AI in the Workplace: Supply Chain Hiring Shifts to Skills

A new analysis of 1.5 million supply chain job postings reveals a fundamental shift in how companies define talent in the age of AI, with degrees losing ground to demonstrable skills and cross-functional capabilities.

The research, conducted by Zero100 for its Talent in the Agentic Age report, shows that 90% of business skills in supply chain roles are either growing or stable, while all digital skill categories are expanding at an average monthly rate of 17%.

At the same time, demand is rising for decision-making and systems-level thinking over traditional technical execution.

Caroline Chumakov, Senior Director, Research and Advisory at Zero100 and lead author of the report, says: “For years, the process in supply chain hiring was to look for functional expertise, require degrees as proof of competence, and offer occasional training once roles were defined. That model made sense when information was scarce, learning was slow and ways of working evolved slowly. None of those conditions hold today.”

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The top 10 fastest-growing business skills in supply chain roles are:

• EBITDA (+92%)
• Pattern recognition (+86%)
• Being a quick learner (+72%)
• Test and learn (+66%)
• Stakeholder alignment (+59%)
• Customer intelligence (+59%)
• Originality (+48%)
• Emotional intelligence (+47%)
• Process mapping (+46%)
• Systems thinking (+41%)

The findings point to the rapid emergence of human-machine teams, where AI is automating routine tasks and reshaping the skills required from human workers.

Caroline adds: “Degrees have historically been used as a proxy for capability because assessing real skills was costly and difficult. But that model is breaking down as the cost of evaluating practical skills falls and digital skills evolve too quickly for degree-based education to keep pace. This means we’re seeing a shift toward demonstrated, applied capability.

“Another key factor driving this is the growth of human-machine teams as AI automation picks up routine work. The operating model now prizes end-to-end execution over individual expertise - with systems thinking, digital fluency and business skills that cut across traditional functions.”

This shift is also driving the rise of micro-credentials and alternative ways of proving capability. Shorter, targeted learning programmes, work samples and applied projects are increasingly replacing degrees as signals of expertise.

Market behaviour reflects this trend. Over a three-week period between late December 2025 and mid-January 2026, Zero100 tracked adoption across 59 Udemy courses, with the strongest growth concentrated in AI and programming.

Courses such as ‘100 Days of Code’, ‘Prompt Engineering for AI’, and ‘Introduction to the OpenAI API’ attracted 12,589, 11,725 and 7,936 new subscribers respectively.

Growing digital capability

Caroline says: “The pace of skill evolution has accelerated with the rise of AI. Programming languages, analytics tools, automation platforms and AI capabilities all change on a monthly - sometimes weekly - basis.

“Micro-credentials reflect that shift. They allow individuals to build and demonstrate applied capability in specific domains, rather than relying on a static qualification that may no longer match the demands of the role. Instead, workers can self-select into targeted learning. The goal isn’t to turn everyone into an engineer, but to grow the overall digital capability across an organisation.”

Alongside this, demand for digital and AI-related capabilities continues to climb. The fastest-growing areas include:

• Simulation (+28%)
• Robotics (+25%)
• AI and machine learning (+20%)

Together, the findings underline a broader transformation in supply chain talent, where adaptability, applied skills and the ability to work alongside AI systems are becoming the defining attributes of the modern workforce.