Do Gen Z, millennials already have the skills CIOs need?

The IT skills reality check

Nearly two-thirds of organizations reported missing revenue growth objectives and product or service quality issues due to a lack of IT skills, according to IDC's 2024-2025 Global IT Skills survey. In past surveys, about 20-30% of respondents attributed lost revenue and quality issues to IT skills shortages.

"Now, those numbers are in the high fifties or even more if you're talking about things like digital transformation," said Gina Smith, research director at IDC. "That's extremely delayed by a lack of skills."

The survey also predicted that by 2026, more than 90% of organizations would experience product delays, impaired competitiveness and loss of business due to the IT skills crisis, costing roughly $5.5 trillion in losses.

The skills shortage persists because technology moves so fast that by the time a team is skilled up on a piece of software or a new technology, the technology changes again. Now, this happens faster than ever, especially with AI, Smith said.

Specifically, 87% of respondents in North America said they see delays in digital transformation. That's not surprising at a time when organizations are focused on getting up to speed on AI technology, which topped the list of most important enterprise skills, ahead of cybersecurity, IT ops and data management.

At the same time, only one-third of global IT leaders said they are fully ready for AI. A lack of AI skills was most often cited as the main challenge organizations face in implementing AI.

The skills Gen Z, millennials are actively building

Younger talent, including Gen Z and young millennials, often lacks the institutional knowledge that comes with time on the job.

"This new talent has limited exposure to legacy systems that enterprises are modernizing. They have limited exposure to workflows. They have limited exposure to the depth of architecture. That's where there's a gap," said Vishnu Shankar, vice president of data and research for Draup.

Organizations continue to anchor IT hiring at scale around cloud-native platforms, distribution systems and production-grade AI frameworks, Shankar said. The fastest acceleration in IT demand is in generative AI tooling, modern Python backends and cloud-native automation primitives, even as core cloud platforms dominate overall hiring volume.

With all these differing needs and demands, IT leaders see different strengths in Gen Z and millennial employees.

"The difference [is] very subtle," Shankar said. "We see Gen Z cluster more toward modern AI and modern application-layer frameworks, while millennials are slightly more concentrated in cloud infrastructure, distribution systems and operational tooling."

While finding the talent to maintain and upgrade current systems could become more challenging, right now, there is no shortage of these specific skills.

If you have an opportunity to learn a legacy language, take that opportunity.

"IT skills are still strong. When we need to find specialists, we're still able to find them," said Bryan Wall, senior competency leader for cloud engineering at Experis.

It's harder to find legacy technology engineers as the people in those positions retire, which has always been the case, he said. Knowing some of the older technologies may give young job seekers an opportunity to land a niche job.

"If you have an opportunity to learn a legacy language, take that opportunity," Wall said.

The best approach to gain knowledge comes down to the individual, Wall said. Twenty years ago, organizations required a four-year degree for an IT position. While most companies still look for a degree today, boot camps and other types of self-directed learning are becoming more acceptable.

"I have hired people who went through boot camps, and they've been some of the best engineers I've ever had," Wal said.

Additionally, millennials and Gen Z are embracing remote learning opportunities. Gen Z employees showed equal preferences for live, instructor-led sessions, classroom sessions and self-paced learning in IDC's survey. Millennials showed a moderate preference for blended learning and formal training at work, but also valued self-paced and classroom options.

Many organizations are responding by implementing agentic AI training, which lets them build and update courses quickly.

"Millennials and Gen Z are uniquely equipped to answer the challenges because of their experience with remote learning and learning on their own," Smith said. "They're going to do a lot of that, no question."

Where CIO needs and younger talent skills align

The desire to seek alternative training methods may serve younger generations well. For example, with a fast-moving technology like AI, Wall said he would look for an applicant with curiosity about the technology and a healthy amount of skepticism about when it's appropriate and when it's not. If somebody found a niche they love, they will do well in the role, he said.

"Almost all of the skills are trainable. The hardest part is mindset," said John Wei, CTO and executive vice president at Integreon.

In an age where AI can enhance creativity and replace memorization of technical knowledge, core skills are really about asking the right questions and having that inner drive to be curious, Wei said. He said his job is to hire curious, collaborative people with an interest in life-long learning and give them a structured pathway to climb the corporate ladder.

"It's a different corporate ladder," Wei said. "It's a skill and value-driven ladder as opposed to a title-driven ladder."

Gaps CIOs should still plan for

Technological advances are just one aspect of a rapidly changing corporate culture. In an environment where much of the work is done remotely, employees must put in more effort to be part of the team. Showing up on time, looking professional and engaging in conversation are a large part of what Wall looks for in a candidate.

"The soft skills are the new hard skills these days," Wall said.

Another gap is a lack of understanding of human interaction and how to develop relationships in a hybrid environment, according to Cliff Jurkiewicz, vice president of global strategy at Phenom. However, this issue won't be as relevant in five years when most baby boomers retire, and Gex X will be close behind. Currently, an estimated 60% of IT leaders are baby boomers, according to Jurkiewicz.

This means organizations will have to shift their focus to the values of younger generations. Specifically, they want to be judged on the skills they have and what they produce for the organization, Jurkiewicz said.

"Gen Z wants a dynamic environment where they can leverage their skills and pair them with their passions to create outcomes not only for the company, but for themselves in developing their own human value in the work that they're doing," Jurkiewicz said.

The days when someone stays in a position for 30 years are gone, Jurkiewicz said. Modern IT professionals typically stay in a role for two to three years. Gen Z employees want to make themselves valuable to the market, not just one company.

"Gen Z will break down and dismantle the hierarchical job architecture because they are all about democratization and fairness. They want a workplace that combines their skill and passion, and they want to be able to move freely around organizations, picking up different skills as they go," Jurkiewicz said.

What CIOs should rethink about hiring and team design

Organizations are also evolving to keep pace with the changing technologies. While the total talent supply appears well-aligned, the final piece is building teams to advance company objectives. Many organizations are creating hybrid teams that combine talent with foundational and modern skills.

"Organizations that are aggressively preparing for what's next are focused on building a skills-first architecture," Shankar said.

To achieve this, they break existing jobs into tasks and identify the skills needed to perform them. Items that AI can automate are broken out, and workflow is redefined based on remaining tasks and available talent.

"While the enterprises are modernizing their architecture, they're now forced to accelerate their AI initiatives," Shankar said.

Shankar said talent can be split into three types: builders who create, train and architect systems; orchestrators who manage integrations, deployments and automation; and synthesizers, a hybrid role that bridges business, technology and automation.

A successful hybrid team lets new talent learn from orchestrators, so they can eventually take more ownership of the platform.

Julie Hanson is a freelance writer who has reported on local news across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.