With these roles, the UK's startup ecosystem is expected to experience significant changes and opportunities for growth. In 2024, the UK saw the establishment of approximately 846,000 new companies. Not only has the tech sector seen remarkable growth, but also property businesses with a 38% increase in new businesses, and management consultancy firms with an 11% rise. This expansion is being supplemented by substantial investments, technological advancements, and a supportive regulatory environment.

With these new and changing roles, businesses are moving away from traditional job-based planning to a more fluid, capability-focused approach, with some organisations going beyond and becoming “skills-based organisations” (SBO). SBOs emphasise skills over roles; aligning workforce planning, attraction, recruitment, professional development, performance management and talent and succession planning processes around skills needs.

These changes highlight a crucial factor for success: skills awareness. 

While LinkedIn's list shows where the job market is heading, many innovative startups are already thinking beyond traditional roles by creating novel combinations of in-demand skills.

The latest generation of startups and SMEs represents a fresh wave of entrepreneurship. These companies don't just hire for trending roles – they blend capabilities from different domains in ways that established companies rarely achieve. By studying how they approach talent and skills, we gain valuable insights into emerging business models that will likely define the UK's economic landscape in the coming years.

Skills awareness doesn't mean implementing complex organisational structures. Rather, it's about having a clear understanding of what capabilities are needed to achieve your mission and how to acquire, develop, and deploy those skills effectively.

Why skills awareness gives startups an edge

Many startups deliberately assemble founding teams with complementary skill pairings that allow them to tackle complex problems from multiple angles, where single-discipline teams would struggle.

When founders combine different expertise areas – like legal expertise with artificial intelligence, computational modelling with biology, or finance with user experience design – they create innovative solutions that wouldn't emerge from anywhere else.

Startups that understand the full range of skills needed to serve their market create more complete solutions. Understanding both customer needs and implementation requirements leads to products that truly speak to users.

Key elements of skills awareness

Begin by mapping specific capabilities needed to achieve your mission. Then assess what you have and what gaps exist – enabling you to build a team that can take on any challenge.

Assemble teams based on specific capabilities. This approach prioritises what people can do over traditional credentials.

The benefits of skills-based team building include:

• More diverse teams bringing different perspectives
• Greater innovation through unlikely skill combinations
• Better talent utilisation by matching capabilities to challenges
• Reduced bias in hiring by focusing on demonstrable skills

Create clear paths for expanding capabilities as you grow. Recognise that skills needs evolve with the business and plan accordingly.

Effective skills development allows startups to:

• Grow talent internally rather than constantly recruiting
• Anticipate future capability requirements
• Retain team members by providing growth opportunities
• Adapt to market changes without major disruptions

Organise work around capabilities rather than rigid job descriptions. This flexibility allows for reconfiguring teams based on current needs rather than organisational charts.
Continuously identify emerging skill needs before they become critical. This proactive stance provides a significant competitive advantage.

By spotting capability needs early, startups can:

• Develop or acquire skills before competitors
• Prepare for market shifts before they happen
• Avoid crisis hiring at premium rates
• Create smoother scaling trajectories

Why skills awareness matters now

LinkedIn's 2025 Jobs on the Rise list spotlights roles like Artificial Intelligence Engineers, Data Governance Managers, and Chief Revenue Officers as the fastest-growing positions. But successful startups combine elements of these roles in unexpected ways:

• A legaltech startup might blend the skills of an AI Engineer (#1 on LinkedIn's list) with deep legal domain expertise – a combination not captured in traditional job descriptions
• A sustainability-focused company could combine an Environmental Officer's (#5) knowledge with the data-driven approach of a Performance Engineer (#17)
• A healthtech venture might pair the healthcare expertise of Radiation Therapists (#18) with the analytical capabilities of a Quantitative Researcher (#20)

With many startups now incorporating AI in some form, understanding exactly what technical and human skills are needed to implement AI effectively is crucial. Skills awareness helps distinguish between genuine AI expertise and superficial knowledge. This explains why both AI Engineers and AI Researchers appear in LinkedIn's top 10 rising roles, but startups find success by integrating these capabilities across their entire workforce rather than isolating them.

The most valuable breakthroughs happen at the intersection of different domains. Skills awareness enables founders to identify and cultivate these intersections intentionally rather than discovering them by accident. Early-stage startups can maximise limited resources by targeting exactly the right skills at the right time. Every hire and partnership must deliver maximum value – something only possible with clear skills awareness.

The battle for specialised talent means startups must know precisely what skills they need and be able to articulate how those skills will be utilised. Skills awareness enables more targeted and compelling recruitment.

How to improve skills awareness

• Conduct a skills inventory: document the skills currently present in your founding team and identify any immediate gaps based on your mission and market.
• Develop a skills acquisition strategy: prioritise hiring, partnering, or training based on critical skills gaps. Consider alternative models like fractional talent or strategic partnerships
• Create skills visibility: implement systems that make capabilities visible across the organisation. Ensure team members understand the full range of skills available
• Establish skills development protocols: build pathways for continuous skills enhancement. Include both technical and human capabilities in development plans
• Implement regular skills review cycles: schedule ongoing assessments of skills needs based on business progress. Proactively identify emerging skills gaps before they impact execution

The balancing act

Being skills-aware doesn't mean your business needs flat structures or complex organisational models. It's about maintaining awareness of what capabilities are required to achieve your mission, and how to ensure those capabilities are present when needed.

Startups that maintain high levels of skills awareness build more effective founding teams, allocate resources more efficiently, solve problems faster, achieve better product-market fit, and ultimately increase their chances of success.

In a landscape where most startups still fail, skills awareness provides a competitive edge that's too valuable to ignore. While LinkedIn's Jobs on the Rise list points to where individual careers might flourish, the real innovation happens when startups creatively combine these emerging skills into something truly transformative.

Emma O’Dell is the Skills and Capability Director at BPP.

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