Organisations beginning to focus on improving staff’s technical skills amid fears of being left behind by AI, survey reveals
Irish businesses are planning to prioritise the development of technical skills – especially around artificial intelligence (AI) – in 2025.
According to the Learnovate Learning Signals Survey 2024 – which polled 140 individuals in various industry sectors – organisations are increasingly concerned that a failure to develop workers’ technical skills in response to advances in Artificial Intelligence and other technologies will leave them unable to compete in the market.
“It reveals a need to shift towards improving data literacy, a development which we believe is down to the growth of data volumes and AI technology, with ‘data overload’ leading to stagnation in decision-making and business development”
The survey found that the number of respondents who plan to prioritise the development of their technical skills increased from 33% to 41% in the past 12 months. Learnovate believes this is due to the growing role of AI in the market.
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Among other findings, the survey revealed that growing scrutiny over budgets for training and upskilling is putting organisations under increasing pressure to demonstrate the impact of their investments in learning, while a shortage of staff skilled in data analysis has left organisations unable to develop actionable insights from the volumes of information produced by AI.
The 141 respondents to the survey came from a variety of professional backgrounds, with more than one in three (32%) involved in learning and development or human resources and almost one in four (23%) employed as educators, lecturers, or trainers.
The remaining respondents were employees in learning software or content development (16%), company founders (14%), self-employed (8%), or involved in research or academia (7%). Some 86% of the respondents were based in Ireland.
“The findings of the Learnovate Learning Signals Survey 2024 show that the rapid development of AI is making workers more aware of the shortfall between their existing technical skills and the skills required to fully utilise these new technologies. It also reveals a need to shift towards improving data literacy, a development which we believe is down to the growth of data volumes and AI technology, with ‘data overload’ leading to stagnation in decision-making and business development.
“Measuring impact of learning is something that has been on Learnovate’s agenda for some time. That the survey reveals growing concerns around budget restraints and demonstrating impact of learning only further highlights the direction that research and development will be heading in this area.”
The Learnovate Centre is a leading global future of work and learning research hub funded by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland and based at Trinity College Dublin. The centre’s Learning Signals Survey was designed to gain insight into the experiences of learning professionals and those who work in companies that create learning technology or content.
Other key findings of the survey include:
- Some 41% of respondents plan to develop their technical skills in 2025, an increase of 8% since 2023
- Some 36% of respondents plan to prioritise demonstrating the impact of learning on business metrics in the next year, while 30% rated ‘budget restraints’ among their top three challenges
- Information and data literacy is among the top three digital skills challenges for 24% of respondents, an increase of 9% in the past 12 months
- Almost all learning professionals are interested in exploring the use of AI, an increase of 8% since 2023, while interest in micro learning and big data has increased by 11% and 8% respectively in the same period
- Among the changes to technology that they would most like to see in the next 12 months, 21% of respondents said improved learner engagement or experience. This was followed by technology optimisation and AI integration (19%) and demonstrating impact (16%).
Main image at top: Nessa McEniff, director, Learnovate
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