By Ryan M. Sutton, Executive Director, Technology Practice Group, Robert HalfWhat set apart the technology teams that thrived in 2025 from those that fell behind?According to Robert Half's Building Future-Forward Tech Teams report, 76% of tech leaders faced skills gaps in their department, with the largest concentration in AI, data science, IT operations and cybersecurity. The tech leaders who succeeded in 2025 found ways to close skills gaps through upskilling, flexible staffing and smarter hiring—even as 87% struggled to find skilled candidates.Building tech teams in 2026 means applying those hard-won lessons. Winning companies aren't just writing better job descriptions; they're also rethinking how they develop and retain professionals with technical expertise.
Why closing tech skills gaps is a strategic imperative
Missing skills or roles on a tech team don’t just slow progress—they compound over time into strategic risks. Without the right expertise, technical debt piles up faster than teams can address it. Digital transformation projects stall. Security vulnerabilities multiply. Data from the 2025 Building Future-Forward Tech Teams report shows a clear challenge: Technology leaders prioritized security, AI integration and technology modernization—which is also where skills gaps ran deep. Organizations have to find creative ways to bridge the gap between their long-term goals and current capabilities. Companies that are working to close their talent gaps can move faster, gain market share and respond quickly to changing business needs and technological advancement. And, by nurturing current staff and creating a pipeline of up-and-coming tech talent, they’re helping their company stand out as an employer of choice.Technology leaders who made strides in building strong, skilled teams this past year combined two approaches: Making the most of the strengths and potential of current employees and hiring professionals to address skills gaps, bring new ideas and expand project capacity.
Tech talent development strategies that deliver results
Organizations that are building future-ready tech workforces are investing in the professional growth of their teams. As highlighted in Building Future-Forward Tech Teams, creating a continuous learning culture is essential for many reasons—closing skills gaps, boosting employee satisfaction, improving retention, and ensuring teams stay aligned with the company’s strategic vision for technology. By actively investing in the growth of existing talent, leaders can empower their teams to adapt, innovate and drive long-term success. Let’s take a closer look at some strategies you can use to promote development of all your technology employees.Provide comprehensive learning and development programsGive your employees the flexibility to regularly set aside time for learning, experimentation and cross-collaboration. Create structured learning and development programs tailored to help employees gain specific skills in technologies that support business priorities, like cybersecurity and AI integration. To engage staff at all skill levels, offer an array of options, from coding bootcamps to advanced AI and data science workshops. As an incentive for motivating your employees to learn new skills and stretch their abilities, consider developing a system that supports and rewards innovation. This could include internal tech incubators, hackathons, contests and grants for technology projects that align with business goals. And don’t limit these opportunities to select tech teams. If you open these initiatives to the technology department—or even the larger organization—you’ll not only draw out new ideas but also potentially identify talent working in other functions who you could train for certain roles.Remove silos across teams, functions and tenureThe best teams in 2025 broke down walls between teams. Data scientists started talking regularly with DevOps engineers, and security specialists joined application development from the start instead of showing up at the end to find problems. You can speed this process up with some simple steps. Run technical demos where people show off what they're working on or set up rotation programs so engineers get to see different parts of your tech stack. Build a future-ready tech workforce where knowledge flows freely and no one’s expertise is trapped in silos.Mentorship is another valuable tactic for increasing knowledge-sharing and skill-building among staff. More experienced professionals, especially those with legacy technology expertise, can help accelerate learning and skills acquisition for less-seasoned staff. Reverse and peer-to-peer mentoring can also help disseminate crucial know-how throughout your tech department, and even beyond. When people share what they know, teams get stronger.More ideas for creating a future-fit tech teamTech leaders looking to prepare their teams for the future can benefit from implementing a variety of strategies to enhance skills and knowledge and foster adaptability and creativity. Here are some less common approaches to learning that you could use with your team: Scenario planning: Engage teams in creating future tech scenarios to build agile thinking and adaptabilityImmersive learning: Use virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to make training realistic and engaging, especially for remote teamsGamification: Turn learning into games with challenges, levels and rewardsCrowdsourced innovation: Tap internal ideas across the organization to solve problems and spark innovationUsing a mix of traditional and novel approaches to learning and development can help you create a tech team that is well-positioned to meet current and future business priorities. This strategy can also turn your technology department into a center of learning that attracts in-demand and high-potential talent from inside and outside the organization.
Hiring to accelerate and strengthen tech team performance
While upskilling existing team members is essential for growth and retention, it can't fully replace strategic hiring. Bringing in additional tech talent adds immediate capability, introduces fresh problem-solving perspectives from other industries or companies, and helps counter groupthink that naturally develops in long-standing teams. When companies compete for the same small pool of experts, waiting for perfect candidates is not wise. The most effective tech leaders in 2025 hired people for attitude and drive to learn, then taught them the specific skills they needed.Look for candidates who demonstrate problem-solving abilities, intellectual curiosity and adaptability. For example, someone who taught themselves three programming languages has the learning agility to master your tech stack. While onboarding may take longer, the greater setback is prolonged vacancies—unfinished projects, missed opportunities and overworked teams.Discover 5 more strategies to speed up your hiring process.Modern tech also requires staffing flexibility. A six-month cloud migration requires specialized know-how you probably won't need forever, and a critical product launch needs extra development help. Testing AI capabilities with a consultant specialized in the technology before hiring permanent staff cuts down on risk.Think of it as building a flexible talent ecosystem instead of a fixed org chart. Permanent employees give you stability and keep important knowledge in-house. Contract talent brings specialized expertise and moves fast, and 65% of technology leaders said they increased their reliance on these professionals in 2025. This blended approach to building tech teams in 2026 delivers the agility that competing priorities demand. Instead of constantly putting out fires, your core team gets room to focus on big-picture work and develop their skills.
Your 2026 talent strategy
The tech talent market in 2026 will remain competitive. Skills gaps will persist, and AI will keep redefining required expertise. But now you have clear strategies to ensure your team has the skills and capacity to deliver successful tech initiatives.Not sure where to go from there? Download a copy of Building Future-Forward Tech Teams from Robert Half for more insight on staffing strategically so you can achieve your tech priorities this year, and beyond.
Read Building Future-Forward Tech Teams
Get the E-bookDownload a copy of Building Future-Forward Tech Teams from Robert Half for insight on how to address critical skills gaps in your technology organization so you can achieve your tech priorities this year, and beyond.
