Most leaders say AI and digital fluency will be the top skill of the decade, but few believe their teams have it. 

Procurement leaders know which skills their teams will need, but training has not kept pace. Procurious’s new report, The Procurement Skills and Training Gap, found that 82% of procurement leaders expect AI and digital fluency to be the most needed skill in 2030, yet only 28% say their teams are ready. More than 90% report that skills shortfalls are already hurting their ability to meet business objectives. 

Left unaddressed over the next 12 to 24 months, survey respondents expect skills gaps to erode cost savings and cost avoidance, team productivity, regulatory compliance, and supply chain resilience. Larger organizations feel it most, with 45% of respondents at companies with more than $5 billion in revenue saying that capability gaps create noticeable or significant challenges, compared to 36% of all respondents. 

Training investment appears to be the sticking point. Sixty-six percent say their current training budget is insufficient, and 40% have no defined per-employee training budget at all. Time is also a constraint, as 52% of respondents don’t actively participate in development opportunities because of workload. 

The research also found that: 

• almost 60% of respondents have no formal procurement capability or skills framework; 

• 9% invest nothing per employee in skills development; 

• 36% say the right per-employee spend would be $2,000 or more, and another 21% say $1,500 to $2,000; 

• 30% say regulatory compliance and audit risk reduction would suffer if capability is not strengthened; and 

• 22% point to revenue outcomes, including time to market and supplier innovation, as at risk. 

“Procurement is a profession built on relationships, judgement, and influence,” says Jade Cusworth, global L&D director at Procurious+. “People develop those by pulling in outside expertise, working through real problems and comparing notes with peers who are facing the same ones. And it has to be constant, because the job keeps changing while teams wait for next year’s training program.” 

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