Most hiring managers would say they want the best person for the job. Yet many job ads and screening processes are built to find something narrower: the person who has done this exact job before. In a market where the right skills are still hard to find, that habit quietly shrinks your talent pool before a single application arrives.

Skills-based hiring flips the question. Instead of asking “where has this person worked?”, it asks “what can this person do, and what could they learn?” For UK employers, and for anyone hiring across Australia and international markets, it is one of the most practical talent attraction strategies available in 2026.

Plenty of candidates, but not the ones you are looking for

On paper, UK employers have more choice than they have had for several years. Early estimates show UK vacancies fell to 702,000 in June to August 2026, and there were 2.5 unemployed people per vacancy in May to July 2026, up from 2.3 a year earlier (Source: ONS Vacancies and jobs in the UK, September 2026).

That does not mean every role is easy to fill. In Australia, the share of occupations in shortage has fallen from 36% in 2023 to 29% in 2025, but almost 3 in 10 occupations remain in shortage (Source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Jobs and Skills Report 2026, October 2026). The gap is not always a shortage of people. Often it is a mismatch between what employers ask for and the skills that are already out there.

The talent you might be screening out

Experience is still the main filter. In the CIPD’s survey of 1,014 UK HR and people professionals, carried out in April and May 2026, just over two-thirds (68%) said they consider previous work history or experience when selecting applicants (Source: CIPD Resourcing and talent planning report 2026, September 2026).

Experience matters, but a hard requirement for “five years in a similar role” can rule out people who could do the job well: career changers, returners, people from adjacent sectors and those whose current role undersells what they can do.

That last group is bigger than many employers realise. Jobs and Skills Australia found that 33% of women and 27% of men work in occupations below their skill potential, which it describes as “a major opportunity to better use the skills Australia already has” (Source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Jobs and Skills Report 2026, October 2026). Some of those people will be in your applicant pool, or in your own organisation, if your job ads and screening let them through.

The skills employers need are also changing. The same report found that references to critical thinking and problem-solving in construction trade job ads have more than tripled over the past decade. If the job is changing, the way you describe and assess it should change too.

Employers are starting to move

There are signs that UK employers are widening their view of where talent comes from. The CIPD found that nearly half (48%) of employers increased their efforts to develop more talent in-house over the last year, and around one in three are turning to people with potential or from a different sector or industry who can be developed on the job. The share of organisations offering mid-career-change programmes has also risen slowly, from 22% in 2022 to 27% in 2026 (Source: CIPD Resourcing and talent planning report 2026, September 2026).

But widening the net on its own is not enough. The CIPD’s advice is to “move beyond ‘widening talent pools’ to a more targeted, data-led attraction strategy”. Skills-based hiring works best when it is precise about which skills matter, not when it simply removes requirements and hopes for the best.

How to put skills-based hiring into practice

You do not need to rebuild your whole recruitment process. Start with your hardest-to-fill roles and work through these steps:

  • Define the skills that matter most. For each role, agree the three to five capabilities that predict success, and separate the essentials from the nice-to-haves.
  • Rewrite the job ad around skills. Describe what the person will do and the skills they need, rather than listing job titles and years of experience. Say clearly when you welcome career changers or returners.
  • Question every requirement. If a degree or a set number of years is not genuinely needed to do the job, remove it or make it optional.
  • Assess skills, not just CVs. Work samples, practical tasks and skills-based interview questions show what someone can do. The CIPD found only 21% of employers that recruited use pre-application assessments and 11% use self-selection tools such as realistic job previews, so there is room to stand out.
  • Look inside first. Map the skills of your current people before you advertise. Your next hire for a hard-to-fill role may already work for you.
  • Target your attraction. Use the skills you have defined to choose channels and messages that reach adjacent sectors, rather than simply advertising more widely.

Conclusion

Skills-based hiring is not about lowering the bar. It is about setting the right bar, and making sure your job ads and selection process can recognise talent when it does not come in the usual shape. In the UK, Australia and beyond, the employers who get this right will reach people their competitors are filtering out, and build a stronger, more loyal workforce as a result.

Sources

Want to reach the talent your competitors are screening out? Get in touch with RMG to talk about skills-based job ads, assessment and talent attraction for your hardest-to-fill roles.