100+ Skills-Based Hiring Statistics and Trends 2026, With a 50-State Degree Tracker
The figures employers need on skills-based hiring: who uses it, how far degree requirements have really fallen, which assessments predict performance and what changes when firms follow through. Every figure is checked against 49 primary sources, alongside two HR Stacks datasets: a 50-state tracker of degree requirement reform in state government and an audit of skills features in 20 applicant tracking systems.
Key findings · Six numbers
Skills-based hiring is winning the argument. It is not yet winning the hiring process.
Three findings come from HR Stacks research and three from the strongest official or peer-reviewed data. Together they show the gap between policy and practice that runs through this report.
US states have an action in force removing or reviewing degree requirements for state government jobs. 15 of them first acted in 2023.
Source: HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker, Oct 2026
state actions only order a review of degree requirements rather than removing them. Without them, 25 states have removed requirements outright.
Source: HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker, Oct 2026
applicant tracking systems we audited include built-in skills tests. 15 rely on partner add-ons, though 18 offer AI matching or screening.
Source: HR Stacks ATS Skills Feature Audit, Oct 2026
of US job postings required a bachelor’s degree or higher in November 2025, up from 16.6% two years earlier.
Source: Indeed Hiring Lab
Corporate degree removal changed not even 1 in 700 US hires, because few roles were rewritten and fewer hires followed.
of US employers removed degree requirements in the past three years, yet about 75% still prefer a bachelor’s when the job does not need one.
Source: Lumina Foundation and Gallup
Skills-based hiring statistics at a glance: the 22 numbers that matter
Each figure shows its period and source. Use Copy to take the sentence with its source attached.
How widely employers hire for skills
- 1
70% of employers use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles, up from 65% a year earlier.
NACE Job Outlook 2026, survey Aug to Sep 2025 - 2
34% of organizations use skills-first hiring often or almost always, while 25% rarely or never do.
SHRM Foundation, survey Oct 2025 - 3
23% of US employers removed degree requirements in the past three years, yet about 75% still prefer a bachelor’s when the job does not need one.
Lumina Foundation and Gallup, survey Oct to Nov 2025 - 4
42% of employers screen entry-level candidates by GPA, down from 73% in 2019.
NACE Job Outlook 2026
Degree requirements in job postings
- 5
19.3% of US job postings required a bachelor’s degree or higher in November 2025, up from 16.6% two years earlier.
Indeed Hiring Lab, Nov 2025 - 6
51% of US job postings list no formal education requirement at all.
Indeed Hiring Lab, Nov 2025 - 7
About 4.6% of UK job postings require a bachelor’s degree or higher, and only about 14% mention any education requirement.
Indeed Hiring Lab UK, to Jun 2024 - 8
25.2% of US jobs typically need a bachelor’s degree at entry, yet 44.5% of employed workers hold one.
BLS 2025; US Census Bureau 2024
The policy gap and government action
- 9
Not even 1 in 700 US hires changed after large firms dropped degree requirements, because only 3.6% of roles actually dropped them.
Burning Glass Institute and HBS, 2014 to 2023 data - 10
37% of firms that removed degree requirements changed who they hired; 45% changed in name only.
Burning Glass Institute and HBS, 2024 - 11
32 of 50 US states have an action in force on degree requirements for state jobs; 25 have removed them outright.
HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker, Oct 2026 - 12
2.5 points a year is how fast state degree pledges cut degree requirements in state job postings.
NBER Working Paper 33220, postings 2015 to 2024 - 13
101 days was the average federal time to hire in FY2024, against an 80-day target for FY2026 and FY2027.
US Office of Personnel Management, 2026
Who gains from skills-based hiring
- 14
6.1x larger talent pools come from hiring on skills instead of job titles worldwide, and 15.9x in the US.
LinkedIn Economic Graph, data to Jan 2025 - 15
Women’s share of US AI talent pools would rise 24% under skills-based hiring, from 25% to 31%.
LinkedIn Economic Graph, 2025 - 16
70 million+ US workers are skilled through alternative routes rather than a degree; 33 million have the skills for higher-wage jobs.
Opportunity@Work, Oct 2026 - 17
783,000 good jobs have been regained by STARs, after 7.4 million were closed to them between 2000 and 2020.
Opportunity@Work, State of the Paper Ceiling 2026
Assessment, outcomes and AI
- 18
Structured interviews predict job performance at .42, against .07 for years of job experience.
Sackett et al., Journal of Applied Psychology, 2022 - 19
Non-degree hires at leader firms had retention 10 points higher than degree holders, plus an average 25% salary increase.
Burning Glass Institute and HBS, 2024 - 20
1,850,034 unique credentials are offered in the US, from 134,491 providers.
Credential Engine, Counting Credentials 2025 - 21
3 of 20 applicant tracking systems include built-in skills tests; 16 offer structured interview scorecards.
HR Stacks ATS Skills Feature Audit, Oct 2026 - 22
AI-exposed entry-level jobs are 7x more likely to require senior skills such as leadership and judgment.
PwC 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer
01 · Adoption
Skills-based hiring adoption: 70% say they use it. About 1 in 3 use it consistently.
Adoption estimates run from 23% to 70% because each survey counts something different. NACE asks about any use in early-career hiring, SHRM asks how often skills decide hires, and Lumina-Gallup asks whether a degree requirement was actually removed.
For wider workforce context, see our HR statistics. Teams putting this into practice usually start in their applicant tracking system.
What percentage of employers use skills-based hiring?
70% of US employers use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles (NACE, survey Aug to Sep 2025), up from 65% a year earlier. Consistent use is lower: 34% of organizations use skills-first hiring often or almost always (SHRM Foundation, Oct 2025), and 23% removed degree requirements in the past three years (Lumina-Gallup, Oct to Nov 2025).
Three surveys, three definitions of adoption
Share of employers or organizations, 2025 surveys
SHRM Foundation how often skills drive hiring
Lumina-Gallup degree requirements removed
Who they count: NACE surveys 183 employers hiring new graduates; SHRM surveys 1,184 HR professionals about all hiring; Lumina-Gallup surveys 2,000 hiring decision-makers. The SHRM middle band is the remainder.
Sources: NACE Job Outlook 2026; SHRM Foundation, The Skills-First Movement; Lumina Foundation and Gallup, 2026
Where employers apply skills-based hiring
Employers using skills-based hiring for entry-level roles, Job Outlook 2026
Source: NACE Job Outlook 2026. Spring 2026 update: nearly 70% still use it (185 employers, Feb to Mar 2026)
GPA screening has fallen by 31 points
Employers screening entry-level candidates by GPA
Source: NACE Job Outlook 2026
Most HR teams expect skills-first hiring to grow
HR professionals, next three years, survey Oct 2025
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
India is ahead of the world on dropping degree requirements
Employers planning to remove degree requirements and move to skills-based hiring
47% of employers now see diversifying talent pools as a way to improve talent availability, up from just over 10% in the 2023 edition. 43% expect to keep degree requirements through 2030.
Sources: World Economic Forum, The future of jobs in India; Future of Jobs Report 2025, workforce strategies. Survey of 1,000+ employers, 14M+ workers
02 · Job postings
Degree requirements in job postings bottomed out in 2023. They are rising again.
Indeed’s US data shows the share of postings asking for a bachelor’s degree climbed from 16.6% to 19.3% in two years, even after adjusting for the mix of jobs. That runs against most employer surveys.
The same tightening shows up in office attendance rules, tracked in our hybrid work statistics.
US postings requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher
Share of Indeed US job postings, two editions of the series
20.4%to17.8%
2019 to January 2024: requirements falling16.6%to19.3%
November 2023 to November 2025: requirements risingThe two editions use different series, so read each pair on its own. On an occupation-adjusted basis the share bottomed at 18.5% in March 2024 and stood at 18.6% in November 2025.
Sources: Indeed Hiring Lab, Jan 2026; Indeed Hiring Lab, Feb 2024
What US job postings ask for
Education requirements in Indeed US postings, November 2025
In January 2024, 52% of postings named no requirement, against 48% in 2019.
Source: Indeed Hiring Lab, 2026 and 2024
of US postings require a bachelor’s degree or higher (Nov 2025)
of UK postings do, and only about 14% mention any education requirement (to Jun 2024)
Sources: Indeed Hiring Lab US; Indeed Hiring Lab UK. Almost 50% of US postings name some education requirement.
Degree requirements by state
Share of Indeed postings requiring a bachelor’s, November 2025
Unadjusted, D.C. leads at 43.7%, followed by Washington state at 31.5%. Adjusted figures remove the effect of each state’s occupation mix.
Source: Indeed Hiring Lab, Jan 2026
Postings vs the workforce
US, latest year
Sources: BLS Employment Projections; US Census Bureau
Degree requirements before the skills-first push
US postings requiring a bachelor’s, landmark study
Measured on 120.7 million postings, an increase of more than 60%. A different dataset from Indeed, so the levels are not comparable.
Degrees still pay in the labor market
US workers aged 25+, 2025
Median weekly earnings. Unemployment: 2.8% bachelor’s, 3.4% all, 4.3% high school.
Source: BLS, 2025 (11-month average)
03 · Policy gap
Dropping the degree line rarely changes who gets hired
Removing a degree requirement from a posting takes minutes. Changing hiring takes rewritten scorecards, trained interviewers and HRIS and ATS setups that record skills, not just education fields.
The best evidence on what happens next comes from hiring records, not surveys.
Not even 1 in 700 US hires changed after large firms dropped degree requirements
of roles at those firms actually dropped the requirement, and non-degree hiring into them rose only 3.5 points
Source: Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School, 11,300+ roles, about 65M career histories, 2014 to 2023.
What happened at firms that removed degree requirements
Firms grouped by outcome after removal
The math behind 1 in 700
Burning Glass Institute and HBS
Employers drop the degree but keep the preference
US hiring decision-makers, survey Oct to Nov 2025
The preference splits by the employer’s own education: 89% of degree-holding decision-makers vs 54% of others.
Credentials do not fill the gap on their own
Over 1,000 large US employers
The study found no link between how often firms ask for credentials in postings and how often they hire credential holders.
Top barriers to skills-first hiring
HR professionals at organizations using it to any degree, survey Oct 2025
Scale 0 to 40%.
86% of HR professionals and 91% of supervisors hit hurdles that slowed progress.
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
04 · HR Stacks research
32 of 50 states have moved on degree requirements. Fewer have removed them outright.
We checked every state and DC against governor orders, statutes and state HR pages to see which have an action in force on 16 October 2026. Public employers matter here because their rules and results are published, which makes them the clearest test case for any employer rewriting job requirements in its recruitment software.
| State | Status | Action type | First action | Instrument | Scope | Published result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AlabamaSouth | In force | Legislation | May 2024 | SB 55 (2024) | Review only | –Source |
| AlaskaWest | In force | Executive order | Feb 2023 | Administrative Order 343 | All or most jobs | –Source |
| ArizonaWest | In force | Legislation | Apr 2023 | HB 2225 (2023) | Review only | –Source |
| ArkansasSouth | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| CaliforniaWest | In force | Executive order | Aug 2023 | EO N-11-23 | Review only | Nearly 30,000 state jobs opened (Dec 2024)Source |
| ColoradoWest | In force | Executive order | Apr 2022 | EO D 2022 015 | All or most jobs | –Source |
| ConnecticutNortheast | In force | Legislation | Jun 2023 | Public Act 24-151 | All or most jobs | Baseline: 157 of 1,885 job classes require a degree (Dec 2023)Source |
| DelawareSouth | In force | Agency policy | Jan 2024 | Dept. of Human Resources policy | Named job classes | About 560 positions (Jan 2024)Source |
| District of ColumbiaDistrict | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| FloridaSouth | In force | Legislation | Jun 2023 | SB 1310 (2023) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| GeorgiaSouth | In force | Legislation | Apr 2023 | SB 3 (2023) | Review only | 791 requirements removed or reduced (Nov 2024)Source |
| HawaiiWest | In force | Legislation | Jul 2025 | Act 276 (2025) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| IdahoWest | In force | Legislation | Mar 2024 | H 433 (2024) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| IllinoisMidwest | In force | Legislation | Aug 2025 | SB 1884 (PA 104-0397) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| IndianaMidwest | In force | Executive order | Jan 2025 | EO 25-15 | All or most jobs | 91.3% of positions, 29,305 (Dec 2025)Source |
| IowaMidwest | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| KansasMidwest | In force | Legislation | Mar 2025 | SB 166 (2025) | All or most jobs | Under 15% of employees in degree-requiring jobs (Mar 2025)Source |
| KentuckySouth | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| LouisianaSouth | In force | Legislation | Jun 2024 | HB 566 (Act 655) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| MaineNortheast | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| MarylandSouth | In force | Agency policy | Mar 2022 | DBM policy change | All or most jobs | –Source |
| MassachusettsNortheast | In force | Executive order | Jan 2024 | EO 627 | All or most jobs | Only 7% of positions carry an education requirement (Jan 2024)Source |
| MichiganMidwest | In force | Law + order/policy | Oct 2023 | ED 2026-3 + 2023 veterans change | Review only | –Source |
| MinnesotaMidwest | In force | Executive order | Oct 2023 | EO 23-14 | All or most jobs | –Source |
| MississippiSouth | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| MissouriMidwest | In force | Legislation | Jul 2023 | HB 417 (2023) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| MontanaWest | Pending | – | Aug 2025 | EO 5-2025 (406 JOBS) | – | –Source |
| NebraskaMidwest | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| NevadaWest | In force | Legislation | May 2025 | AB 547 (2025) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| New HampshireNortheast | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| New JerseyNortheast | In force | Executive order | Apr 2023 | EO 327 | Review only | –Source |
| New MexicoWest | Pending | – | Apr 2026 | State Personnel Office review | – | –Source |
| New YorkNortheast | In force | Agency policy | Jan 2024 | Dept. of Civil Service review | Named job classes | Nearly 800 titles, close to 20,000 positions (Oct 2025)Source |
| North CarolinaSouth | In force | Executive order | Mar 2023 | EO 278 | All or most jobs | About 75% of job classifications (Mar 2023)Source |
| North DakotaMidwest | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| OhioMidwest | In force | Executive order | May 2023 | EO 2023-10D | All or most jobs | –Source |
| OklahomaSouth | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| OregonWest | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| PennsylvaniaNortheast | In force | Executive order | Jan 2023 | EO 2023-03 | All or most jobs | 92% of state jobs, about 65,000 positions (Jan 2023)Source |
| Rhode IslandNortheast | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| South CarolinaSouth | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| South DakotaMidwest | In force | Executive order | Apr 2023 | EO 2023-05 | All or most jobs | –Source |
| TennesseeSouth | In force | Legislation | Apr 2022 | HB 1916 (Pub. Ch. 823) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| TexasSouth | In force | Legislation | Jun 2025 | HB 3923 (2025) | Review only | –Source |
| UtahWest | In force | Law + order/policy | Mar 2021 | HB 139 (2021) + agency policy | All or most jobs | 98% of 1,080 classified jobs need no degree (Dec 2022)Source |
| VermontNortheast | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| VirginiaSouth | In force | Law + order/policy | May 2023 | DHRM policy (2023) + SB 1014 (2025) | All or most jobs | Almost 90% of classified positions (May 2023)Source |
| WashingtonWest | In force | Law + order/policy | Mar 2024 | SHB 2216 (2024) + HB 2309 (2026) | All or most jobs | –Source |
| West VirginiaSouth | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| WisconsinMidwest | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
| WyomingWest | None found | – | – | – | – | – |
Action in force, by region
States with an action in force / states in region
Source: HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker, Oct 2026. US Census regions; DC excluded.
How states acted
32 states with an action in force
Scope: 23 cover all or most state jobs, 7 only order a review and 2 cover named job classes.
Source: HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker, Oct 2026
What states report after acting
Published results on state government pages. Different measures, do not rank.
These figures count different things (positions, job classes or postings) at different dates, so they are shown side by side rather than ranked.
Source: state government pages, collected in the HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker
What is changing
Announced, pending or follow-up actions
Source: HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker. No state action has been rescinded.
Large states with no statewide action
Searches of governor, legislature and state HR sites found nothing
These six have no statewide action in force. Iowa’s State Auditor changed requirements for its own office only. Opportunity@Work’s count of 33 includes Montana, which we hold as pending.
Source: HR Stacks 50-State Degree Tracker, checked 16 Oct 2026
The count, as others publish it
States acting on degree requirements, third-party trackers
Sources: Opportunity@Work; NGA
Indiana: the deepest published audit
State of Indiana, EO 25-15 report, Dec 2025
29,305 positions no longer require a degree. 147 classifications (16.9%) still do.
Does state reform change postings?
State government job postings requiring a bachelor’s degree
51.1%to41.8%
Above-median-wage state roles, states acting by April 2023−2.5 pts
Postings open to non-degree workers rose from an expected 63.3% to 67.6% (2.4M+ postings, 25 states)Degree requirements by occupation, 12 months before vs after a state commitment
Postings not requiring a degree, NGA: Maryland 32% to 47% and Colorado 48% to 58% (2022 to 2024); Massachusetts 26% to 34% and Virginia 58% to 90% (2019 to 2024).
Sources: Brookings Institution, 2024; NBER Working Paper 33220; National Governors Association, Feb 2025
Federal skills-based hiring milestones
US federal government, 2020 to 2028
Executive Order 13932 tells agencies to review degree requirements
Maryland becomes the first state to drop four-year degree requirements for thousands of jobs
Chance to Compete Act requires technical assessments instead of self-rated questionnaires
NGA counts 25 states and 1 territory with skills-based hiring directives
Merit Hiring Plan sets the 80-day time-to-hire goal
Texas HB 3923 takes effect, a legislative route
Compliance deadline for the rule of many candidate ranking
Full federal implementation target
Sources: OPM Agency Priority Goals FY2026 to 2027; OPM Chance to Compete report, FY2025; OPM time-to-hire memo, Sep 2026; OPM implementation plan; NGA; Opportunity@Work, Jan 2026
05 · Talent pools
Hiring on skills instead of job titles expands talent pools 6.1x
LinkedIn compared candidate pools built on past job titles with pools built on shared skills across 56 countries, using data to January 2025. The gain is largest in the US and India, which matters if you hire across borders directly or through an employer of record.
Some of that hidden talent works on contract, covered in our gig economy statistics.
Talent pool increase by country
Multiple of the job-title pool when matching on skills
Every country saw its pool grow. Slovenia had the smallest gain.
Source: LinkedIn Economic Graph, 2025
AI roles gain more than other jobs
Talent pool increase, AI engineering vs other roles
The global AI gain is 34% larger than for other jobs.
Source: LinkedIn Economic Graph, 2025
Who gains most: small multiples
Talent pool increase under skills-based hiring, global unless stated, same data
By generation
By education
Green jobs by country
By industry
Source: LinkedIn Economic Graph, 2025
Hiring the skills you find in another country
A skills-based search can surface strong candidates in other countries. An employer of record lets you hire them without a local entity. Compare providers in our employer of record ranking, or start with these reviews.
Deel
EOR, contractor and payroll platform. Our review covers fees, coverage and onboarding.
Read review EOR reviewRemote.com
EOR provider with its own entities. Our review covers pricing, benefits and limits.
Read review EOR reviewMultiplier
EOR and global payroll. Our review covers fees, countries and support.
Read review EOR reviewOyster HR
EOR for distributed teams. Our review covers plans, coverage and onboarding.
Read reviewMore EOR reviews: RemoFirst, Pebl and Papaya Global. Side by side: Deel vs Remote, Remote vs Multiplier and Multiplier vs Oyster HR.
06 · Who gains
Women, STARs and workers without degrees gain most, and slowly
Talent pool math only matters if it reaches people that degree filters screen out. For the wider representation picture, see our DEI statistics. Many STARs work on contract first, which is where freelancer management software comes in.
Skills-based hiring raises women’s representation
Women’s share of talent pools, job titles vs skills
Women in US AI talent pools
Women in global AI talent pools
Women among US DevOps architects
Source: LinkedIn Economic Graph, 2025
70 million+ STARs in the US workforce
Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor’s degree
Source: Opportunity@Work, Who are STARs?. The page body cites over 75 million
The paper ceiling is lifting
State of the Paper Ceiling, 2026 edition
The 2025 edition reported 7.5 million jobs lost, more than 10% regained, 500,000+ partner postings in 2024, and 30 years for STARs to match graduate starting pay.
Sources: Opportunity@Work, Jun 2026; 2025 edition
Credentials raise first-year pay most for Black and Hispanic workers
Annual wage gain one year after earning a non-degree credential, vs matched peers
07 · Global
One in five EU graduates works below their qualification level
Outside the US the debate is less about degree requirements in postings and more about mismatch: graduates in jobs that do not need their degree. Official statistics offices measure it differently, so the cross-country figures below sit side by side and are not ranked.
If you hire in these markets, our employer of record guide compares providers by country coverage and price.
Over-qualification rate by country
Tertiary-educated workers aged 20 to 64 in jobs that do not need a degree, 2025
Scale 0 to 40%. One Eurostat method across these countries, so they are ranked. Spain (34.0%) and France (20.4%) are flagged by Eurostat for a different definition and are left out of the ranking.
EU trend: 21.8% (2015), 22.2% (2022), 21.5% (2024), 21.4% (2025). Non-EU citizens: 41.4% against 20.0% for nationals. Ages 25 to 34: 21.3%.
Source: Eurostat, lfsa_eoqgan, 2025
OECD: how well workers’ qualifications and skills fit their jobs
OECD average, Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), workers aged 25 to 65, 2022 to 2023
By qualification level of education vs job
By skills tested skills vs job
Sources: Central Statistics Office Ireland, PIAAC 2023 (OECD averages); Andrews, Égert and de La Maisonneuve, OECD economists, 2025
National mismatch figures
Each country uses its own definition, so these are not comparable
Do not rank these figures. They measure graduates, immigrants, all workers and self-reported fit on different bases.
08 · Assessment
What actually predicts job performance: structured interviews beat years of experience
Once a degree filter comes off, something has to replace it. The strongest evidence on what works comes from meta-analyses of selection methods, and it favors structured interviews and job knowledge tests run through tools like video interview software. After the hire, talent management platforms keep skills profiles current.
Validity of selection methods for predicting job performance
Corrected validity coefficients, revised meta-analytic estimates
Scale 0 to .50. Higher means a stronger predictor.
The revision cut older estimates sharply: structured interviews from .51, work samples from .54, cognitive ability from .51 (later revised to .23). Structured interviews vary widely between employers (lower 80% credibility value .18), so interview design matters. Years of education was not re-estimated.
Source: Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens, Journal of Applied Psychology 2022, restated 2023
AI voice interviews vs human recruiters
70,884 applications, customer service roles in the Philippines, Mar to Jun 2025
Reported gender discrimination: 3.30% with AI interviewers vs 5.98% with humans. Working paper, not yet peer reviewed.
Source: Jabarian and Henkel, SSRN 2025
Which skills-first methods organizations use
Organizations, survey Oct 2025
Direct tests lag: 53% of HR professionals have not adopted or considered project-based assessments, and 59% have not tried mock sessions.
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
Unique credentials offered in the US
Credential Engine counts by report year
The 2025 count of 1,850,034 credentials from 134,491 providers includes 1,022,028 badges, partly because badge platforms reported more completely than before.
Only about 1 in 8 credentials pays off
Credential Value Index, 23,000+ commonly earned credentials
credentials produces a meaningful wage or career boost against matched peers. A short list of high-value credentials per role beats blanket acceptance.
Credentials are everywhere. Trust in them is not.
US HR professionals, supervisors and workers, survey Oct 2025
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
09 · Outcomes
Firms that follow through keep non-degree hires longer and pay them more
Most outcome claims for skills-based hiring come from vendor case studies. This chapter uses hiring records and a survey of more than 1,100 HR professionals. Read the survey results as associations, not proof of cause. Pair them with your own employee retention metrics and our employee recognition statistics, and track engagement with employee engagement software.
higher retention for non-degree hires at skills-based hiring leaders than for degree holders in the same roles
average salary increase for those workers, worth over $12,400 a year
Source: Burning Glass Institute and HBS, 2024. Two-year retention: 58% for non-degree hires vs 48% for degree holders.
Frequent skills-first users report better results
Organizations by frequency or capability, survey Oct 2025
Frequent users also report higher engagement (59% vs 31%), satisfaction (59% vs 37%) and commitment (61% vs 47%).
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
Skills-first rates about as well as degree requirements
Share rating each method effective for finding successful hires
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
Workers want skills-first employers
US workers, survey Oct 2025
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
10 · Employer cost
Hiring costs $5,475 per role. Most ATS platforms still outsource the skills test.
Skills-based hiring adds steps to a process that is already slow and expensive. We audited 20 applicant tracking systems on their own product and pricing pages to see which ones support it out of the box.
The cost of a hire
US employers, SHRM benchmarking, survey Jan to Mar 2025
Sources: SHRM 2025 Benchmarking; SHRM State of Recruiting 2025
Employers struggle to fill roles. Few cut degree requirements.
ManpowerGroup 2026 Talent Shortage Survey, 39,063 employers in 41 countries (research firm survey)
Scale 0 to 40%. Employer responses to talent shortages.
72% of employers globally report difficulty filling roles (US 69%, India 82%, Germany 83%, UK 73%). JOLTS: 7.1 million US job openings in August 2026.
Sources: ManpowerGroup 2026; BLS JOLTS, Aug 2026
HR Stacks research · ATS Skills Feature Audit
Which applicant tracking systems support skills-based hiring
Checked on each vendor’s product, help and pricing pages on 16 October 2026. Prices are each vendor’s published starting price, not negotiated rates.
| Platform | Skills tests | Skills matching | Scorecards | AI matching | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greenhouse | Add-on | Yes | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| Lever | Add-on | Yes | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| Ashby | Add-on | No | Yes | Yes | $400per month |
| Workable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $299per month |
| Teamtailor | Add-on | Yes | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| SmartRecruiters | Add-on | Yes | Yes | Yes | $14,995'Starting at' Essential plan; unit not stated |
| iCIMS | Add-on | Yes | No | Yes | Quote only |
| Workday Recruiting | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| BambooHRRead review | Add-on | No | No | No | $250per month flat |
| Rippling (Recruiting)Read review | Add-on | No | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| HiBob (Bob Hiring)Read review | Add-on | Yes | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| Recruitee (Tellent) | Add-on | No | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| JazzHR | Add-on | No | Yes | Yes | $1,000per year |
| Breezy HR | Add-on | No | Yes | Add-on | $157per month |
| Manatal | Add-on | Yes | Yes | Yes | $15per user per month |
| Zoho Recruit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | $30per recruiter per month |
| Pinpoint | Add-on | No | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
| PaylocityRead review | Add-on | No | No | Yes | Quote only |
| Eightfold | No | Yes | No | Yes | Quote only |
| Phenom | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Quote only |
Skills tests through partners such as Criteria; no native scorecards or AI matching found.
Read review RipplingQuote onlyRecruiting priced per employeeInterview scorecards and AI screening; tests through HackerRank and Criteria.
Read review HiBobQuote onlyBob Hiring add-onSkills matching, scorecards and AI matching; tests through Canditech.
Read review Rippling vs BambooHRCompareTwo HR platforms side by sideHow the two compare on price, recruiting and core HR.
See comparisonMore comparisons: BambooHR vs Workday, Deel vs Rippling and BambooHR vs Deel. Payroll-led suites: Paylocity, Paychex, ADP and OnPay reviews.
Choosing an ATS for skills-based hiring?
Compare applicant tracking systems on scorecards, assessments, AI screening and real published pricing.
11 · Tools
The software stack behind skills-based hiring
Skills-based hiring touches every stage from the job description to onboarding. These are the categories teams use, each reviewed on HR Stacks. For the core system underneath, see our HR software and payroll software rankings, all product reviews and side-by-side comparisons.
Applicant tracking systems
Scorecards, skills fields and AI matching in one pipeline.
Compare tools SourceRecruitment software
Search and outreach on skills, not job titles.
Compare tools AssessVideo interview software
Structured, recorded interviews with consistent questions.
Compare tools PipelineHR CRM for recruiting
Nurture STARs and silver medalists for later roles.
Compare tools GrowTalent management
Skills profiles, career paths and internal mobility.
Compare tools RecordHRIS software
Store skills and credentials, not only education.
Compare tools StartOnboarding software
Get non-traditional hires productive fast.
Compare tools Hire abroadEmployer of Record
Hire skilled people in other countries without an entity.
Compare tools12 · AI outlook
AI is pushing entry-level jobs up the skills ladder
AI changes which skills employers screen for and how fast they go stale. That puts more weight on hiring for adaptable skills and building them in-house, for example through an internal talent marketplace.
PwC 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer
AI-exposed US entry-level jobs are 7 times more likely to require traditionally senior skills such as leadership and judgment. These “seniorized” roles grew 35% since 2019, while other entry-level openings shrank 10%.
Source: PwC, Jun 2026. 2.4M US entry-level postings; 1B+ job ads in 27 countries and territories.
39% of core skills will change by 2030
Employers, World Economic Forum Future of Jobs 2025
Source: World Economic Forum, 2025
HR expects AI to raise demand for human skills
HR professionals, supervisors and workers, survey Oct 2025
Source: SHRM Foundation, 2026
AI in hiring today
Adoption and trust, 2025 and 2026
Sources: SHRM State of AI in HR 2026; Gartner, Jul 2026; Gartner, Jul 2025; Burning Glass Institute, Sep 2025. Gartner figures are research firm surveys.
Methodology · How we built this report
How HR Stacks built and checked this report
Every figure was read on the publisher’s own page or PDF. Figures are labelled with their data period, and anything we calculated says so.
50-State Degree Tracker
We checked all 50 states and DC against governor orders, statutes, legislature records and state HR pages. Secondary trackers were used only to find candidates. Status reflects 16 October 2026.
ATS Skills Feature Audit
We checked 20 applicant tracking systems on their own product, help and pricing pages. A feature counts as Yes only when the vendor describes it as native.
Source rules
Government agencies, statistics offices, peer-reviewed journals and named research groups first. Research firm surveys are labelled. No vendor blogs or statistics roundup sites.
Dates and definitions
Each figure shows its data period. Where sources measure different populations we show both and explain the difference rather than ranking them.
Update log: Q4 2026 edition
| Figure | Previous | Now | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| States acting on degree requirements | 32 (end 2025) | 32 confirmed by HR Stacks tracker; 33 per Opportunity@Work Jun 2026 | HR Stacks; Opportunity@Work |
| Good jobs lost to STARs | 7.5M | 7.4M (2000 to 2020) | Opportunity@Work 2026 |
| Jobs regained by STARs | More than 10% | 783,000 | Opportunity@Work 2026 |
| Postings open to STARs | 500,000+ (2024) | About 600,000, up nearly 20% | Opportunity@Work 2026 |
| STARs skilled for higher-wage jobs | 31.9M | 33M Rising STARs | Opportunity@Work STARs page |
| STARs already in high-wage jobs | 2.8M | 3M Shining STARs | Opportunity@Work STARs page |
| Diversifying talent pools (WEF) | 67% India vs 47% global | 47%, up from just over 10% (corrected pairing) | WEF Future of Jobs 2025 |
| Indeed US bachelor’s share, earlier point | 17.6% (Oct 2024) | 16.6% (Nov 2023); 17.6% not found in source | Indeed Hiring Lab |
| Indeed pre-pandemic share | ~20% | 20.4% (2019) | Indeed Hiring Lab, Feb 2024 |
| Credential Engine "2020" count | 967,734 (2020) | 967,734 (2021 report); 738,428 (2019) added | Credential Engine |
| Credential wage gain, Asian workers | $1,431 | Removed: not stated in report text | OneTen and BGI |
| Degree removal impact wording | Fewer than 1 in 700 | Not even 1 in 700 | Burning Glass Institute and HBS |
| Federal time to hire | 80-day goal | 101 days FY2024 baseline; 80-day cap from Sep 2026 | OPM |
| NACE adoption | 70% | 70% (Fall 2025 survey); nearly 70% (Spring 2026) | NACE |
All sources (49)
FAQ · Questions
Skills-based hiring FAQ
What percentage of employers use skills-based hiring?
70% of US employers use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2026 survey, up from 65% a year earlier. Consistent use is lower: SHRM Foundation found 34% of organizations use skills-first hiring often or almost always, and Lumina-Gallup found 23% removed degree requirements in the past three years.
Are degree requirements in job postings going down?
Not right now. Indeed Hiring Lab found 19.3% of US job postings required a bachelor’s degree or higher in November 2025, up from 16.6% in November 2023, after falling between 2019 and early 2024. In the UK only about 4.6% of postings require a bachelor’s.
Does removing degree requirements change who gets hired?
Rarely. Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School found corporate degree removal changed not even 1 in 700 US hires, and only 37% of firms that dropped requirements actually hired more people without degrees. Those that did saw 10-point higher retention for non-degree hires.
How many states have removed degree requirements for state jobs?
HR Stacks’ 50-State Degree Tracker found 32 of 50 states had an action in force on 16 October 2026 that removes or reviews degree requirements for state government jobs. Seven of those only order a review, so 25 states have removed requirements outright. Maryland was first, in March 2022.
How much does skills-based hiring expand the talent pool?
LinkedIn Economic Graph found that matching candidates on skills instead of job titles expands talent pools 6.1x globally and 15.9x in the US. AI roles gain 8.2x globally, and India’s AI talent pool grows 22.1x.
What is the best predictor of job performance in hiring?
In the revised meta-analysis by Sackett and colleagues (2022), structured interviews had the highest validity at .42, followed by job knowledge tests at .40 and work samples at .33. Years of job experience scored .07 and unstructured interviews .19.
Does skills-based hiring improve retention?
At firms that followed through, non-degree workers hired into roles that used to require a degree had retention 10 percentage points higher than degree holders, with two-year retention of 58% vs 48%, according to Burning Glass Institute and HBS. They also saw an average 25% salary increase.
What software do you need for skills-based hiring?
Most teams run it through their applicant tracking system, using structured scorecards, skills fields and assessments. In HR Stacks’ audit of 20 ATS platforms, 16 offered interview scorecards but only 3 had built-in skills tests; the rest rely on partner add-ons. Compare options in our applicant tracking software guide.
How is AI changing skills-based hiring?
PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer found AI-exposed US entry-level jobs are 7 times more likely to require traditionally senior skills, and AI skills carry a 62% average wage premium. SHRM found 84% of HR professionals expect AI to raise demand for human skills such as critical thinking.