AI skillsets ranked No. 1 hardest to find

Seven in 10 employers said hiring skilled workers has become a struggle.

Artificial intelligence (AI) related skillsets now rank as Singapore’s most scarce talent for the first time, as seven in 10 employers report hiring difficulty, according to a report by ManpowerGroup.

The report comes following Singapore's announcement to launch a new set of national AI missions across key sectors of the economy.

Skills in AI model & application development (26%) and AI literacy (25%) are the hardest to find, ranking number one and two, respectively. They are followed by engineering (24%), operation & logistics (19%), and sales & marketing (19%). Meanwhile, IT & data skills, which previously ranked first in 2025, dropped down to seventh in 2026.

However, core human skills remain in-demand. Professionalism & work ethic (34%) and adaptability & willingness to learn (34%) are the most sought-after attributes, followed by communication, collaboration & teamwork (33%).

The utilities & natural resources industry faces the highest shortage (79%). Meanwhile, construction & real estate (77%) and public sector, health & social services (77%) report similar levels of strain. This challenge extends across professional, scientific, and technical services (76%), finance & insurance (72%), and hospitality (71%), indicating broad‐based operational and service‐delivery constraints.

94% of employers in Singapore are deploying a mix of tactics. A key focus is strengthening internal talent and enhancing workforce agility, with upskilling and reskilling (26%), location flexibility (22%), and schedule flexibility (21%) amongst the top approaches.

Concurrently, to enhance competitiveness, employers are targeting new talent pools (23%), expanding the temporary workforce (18%), and increasing wages (18%).

“In this environment, organisations that pair technological advancement with opportunities for people to grow will be best positioned to thrive amidst talent scarcity," Linda Teo, Country Manager of ManpowerGroup Singapore, said.

Follow the link for more news on

Manpower Group

Artificial Intelligence

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia