcing partnerships, focusing on transparency and alignment with the client’s goals.
Security and Compliance
Understandably, UK business leaders might worry about compliance and data security when engaging an offshore team. Emapta places the highest priority on security and has robust safeguards in place. We uphold the highest levels of compliance in data security, with certifications like ISO 27001 and SOC 2, and adherence to standards such as GDPR (crucial for UK/EU data) and industry-specific regulations (HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc.).
Emapta’s infrastructure and processes have been independently audited and certified, so you can engage global talent with peace of mind that you’re meeting all regulatory requirements and protecting your intellectual property.
Scalable and Flexible Engagements
Emapta offers a flexible engagement model. There are no minimum seat requirements – you can start with a single role or build an entire department offshore. We make it easy to scale the team size up or down based on your evolving needs, with no long-term lock-in if your strategy changes. This flexibility extends to working arrangements as well: your Emapta team can operate in your time zone and align with your business hours or provide extended hour coverage if you prefer a follow-the-sun model. We also handle HR, payroll, and employee welfare for your remote team members, so they stay motivated, and you stay free from administrative burdens.
Our employee-centric focus (investing in great office facilities, career development, and culture for our talent) has led to high retention and engaged staff – which translates into better service for our clients. Emapta was named one of the “Best Companies to Work For in Asia,” and boasts one of the lowest attrition rates in the outsourcing industry.
SUCCESS STORIES
Bridging Skill Gaps with Outsourcing
Around the world, countless companies have bridged their skills gaps by leveraging outsourced talent. We’ve mentioned how giants like Google and innovative startups like Slack turned to global talent to fulfill their needs. Many of Emapta’s clients have similar success stories. For example, a UK-based software company struggling to hire cloud engineers locally was able to set up a dedicated development squad through Emapta in the Philippines – within just 45 days, they had a fully operational remote team of certified cloud experts working UK hours. This allowed the company to accelerate its product roadmap, launching new features on time, which would have been impossible if they had waited on local hiring. In another case, a financial services firm in London needed to scale up its customer support and back-office processing rapidly. By outsourcing these functions through Emapta, they not only filled the roles quickly but also cut operating costs by around 60% versus hiring locally, all while maintaining quality and compliance. These are just a couple of illustrations of what can be achieved.
The common thread in these success stories is that outsourcing provided speed, flexibility, and expertise that the companies could not have achieved on their own in the same timeframe. By partnering with a trusted provider like Emapta, even smaller businesses can punch above their weight, leveraging global expertise as and when needed. It turns the world into your talent pool, which is a powerful advantage when dealing with a skills gap.
Closing the Gap: Take Action with Outsourcing
The UK skills gap may be a formidable challenge, but it doesn’t have to hold your business back. Outsourcing is a compelling strategy to access the skills your company needs, when and where you need them. It offers a pathway to cost-efficient growth and agility, allowing you to sidestep local hiring bottlenecks and reach top talent across the globe. In a business environment where having the right people is often the difference between stagnation and innovation, this global talent approach can be a game-changer.
For UK business leaders, the key is to approach outsourcing not just as a stopgap measure, but as a strategic extension of your workforce planning. By integrating outsourced teams thoughtfully, you can strengthen your organization’s capabilities and resilience. Of course, success in outsourcing depends on choosing the right partner. With Emapta’s tailored, secure, and client-centric outsourcing solutions, you have a partner who is invested in your success from day one. We take care of the heavy lifting – sourcing elite talent, ensuring compliance, and fostering integration – so that you can focus on driving your business forward.
Now is the time to act. Don’t let the skills gap stall your company’s growth or innovation. Whether you’re struggling to fill tech roles, need multilingual support staff, or want to explore more cost-effective ways to scale operations, outsourcing could be the door to the global expertise you seek. Emapta is here to help you open that door. Reach out to us to discuss your talent needs and see how we can craft a bespoke outsourcing solution to keep your business ahead of the curve. With the right partner, you can turn the UK’s skill shortage into an opportunity – and ensure your company has the talent it needs to thrive today and in the future.
FAQs
What industries in the UK are most affected by the skills gap?
The skills shortage affects multiple sectors, including technology, finance, engineering, healthcare, and customer service. Many specialized roles, such as software developers, cybersecurity experts, and skilled tradespeople, are in particularly short supply.
How does outsourcing help UK businesses overcome talent shortages?
Outsourcing provides access to a global talent pool, ensuring businesses can fill roles quickly, cost-effectively, and flexibly, without being constrained by local labor shortages.
How does outsourcing compare to hiring locally in terms of cost?
Outsourcing can lead to cost savings of 50-70%, depending on the role and location, due to differences in labor costs, recruitment expenses, and overhead.
Will outsourcing affect the quality of work?
Not if done correctly. By working with a trusted outsourcing partner like Emapta, businesses gain access to top-tier professionals who integrate seamlessly into their teams, maintaining high standards of work.
What makes Emapta different from other outsourcing providers?
Emapta offers customized, client-controlled solutions, global expertise across 11 countries, industry-leading security and compliance, and a flexible engagement model with no minimum seat requirements.
Discover how Emapta can help you build a high-performing global team.
Emapta is a trailblazer in the outsourcing industry, redefining traditional outsourcing by creating a new standard for how businesses leverage offshore and nearshore teams. With a focus on providing dedicated teams from the world’s most skilled talent hubs, Emapta goes beyond cost reduction to deliver true value, optimizing operational efficiency and resource management for its clients.
Operating in over 30 countries, Emapta celebrates 15 years of consistent growth, supporting over 900 clients with a global workforce of more than 10,000 team members. The company’s commitment to employee welfare has earned it recognition as one of the “Best Companies to Work For in Asia” and contributes to one of the lowest attrition rates in the industry.
Emapta’s innovative staffing solutions are tailored to meet the evolving needs of its clients, ensuring each partnership is productive, sustainable, and forward-thinking. By continuously adapting to market demands, Emapta remains at the forefront of outsourcing, setting the stage for the future of work.
