# Employer Skills Survey: What Employers Find Missing and How to Close the Gap Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/employer-skills-survey/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/employer-skills-survey.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving communication at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer What employer skills surveys say applicants and new hires lack, why qualifications alone aren't enough, and how to check which gaps apply to you personally. ## Key facts - Title: Employer Skills Survey: What Employers Find Missing and How to Close the Gap - Category: Employability - Primary skill: Communication - Related skills: Professional Behaviors, Building Self-Awareness - Primary keyword: employer skills survey - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/employer-skills-survey/ ## What this page covers - What employer skills surveys say applicants and new hires lack, why qualifications alone aren't enough, and how to check which gaps apply to you personally. - Practical guidance for employer skills survey - How this topic connects to Communication ## Detailed explanation An employer skills survey asks employers which skills they cannot find in applicants and which ones their existing staff lack. The answer usually comes in two layers: specialist knowledge is the most common shortfall among applicants, while transferable skills such as time management, problem solving and communication turn up both at hiring and among people already in the job. If you are close to graduating or new to your first job, that second layer is the uncomfortable one, because no transcript lists it. It is also the layer you can do the most about. The findings are specific enough to act on, once you know how to read them. ## What is the employer skills survey? The best-known example is the UK's Employer Skills Survey, run by the Department for Education. Its 2024 edition, published as a full UK research report in November 2025, asks employers about two separate problems. One is skill-shortage vacancies: jobs that are hard to fill because applicants lack the skills the role needs. The other is skills gaps: people already on the payroll who are not yet fully proficient in their job. Not every employer survey works this way. Some ask employers about their actual vacancies and staff, as the Employer Skills Survey does; many others ask managers what they think of graduates as a group. Both are useful, provided you remember what they measure: averages across many employers and many candidates, not a verdict on any one person. ## What skills do employers say are lacking? At the hiring stage, specialist knowledge comes first. In the Welsh regional results of the 2024 Employer Skills Survey, specialist skills or knowledge were the most frequently cited shortfall among applicants in every region, from 62% of skill-shortage vacancies in north Wales to 76% in south west Wales. Hard-to-fill roles are often specialist roles, so knowing the field is the entry ticket. Right behind that comes the ability to handle the unfamiliar. Across the UK, [solving complex problems](/knowledge/types-of-skills/problem-solver-skill/) was a factor in 45% of skill-shortage vacancies in 2024, up from 36% in 2022, while computer literacy and basic IT skills contributed to 21%. Among staff who are already employed, the most reported gaps were specialist technical skills together with core transferable skills, time management and problem solving above all. When employers are asked about graduates specifically, communication joins the list. Nearly three in four employers in a survey reported by SHRM said they struggle to find graduates with the workplace skills their companies need, naming problem solving, critical thinking, innovation and creativity, dealing with complexity and ambiguity, and communication. In a 2016 PayScale survey of managers, writing was the hard skill new graduates most often lacked: communication at its most concrete, in an email or report a busy person can read once and act on. The labels themselves are the catch. "Communication" on an employer's list tells you what is scarce, not what to do differently tomorrow. The real work is translating each label into behaviors you can practice and later point to. ## What's the difference between a skills gap and a skills shortage? A skills shortage is a hiring problem: an employer advertises a role and cannot find applicants who can do it. A skills gap is a performance problem: the person has been hired but is not yet fully proficient. The distinction gives you two separate checklists. Shortages show what stands between applicants and an offer, and there specialist knowledge dominates. Gaps show what employers find missing once people are at work, and there time management and problem solving stand out. No qualification certifies the second list, which is why it deserves your attention before your first day rather than after your first review. Unlike a qualification, it can be built in any job or project you already have. ## Are technical skills enough to get hired? They are necessary, but rarely enough. Because specialist knowledge is the most common shortfall among applicants in the Employer Skills Survey, a degree or vocational qualification in your field is no formality. Yet the same survey shows employers struggling to find people who can work through unfamiliar problems, and reporting gaps in how existing staff organize their time. The two kinds of skill work as a pair. Technical knowledge is usually what earns the interview. How you manage yourself and work with other people decides how quickly you become useful after that, and it weighs more with every step up. ## Why do employers say graduates aren't work ready? Mostly because of how new hires work with others and manage themselves, rather than what they know. In research by General Assembly, reported by People Management, about a third of business leaders said entry-level talent is not prepared for work, and 56% named gaps in people and self-management skills as the main reason. A Pearson survey of UK HR managers found 48% saying graduates lacked leadership skills, with 44% pointing to negotiation and 38% to strategy and planning. If numbers like these feel personal, the reaction is a common one. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work voiced it from the student's side: > What have I actually learned? If a job ad says you must be able to do these calculations, or brief a manager this way — those are the things I should have learned, and we didn't. Sometimes it feels like the emperor's new clothes. Her doubt is understandable, and it is worth turning around. Briefing a manager, organizing your own time, speaking up in a meeting: these are behaviors, and behaviors are built by doing them, deliberately and more than once. You can start before anyone hires you, in a part-time job, a group project or a student organization. ## Is work experience more important than grades? For many employers, yes. In the Pearson survey, 61% of UK HR managers said [relevant work experience](/knowledge/types-of-skills/skills-and-experience/) mattered more than a graduate's grades. The reason is evidence: grades show what you have learned, while experience shows how you behave around colleagues, deadlines and responsibility, which is exactly what the readiness complaints are about. Grades still count, especially in fields where specialist knowledge is the main hurdle. But the finding explains why an internship, a student job, a volunteer role or a demanding group project can do more for an application than a slightly higher average. Each one hands you real situations you can describe in detail. ## Who is responsible for teaching these skills: my university, my employer or me? In practice, much of it falls to you. In the General Assembly research, 62% of employees believed responsibility for skills development should sit with the employer, while the leaders in the same research were judging entry-level hires on how ready they were on arrival. The Employer Skills Survey adds two details: employer investment in training fell between 2022 and 2024, and the share of UK employers with vacancies dropped from 23% to 17%. Fewer vacancies generally means more competition for each one. Waiting to be taught is therefore a weak plan. The better news is that these are habits, not talents, and the stretch before your first job is a good time to build them, while projects, part-time work and placements still give you room to practice. Since nobody else will run the check, [measuring your own starting point](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) now gives you months rather than weeks to work on whatever it shows. ## How do I show employers I have these skills? Start by checking yourself against the lists, because no survey can do that for you. An employer skills survey describes averages across thousands of hires and says nothing about which gaps are yours. Take the few labels that matter most for the roles you want, such as communication, time management or problem solving, and ask what you have actually done that proves each one. Then [turn your answers into evidence](/knowledge/employability/soft-skills-to-write-in-cv/): - Describe what you did, not the quality you claim. A sentence about the weekly status update you wrote for a six-person project team shows more than any adjective. - Use situations an [interviewer can probe](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/soft-skills-interview-questions/): the shift you covered at short notice, the deadline you rescued, the group disagreement you helped settle. - Fill thin spots on purpose. Where you find no evidence at all, pick one situation in the coming months where you can practice that skill. - Let the application itself demonstrate it. A clear, brief cover letter and a well-structured interview answer are communication evidence in their own right. ## The skills that close the gaps employers report Set specialist knowledge aside, and the answers above share a thread. Most of what employers report missing shows up in behavior: in how people write and speak, in how they conduct themselves at work, and in how clearly they see their own gaps. **Communication** is where an employer's broadest label turns into daily habits. It means putting your main point first, keeping messages clear and brief, listening properly before you answer, writing emails a busy person can act on, and speaking up in meetings instead of waiting to be asked. None of it depends on being a natural talker. Each habit can be practiced in the next message you send, and each one leaves evidence you can describe in an interview. **Professional Behaviors** give words like attitude and work ethic something to stand on. Behind those words sit concrete norms: arriving on time, finishing the administrative tasks nobody enjoys without complaint, showing humility and genuine interest, treating everyone with the same respect, and steering clear of passive or negative habits. Most of these rules go unspoken at work, which is exactly why they are worth learning on purpose, and many are among the quickest gaps a newcomer can close. **Building Self-Awareness** is what turns a survey about thousands of people into a plan for one. It starts with knowing your genuine strengths and spotting your blind spots, and it grows fastest when you ask a tutor, supervisor or manager for specific, future-focused feedback rather than a general verdict. A gap found this way is simply something you have not learned yet, and it leaves you with a short, ordered list to work on instead of a vague worry about everything at once. An employer skills survey can only tell you what is scarce on average. The **free Job Skills Test** turns the same question on you: think of it as [your own one-person skills survey](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), covering these three and the rest of a wider set of **twelve work skills**. Because every one of them can be practiced, your lowest score simply becomes the first line of your development list. ## What your own week already shows Try holding the employer lists up against an ordinary week of yours. If you are the one who rewrites the group-chat summary so everyone knows who is doing what, or who turns up for a Saturday shift on time when nobody would notice a late start, you have already been practicing what these surveys describe as scarce. None of it asks you to become a different person; it asks for habits you choose to build, in the order that matters most for the work you want. These skills also tend to weigh more once the specialist knowledge that got you hired is taken for granted, so finding out early which one to build first puts time on your side. ## Start with your own results The employer lists only become useful when you hold your own results next to them. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills: in 7 minutes it shows where you stand across all twelve and which ones will make the biggest difference to your applications and your first job. Then treat the result the way an employer treats survey data: pick the one gap that matters most for the role you want next, and plan one concrete way to build evidence of it this month. **[Get my skills profile](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes 7 minutes, results shown instantly.* ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? What employer skills surveys say applicants and new hires lack, why qualifications alone aren't enough, and how to check which gaps apply to you personally. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Communication. It also relates to Professional Behaviors, Building Self-Awareness. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/employability/employer-skills-survey/ Preferred summary: "What employer skills surveys say applicants and new hires lack, why qualifications alone aren't enough, and how to check which gaps apply to you personally." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.