This is impacting business operations significantly.

But a skills-integration-as-a-service (SIaaS) model developed by redAcademy is a proven solution.

This model is having such commercial and operational success that it is being expanded into other highly skilled tech roles.

The customer-driven growth into the most in-demand skills is proof that this model is helping solve the country’s IT talent needs.

Only half of IT graduates are considered fully prepared for immediate employment in their field, resulting in technology skills gaps that are directly affecting the operations of 65 percent of businesses in South Africa.

Skills-integration-as-a-service (SIaaS) pioneer redAcademy is tackling these gloomy stats head-on with a revolutionary model that creates a collaborative ecosystem of tech talent, corporate partners, and their experiential learning hub – a fully customised and managed end-to-end service.

With a 96 percent placement of graduates into employment as testament to the success of the model, says Jessica Hawkey, redAcademy MD,

“Listening to the market and responding to its needs is crucial to our approach. To create a collaborative ecosystem, we consistently deliver value to our business clients, our young tech talent and constantly evaluate the effectiveness of redAcademy to fill the IT talent pipeline by serving both our candidates and clients.”

As a direct response to market needs, redAcademy is adding project management, cybersecurity, and AI developer programmes to their existing software development, software tester, test automation, and data science practitioner programmes.

“Importantly,” says Hawkey, “our rapid response to training for skills that are actually needed by businesses today, is because we do not train at arm’s length. We are fully connected, working inside our client businesses.”

redAcademy selects young South Africans to train for QCTO and MICT SETA-accreditation, but this is only part of the innovative approach. During months one to six, candidates – called Sprinters – study the theory in their chosen fields. For the full programme, Sprinters are embedded in the live business environment, operating within client companies. Months seven to 12 immerse candidates in real world experience where they deliver leading enterprise technology solutions while redAcademy oversees and hosts the full program in the live client space, and manages candidates’ delivery.

“In practical terms,” says Hawkey, “we’re helping to transform the way youth enter careers and the way businesses secure future talent to fill some of the most in-demand IT roles.

“Companies are aware of all the ways IT skills gaps impact their businesses, and they really do want to be part of an increased flow of talent through the IT pipeline, but they’ve got to focus on their core business. redAcademy is able to offer a point of immersion through our proven SIaaS model that takes care of every aspect of the partnership from QCTO qualifications admin to every aspect of integration into the client’s ecosystem. But we don’t stop there; we are contracted to deliver results to our corporate clients through our talented Sprinters.”

“Recruiting for critical roles incurs significant cost for companies and miss hires are expensive not only in monetary terms, but in disruption to business operations. Sprinters’ delivery of work into the client’s business is evidenced while trained by redAcademy inside the live environment. Once they enter full-time employment, they contribute to the team from their first day. The amount of time, money, energy and benefit this brings to the business is immense.”

The synergistic nature of the redAcademy model is solving a critical pain point that threatens business transformation, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025.

Hawkey says, “At the end of the year, our Sprinters are interviewed by the clients they’ve worked for under redAcademy’s management and guidance – keep in mind that at this point, rather than a report card, they’ve been assessed according to a set of KPIs and each client’s workplace standards. During the interview process, Sprinters have the confidence to speak directly to the benefit that they’ve already given to that company, and they also understand why they want to be a part of that organisation, which is known to them just as the candidate is known to the organisation.”

In the current South African context where businesses and youth face enormous challenges, the potential of the immersive approach is immense.

By bringing together talented youth and the strategic needs of business using a pioneering skills-integration-as-a-service approach, a powerful ecosystem is created that not only fills the IT talent pipeline but ignites South Africa’s digital revolution.

redAcademy’s unique SIaaS model can be easily adopted by businesses. And because the academy’s background is rooted in business and software, they understand the need to fully manage customisation, team management and administration throughout the full lifecycle of the program.

Onboarding is a mere two to three hours and the rest – program customisation, setup, placement interviews, management, and QCTO administration is taken care of by redAcademy. All clients need to do is assess the immediate benefit to their businesses.

Two recent statistics bump painfully against each other. Sixty-five percent of South African employers polled in the 2024 Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA) ICT Skills Survey, said skills gaps were having a moderate or high impact on their businesses.

Yet, despite the demand for IT professionals in the recruitment market, hiring activity declined by 5% in the fourth quarter of 2024, bringing the year-on-year decline to -19%.

It’s time to radically overhaul the talent pipeline that supplies South Africa and the continent with critical technology skills.

Prioritising skills and organisational fit over degrees

The World Economic Forum has stated that skills, not degrees, will shape the future of work but that the success of this approach will depend on how well companies are able to change their mindset.

A move from credentials only, to an “always-on, skills-based education and employment infrastructure with fitness-for-job and employment outcomes”.

Matching both hard and soft skills to the rapidly changing technology landscape is increasingly important. So important that a third of local businesses planning to expand their talent pool will remove degree requirements for roles within their companies.

Jessica Hawkey is the managing director of redAcademy that partners with corporates to fast-track carefully chosen South Africans into IT careers through a one-year, QCTO and MICT SETA-accredited programme.

The programme provides candidates with workplace experience and customised skills sets, ensuring they’re ready to contribute to future employers from day one.

The first six months are weighted toward theory and the next six give candidates real-world opportunities to engage with live development and deliver leading enterprise technology solutions for major clients. redAcademy remains the single point of management and accountability throughout the year’s full lifecycle.

She says,

“Our fully customised programme, based on ensuring candidates get real work experience, not only QCTO accredited training, is something a lot of stakeholders do not have in the market. We are seeing, in the long term, that developers without degrees are earning just as much as those with degrees.

“Companies are more inclined to pay only for the value an individual delivers. If people without degrees are earning the same, this speaks to the value of doing things differently; providing a different way for candidates to enter the market with skill sets and an organisational fit based on experience and not solely degrees.”

Real-world IT skills delivery

Hawkey believes accountability will play an important role in an industry-wide adoption of this approach.

“We contract for the delivery of work we produce for our clients’ businesses. We don’t get paid if our candidates do not deliver real-world results and real-world solutions to our corporate clients in the second six months of the one-year programme. This means our bread and butter is not solely training; it’s delivering work that produces real business benefits into our partner organisations.

“We’re seeing skills integration as a service (SIaaS) – the bedrock of our academy – truly come into its own. But companies need to do it with an organisation that knows how to deliver SIaaS. This means all the administration around QCTO qualifications, managing workplace knowledge, customised skill sets, and all of the experience and delivery into their IT teams. Companies just need to make a decision on a one-off spend redirect, to have this entire strategic element taken care of, and future proof their businesses.”

As a managed service, redAcademy manages every aspect of the integration during the year’s worth of training in the client’s ecosystem.

This means businesses can focus on delivering to their customers instead of spending time and money getting a new recruit to a point where they can start adding value.

Hawkey says, “Everything changes when a skilled tech professional starts day one of their employment fully immersed in live projects and the business culture.”

Traditional education struggling to keep up

That technology changes and moves at a rapid pace, is a given. But to get an idea of just how quickly the landscape is shifting: the integration of AI into at least one business function in global organisations surged from 55 percent in 2023 to 72 percent in 2024.

Career Junction Employment Insights 2024/Q4 notes a skills shift in the tech hiring landscape with a pivot away from new systems building, towards the integration and streamlining of technologies.

While software development is still the most recruited tech role, there has been an upsurge in AI, cloud computing and security, and data-driven roles with an increasing focus on infrastructure optimisation and data utilisation.

Organisations like redAcademy, in partnership with corporate customers, are using business-education models that allow them to respond quickly to rapid changes in the technology ecosystem, and adjust training accordingly, to match real-world needs.

Hawkey says,

“We’re in the process of adding project management, cybersecurity, and AI developer programmes to our existing offering of software development, software tester, test automation, and data science practitioner programmes. The new additions are the result of listening to market demands and expanding on our proven success in training our candidates on clients’ live software projects, immersing them in existing workflows and preferred technology stacks as they deliver their IT projects ahead of schedule and at the organisations’ expected quality levels.”

In light of the worsening IT skills gap crisis, the National Planning Commission’s report on South Africa’s Digital Readiness for the Fourth Industrial Revolution has recommended several key areas of focus that include: improving the quality of education to equip students with up-to-date skills, specifically soft skills; aligning technical and vocational education and training programmes with industry needs to provide technical skills, soft skills, and cognitive skills; and collaborating with industries to design and update qualifications and certifications that align with their needs.

Hawkey agrees:

“South Africans need opportunities to swap the campus for a meeting room, and exchange three years of traditional education for one year of experiential learning. Our young people need to earn [6.7 million children live in households where no adults earn income from employment]. So, we help them swap a qualification for a career, change theory into practical knowledge, and move into the job market without delay by creating working solutions and using the most relevant coding languages for real customers in our IT industry network.”

However, efforts to harness technology are often hindered by a critical shortage of skilled employees in these fields.

Instead of competing for a small existing pool of talent, it now makes more financial and business sense for organisations to train people to match their specific skills requirements, and better fit with their company culture.

As we look to the year ahead, bridging the gap between the scarcity of technology skills and unemployment is just one of the trends that are expected to gain momentum in the local Information Technology (IT) industry. Let’s explore this further.

1. Partnering to bridge the skills gap

South Africa finds itself in the unenviable position of being home to the highest unemployment rate in the world – a problem that is especially severe among the youth – while also having to navigate a serious skills shortage.

Business continuity and succession planning are crucial, as losing key employees without transferring their knowledge can result in significant intellectual property (IP) losses.

This jobs crisis is not just a social issue, but an inherent business risk. Taking an alternative approach to skills development will not only enable businesses to stay relevant and maintain their competitive advantage, but go a long way toward addressing the high unemployment.

While business leaders might plan for human capital in terms of productivity, more consideration needs to be given to how they will integrate these skills within their organisation.

With the proliferation of technology and advent of numerous fields of specialisation, many organisations are often not aware of the skills that are available to them, and more importantly where to place them within their business in order to gain the maximum benefit. They are yet to fully understand the technology value chain.

In response to this challenge, companies are increasingly working with talent partners, such as redAcademy, in order to not only source and train candidates, but ensure better alignment between the specific skills they require, the outcomes they desire, and the budget they have – an innovative model known as Skills Integration as a Service (SIaaS).

An experienced talent partner will be able to get under the hood of a business to better understand where certain specialist roles can fit within the organisation.

2. The rise of the specialist

The debate between generalists and specialists has been an age-old one across many industries, and the situation is no different in technology.

If one considers the example of a data analyst; while a generalist might be able to carry out this function, a specialist would have a far greater understanding of their field, be aware of trends and challenges, know the workflows, that would result in a faster response time.

They will also have enhanced their knowledge and experience over a period of time in a specific skillset, rather than learning a little bit about many different areas.

Adding to this, specialisation also enables continued and lifelong learning in a structured manner, as opposed to an unguided approach.

Ultimately, a specialist will understand the complexities of a task a lot quicker, ask better questions to get to the crux of a matter, and have greater knowledge around challenges, processes and previous trends.

As such, South African businesses are coming to terms that they need very different types of individuals that they have to train for very specific types of skills.

Having people with a variety of skills working on a problem also brings in differing viewpoints, which can help them innovate and stay ahead of the competition.

At redAcademy, a senior team comprising members with various backgrounds, assess client and business partner needs – asking the right questions from the onset, which covers all aspects of the organisation, so that the Academy can tailor and customise the curriculum to meet the client’s exact requirements and align with their processes.

3. A focus on diversity and inclusion

Local IT businesses are also looking to be a lot more intentional about enhancing workforce diversity and inclusion, especially around bringing in more women and youth into the sector.

If companies are serious about driving change and making a positive socio-economic impact, this must  be driven by business leadership and top management.

The stark reality is that South Africa’s traditional education system does not afford many youth the opportunity to attend a school where they are exposed to technology or conversations around career options in technology, impacting their ability to enter the jobs market.

The ‘standard interview’ techniques and methodology are also likely to not yield results. The interview should be made more relatable; an environment for young people to showcase their skillset, while marketing themselves and an opportunity for the applicant to learn about, and understand the business culture and role.

Beyond being female founded and led, the talent that redAcademy has been able to source, train, and place in jobs has proven that there are youth and women who are performing at the highest level. All they need is an environment that facilitates growth and lifelong learning.

Businesses in the local IT sector that fail to take the time to identify the potential in South Africa’s youth are missing out on hidden South African talent.

For those businesses that do not have the time, or resources in-house to drive this change, then a partnership with a training service provider is the best way forward.