Across thousands of employers surveyed globally, the same gaps come up again and again:

• Graduates struggle most with critical thinking and judgement, not subject knowledge.
• Problem-solving and communication are among the widest gaps across industries.
• Employers increasingly value adaptability and interpersonal skills as AI reshapes work.

The skills employers describe as missing are rarely technical or sector-specific. They’re the transferrable capabilities that determine whether graduates can use what they’ve learned in real workplaces - especially when problems are ambiguous, time-pressured, and increasingly shaped by AI.

The five skills universities need to build now

When employer-reported skills gaps are compared across industries, a clear pattern emerges. The same capabilities consistently rise to the top. Far from being industry-specific, these are fundamental skills that determine how effectively graduates apply their learning.

• Critical thinking and judgement
• Problem solving
• Communication
• Resilience, flexibility and adaptability
• Emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills

Critical thinking and judgement sit at the centre of what employers say is missing. Across sectors including consulting, education, and healthcare, employers report that many graduates struggle to challenge assumptions, evaluate evidence, and make sound decisions in complex situations. As AI makes it easier to generate plausible – but perhaps incorrect or vague - answers instantly, this gap becomes more consequential.

Closely linked is problem-solving, one of the most consistently reported skills gaps in the QS data. Employers are not saying graduates lack theoretical understanding; they are saying graduates struggle to apply that knowledge to messy, time-pressured problems with competing constraints. This gap appears across almost every industry, and in some - such as finance - problem-solving ranks among both the most important skills and the widest gaps.

Communication is another recurring concern. In the technology sector - one of the fastest-growing areas of the job market, with the Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifying roles such as AI specialists, big data professionals, and software developers among the world’s fastest-growing jobs - employers still report communication as one of the widest skills gaps in the QS data. Many graduates can communicate academically but struggle to write and speak with workplace clarity: concise, persuasive, and tailored to different audiences.

Employers also highlight gaps in resilience, flexibility, and adaptability, particularly in fast-moving sectors such as consulting, finance, government, education, manufacturing, and media. Modern work is defined by change, ambiguity, and continuous feedback, yet many employers feel graduates are underprepared for these conditions. In the education sector itself, resilience and flexibility appear among the widest reported gaps.

Finally, the data points to shortfalls in emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills, especially in people-facing sectors such as HR, hospitality, healthcare, and the non-profit sector. But these emotional intelligence and interpersonal gaps aren’t confined to people-facing roles: they also appear across finance, government, defence, and energy. Employers report weaknesses in collaboration, empathy, conflict management, and relationship-building. As work becomes more team-based and AI takes on more transactional tasks, the human side of work has not diminished, but has become the differentiator.