The document discusses the challenges faced by IT departments and agile development teams due to tech talent shortages, highlighting the growing reliance on independent professionals to fill skill gaps. It emphasizes the increased demand for specific tech skills and projects while noting the benefits of engaging flexible talent, such as improved velocity and reduced technical debt. Companies like Flexera and PGA have successfully leveraged remote developers to enhance their development processes and achieve significant cost savings and faster project completions.

1. Trends Watch:
The Flexible Workforce
A quarterly snapshot of the tech talent trends
driving a more flexible workforce
V O L U M E 2 • Q 1 2 0 2 0
T E C H E D I T I O N

2. 2
The Tech Talent Gap
IT departments and Agile dev teams face a conundrum: Tech is evolving fast and dev cycles are getting more
iterative. But tech talent shortages are holding teams back—unless they know where to look.
Here’s a glance at the unique challenges web, mobile, and software teams face and how remote and on-demand
talent can help them cross the chasm.
Tech’s top hiring challenges As a result, hiring managers
are using more independent
professionals
Source: Future Workforce ReportSource: iCMIS - Benchmark on Hiring Tech Talent
Hiring is getting harder
Tech roles take too long to fill
on average to fill
tech roles
66 days
as many hiring managers
found hiring harder in
2019 than 2018
2x
42%
49%
engaged independent
professionals in 2019,
up 23% from 2017
Talent scarcity
Access to skills
Competitive
compensation and
benefits
cited access to skilled
talent as a top reason
to engage independent
professionals

3. 3
Popular Tech Projects and Highly Sought Skills
These projects and skills are growing quickly and experiencing high levels of demand.
Code back-end
web functionality
Develop a
mobile app
Implement
QA testing
Create an
AR experience
Python
QA
TypeScript
TypeScript
Selenium CircleCI
C development AgileRedux for JavaScript
Java QA
iOS Android UX/UI design Xamarin
Unity3D
3D design Animation ARKit
Unit testing

4. 4
How Companies Are Engaging Technical Talent
Independent tech talent can help businesses improve velocity, reduce technical debt, and fill
critical skills gaps. For many, distributed development teams are a key competitive advantage.
With Upwork, we can scale and build our
team dynamically as needs indicate. That’s
hugely powerful.
Conal Gallagher, CIO & CISO, Flexera
When employees aren’t limited by internal
skillsets and resources, they can leverage
their time to create bigger improvements and
change that help the team overall.
Kevin Scott, Head of Technology, PGA of America
Flexera Doubles Speed and Output with
Flexible Talent
Software company’s collaboration with highly specialized
ReactJS developers removes IT bottlenecks to yield major gains.
PGA’s Rapid Prototyping Solution with
On-Demand Devs
Remote developers with niche skills allow for faster testing
with less risk.
average
cost savings
faster project
completion time
faster time
to engage
50%
3x1 week
cost savings over
traditional hiring
faster project
turnaround
to engage
talent
50%
2x<1 week

5. The Upwork Difference
Partner with Upwork to find the talent you
need with the flexibility you want.
For more details, visit Upwork today.
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