The Financial Services Skills Commission published its most significant research in years in May 2025. Unlocking AI's Potential: The Skills That Matter examined the full range of capabilities financial services organisations need to make AI work - and arrived at a conclusion that most FS training strategies have not yet caught up with.
The skills most in demand in financial services job postings - the ones appearing most frequently, with the largest gap between supply and demand - are not primarily AI technical skills. They are relationship management, empathy, adaptability, creative thinking and coaching. The demand for relationship management and empathy outweighs the demand for most specialist AI skills in FS recruitment data. And the supply-demand gap for behaviours like creative thinking and adaptability is 35 percentage points - the same as the gap for AI and machine learning.
This is a finding with direct implications for how financial services organisations invest in workforce development. And most are not yet investing accordingly.
Financial services is the sector most exposed to AI of any industry in the UK economy. Department for Education analysis places the finance and insurance sector at an AI exposure score of 1.1, against an all-industry average of 0.2. No other sector scores higher. Financial services roles involve more of the tasks that AI can most readily affect - analytical processing, document management, client communication, risk assessment, compliance checking - than roles in any other sector.
75% of financial services firms were already using AI in 2024. The sector expects AI to generate significant operational value, with projections suggesting a £26 billion contribution to financial and professional services by 2030. But that value is not arriving automatically. 81% of firms identify lack of skills or talent as a barrier to AI adoption, according to Bank of England and FCA survey data. The tools are present. The capability to use them well is not.
160,000 professionals in the UK financial sector need urgent upskilling, the FSSC estimates. The 35 percentage point gap between AI skills demand and talent supply is one of the largest skills deficits in any sector of the UK economy.
The FSSC's research framework - and this is the critical insight for L&D leaders - distinguishes between three distinct categories of skill:
Specialist AI and data skills: machine learning, AI engineering, prompt engineering, natural language processing. These are needed by 0.5% to 1.5% of the financial services workforce. They are in intense demand and short supply. But they affect a very small number of people.
Understanding of AI: what AI is, how to use specific tools safely and effectively, how to prompt well, what responsible and ethical use requires. This is needed by all workers, at varying levels of depth. The FSSC's updated Future Skills Framework, released in 2025, places this requirement across every level of the organisation.
Supporting skills and behaviours: adaptability, creativity, empathy, relationship management, coaching, influencing, collaboration, critical thinking. These skills are in higher demand in financial services job postings than most specialist AI skills. They have supply-demand gaps as large as the gap for AI and machine learning. And they are the capabilities that determine whether AI delivers value - because they are the capabilities that make people effective with AI in the context of real client relationships, complex decisions and organisational change.
The FSSC puts it plainly: "It is their behaviours - such as empathy and relationship management - which will unlock the full potential of AI." Not their technical AI knowledge. Their behaviours.
The FSSC's analysis of how individual financial services roles are evolving in response to AI is instructive - and consistent with the broader pattern.
Financial analysts and advisers are seeing decision-making rise nine places in the skills demand ranking year on year, while Microsoft Excel and writing and editing are declining. AI is taking over the technical execution; analysts are being asked to provide the judgement. Project and account managers are seeing listening and interpersonal skills rise sharply, while Excel and writing and editing decline by four to nine places. The skill that makes a project manager effective is shifting from technical coordination to relational and communicative capability.
Financial services managers and directors are seeing process improvement and decision-making rise consistently. Leaders in control functions face specific new challenges around AI governance, hallucination risk, data integrity and the responsibility of oversight when AI tools make recommendations. The skillset of financial services leadership is changing: financial expertise, technical understanding, and the empathy and stakeholder capability to engage and develop AI-enabled teams.
And the FSSC identifies HR managers and HR administrative roles as among those most impacted by large language models -- with influencing, accountability and coaching all rising sharply in demand while technical reporting skills decline. The HR function is changing at the same time as it is being asked to lead workforce change. The irony is not lost on anyone working in FS people teams.
Against this backdrop, the FSSC's data on training provision is troubling. Only one in five financial services professionals currently receives AI training, according to ONS data. Only 25% of companies are planning to offer GenAI training. Only 18% of firms are integrating AI training into their graduate programmes.
This is a large gap between the scale of the challenge and the current response. And the reason it persists is, in many cases, a misunderstanding of what the challenge actually is. Organisations that define the AI skills challenge as primarily a technical one - as a need for more data scientists, more prompt engineers, more AI specialists -- will underinvest in the development of the 85% to 90% of the workforce that needs AI understanding and human capability, not specialist technical skills.
The FSSC's recommendation is for a systematic, segmented approach: assess your workforce against the three skill categories, identify what level of AI understanding and what human capability development each population needs, and build targeted training programmes accordingly. "Solutions will vary hugely depending on the business area, individual and role - it cannot be a one size fits all approach."
The most effective financial services AI capability programmes build technical understanding alongside human and management capability in the same programme, applied to real FS work challenges.
For colleagues improving operational workflows and AI adoption - customer triage, onboarding journeys, operational alerts, reporting automation - the AI and Automation Management Programme builds AI and workflow capability alongside the stakeholder communication, facilitation and change management skills needed to make adoption land in a regulated environment.
For colleagues using data to understand customer trends, risk indicators, pricing patterns and service performance - the Data and Insight Management Programme builds data analysis and dashboard capability alongside the influencing, communication and judgement skills needed to turn data into decisions.
For colleagues managing transformation, change programmes and stakeholder-heavy improvement - the Management for Change Programme builds process improvement and requirements capability alongside the facilitation, communication and stakeholder management skills the FSSC identifies as most in demand.
All of these programmes are fully levy-funded. All include Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals certification. And all develop the human skills that the FSSC identifies as equally as important as technical AI knowledge - not as a separate module, but woven throughout every mission, coaching conversation and peer study group.
The FSSC's future skills agenda is clear. It demands integrated development that treats human and technical capability as inseparable - because the evidence shows they are. The question for FS L&D leaders is whether their programmes reflect that understanding.
For a deeper look at the FSSC evidence and what it means for mid-sized FS firms, read our whitepaper: The human skills imperative in financial services: what the FSSC research demands from L&D leaders
To explore how FTL's levy-funded FS pathways align with the FSSC framework, see our financial services sector page
To speak with the team: talk to the FTL team