SHL survey finds nearly nine in ten workers would sit a skills assessment for an internal move
SHL's Talent Mobility at Work in 2026 report finds 84% of workers want employers to show them internal roles that fit their skills. Its respondents rank scarce job openings, at 42.2%, as the biggest barrier to moving internally.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
Key figures: 42.2% of respondents cite few job opportunities available as a barrier to internal mobility, 23% cite a lack of visibility into opportunities, and 31% cite managers not wanting to lose good people to other teams.
| Figure | Value | Note | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Respondents citing few job opportunities available | 42.2% | 6 | |
| Cite lack of visibility | 23% | 5 | |
| Cite managers not wanting to lose good people | 31% | to other teams | 4 |
What happened
- Majorities are also open to retraining: 83% for a more senior role and 82% for a different role altogether.
- Nearly a third of respondents, 31%, say managers who do not want to lose good people to other teams are a barrier to internal mobility.
- Employees say their organisations still treat external hiring as the preferred path, with many saying employers favour outside candidates over internal development.
- The report recommends five measures, among them objective assessment, talent data for managers and the use of artificial intelligence.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint A skills inventory cannot create vacancies, so where openings are scarce, better visibility surfaces candidates for jobs that do not exist.
- Who's exposed exposure Any programme that names internal candidates depends on managers who bear the cost of losing them, so release rules matter as much as the data.
- Who has to decide decision Employers choosing between assessment tools and more internal roles are choosing between the barriers respondents ranked lowest and the one they ranked highest.
The survey measures willingness, and willingness is cheap to report. Lucy Beaumont, SHL's global senior vice president of product and design, said "The striking thing about this research is how willing people are to prove what they can do." [14][16] Whether employers lose money by hiring outside is a separate question. The account in Human Resources Director includes no figures on external hiring costs or on how often internal candidates are passed over. The report's own finding is hedged: the skills employers need may already be present in their workforce, unseen and untapped. [17]
Beaumont also said "The biggest missed opportunity for leaders and businesses today is overlooking the talent they have". [15] The respondents' own ranking complicates that. Lack of visibility is the lowest of the five barrier figures reported, and the next lowest is unrecognised skills at 24.6%. [13][5] Visibility sits 19.2 points below scarce openings. [11] Workers say they want to be seen, but they say the larger obstacle is that few roles exist.
The manager figure is the one that stands out. The 31% who cite managers unwilling to lose good people is 8 points above the 23% who cite visibility. [12] The report adds that when workers talk to their managers, the conversations "tend to focus more on strengths, development, and learning aspirations, rather than on mobility itself." [8] In our view this is an incentive problem more than a data problem. A manager who loses a strong performer pays for it in the team's output, and a skills record does not change that.
The remedies come from the same voice that frames the problem. Beaumont said that "a science-backed view of skills and reskilling potential in individuals and teams" lets leaders make better-informed decisions. [10] Objective assessment is one of the five measures the report recommends. [9] The coverage does not say how many workers were surveyed or how they were chosen, so we cannot tell how well the percentages transfer to any one employer's workforce.
The order of spending matters. An employer that buys assessment and skills mapping this quarter would hold a list of qualified internal candidates by next quarter. The list moves nobody unless roles exist and managers let people go. An employer that sets release rules and posts openings first can test the visibility claim against its own numbers, and we'd expect that order to be the cheaper one, since it needs a policy decision and no procurement.
What to watch
- Whether SHL publishes the sample size and method behind Talent Mobility at Work in 2026.
- Employer-level data on internal fill rates and external hiring spend that would put a figure on the saving.
- Whether the barrier ranking holds when the results are split by seniority or sector.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives70
- Confidence60
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
SHL's Talent Mobility at Work in 2026 report found that 84% of workers want their employers to proactively show them internal opportunities that match their skills and experience.
- [2]
89% of workers said they would willingly sit a formal skill assessment to demonstrate what they can do.
- [3]
Most employees are open to retraining to secure a more senior role (83%) or a different role altogether (82%).
- [4]
31% of respondents said a barrier to internal mobility at work is their managers not wanting to lose good people to other teams.
- [5]
24.6% of respondents said their skills are not being recognised, and 23% said there is a lack of visibility into opportunities.
- [6]
Among the top barriers to internal mobility cited by employees are few job opportunities available (42.2%) and limited career pathways (31.4%).
- [7]
Employees said their organisations still see external hiring as the preferred path, with many saying their employers favour external candidates over internal development.
- [8]
The report read: "When workers do speak with their manager, the conversations tend to focus more on strengths, development, and learning aspirations, rather than on mobility itself."
- [9]
The report outlined five measures for successful talent mobility: making workforce skills visible, making career pathways easier to see, using objective assessment to make mobility decisions, equipping managers with actionable talent data, and using artificial intelligence.
- [10]
Beaumont said that with "a science-backed view of skills and reskilling potential in individuals and teams", leaders can make smart, better-informed decisions in an AI-powered world of work.
- [11]
Scarce job openings (42.2%) sit 19.2 percentage points above lack of visibility into opportunities (23%).
- [12]
The share citing managers unwilling to lose good people (31%) is 8 percentage points above the share citing lack of visibility (23%).
- [13]
Of the five barrier figures reported (42.2%, 31.4%, 31%, 24.6%, 23%), scarce openings is the highest, and lack of visibility (23%) and unrecognised skills (24.6%) are the two lowest.
- [14]
Lucy Beaumont said: "The striking thing about this research is how willing people are to prove what they can do."
- [15]
Beaumont said: "The biggest missed opportunity for leaders and businesses today is overlooking the talent they have."
- [16]
Lucy Beaumont is global senior vice president of product and design at SHL.
- [17]
The skills employers need may already be present in their workforce but remain unseen and untapped, according to the report.
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Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- hcamag.comIs HR overlooking eager workers waiting for opportunities?
1 article · October 15, 2026
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