By Olga Fragis, Founder & CEO, Live Assets IT Staffing Solutions.
Every employer I talk to is trying to hire the same person: experienced, AI-capable, available now. They are discovering, often the hard way, that this person is both rare and expensive, and that waiting for the perfect permanent hire can cost them the project. There is a better way to think about it.
The skills gap is real, and it is not closing on its own. In Randstad’s 2026 tech talent research, 74% of employers said they could not fill their open tech roles, with the worst gaps in AI-related positions. That is not a dip. That is a structural shortage, and it is reshaping how smart companies staff.
Here is the shift worth paying attention to. When asked how they are closing those AI gaps, employers did not reach first for a permanent hire. 63% named flexible talent, contingent, freelance, contract, and fractional, as their first-choice approach. Flexible talent has quietly moved from a stopgap to the opening move.
Why Flexible Talent Stopped Being a Last Resort
For years, contract and fractional hiring carried a whiff of compromise, the thing you did when you could not get the “real” hire. That framing is out of date, for three reasons.
First, speed. The permanent search for a scarce, AI-capable specialist can take months. The project cannot. Flexible talent gets a capable person working while the longer search runs, or instead of it.
Second, access. The best senior specialists are not all looking for a full-time seat. Many of the most experienced AI and data people now work on a fractional or contract basis by choice. If you will only consider permanent hires, you have quietly excluded some of the strongest people in the market.
Third, and this is the one that surprises people, it is no longer mainly about cost. In Deloitte’s global outsourcing research, the share of executives naming cost as their top reason for using outside talent fell from 70% in 2020 to 34%. The driver now is access to skills and speed to capability, not cutting the bill.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Flexible talent is not one thing. The employers getting this right match the model to the need:
Contract for a defined project or a capability you need now but not forever, like a cloud migration or an AI proof of concept. Contract-to-hire when you want to see someone work in your environment before committing, which we wrote about in why contract-to-hire is making a comeback. And fractional for senior expertise you cannot justify or afford full-time, a part-time architect or a fractional head of data who raises the whole team’s game.
The point is not to replace permanent hiring. It is to stop treating permanent as the only tool in the box.
The One Rule That Matters
Randstad’s chief executive put it in a single line that we think is exactly right: “No single hiring model will close that gap.”
The strongest technology teams in 2026 are blended by design. A permanent core that holds the knowledge and the culture, surrounded by flexible specialists who bring scarce skills exactly when and where they are needed. The question is no longer “contract or permanent.” It is “what is the right mix for this piece of work, right now.”
That is a harder question, and it is exactly the kind of question a recruitment partner should be helping you answer, rather than simply filling the requisition you happened to write.
Common Questions About Flexible Tech Talent
What is flexible talent in tech hiring?
Flexible talent covers contingent, freelance, contract, contract-to-hire, and fractional working models, as opposed to permanent employment. In 2026, 63% of organisations named it their first-choice approach to closing AI skills gaps, because it provides scarce skills faster than a permanent search.
Is flexible talent only about saving money?
No longer. In Deloitte’s research, the share of executives citing cost as the top reason for using outside talent fell from 70% in 2020 to 34%. The main drivers today are access to scarce AI and technical skills and speed to capability.
When should I use contract instead of hiring permanently?
Use contract or fractional talent when you need a capability now, for a defined project or a scope that does not justify a full-time role, or when the specialist you need works on a flexible basis by choice. Contract-to-hire is useful when you want to assess fit before making a permanent offer. Many teams use a blend.
Does using contractors mean giving up team stability?
Not when it is designed well. The strongest approach is a permanent core that holds knowledge and culture, surrounded by flexible specialists brought in for scarce skills and specific phases of work.
Build the Mix, Not Just the Headcount
The AI skills gap is not going to be solved by everyone competing for the same scarce permanent hire. It will be solved by employers who build the right mix of permanent and flexible talent, and who have a partner that knows where to find both.
That is the work we do every day, and it is a large part of what we were thinking about when we wrote our five moves to make before 2027. The gap is real. The answer is flexibility, applied on purpose.
Trying to close an AI or tech skills gap and not sure of the right mix?
We place permanent, contract, contract-to-hire, and fractional technology talent across Toronto, the GTA, and beyond. If you want a straight conversation about the right blend for the work in front of you, we would be glad to have it.
Get in touch today, here.
Sources: Randstad 2026 tech talent research (fielded August 2026), and Deloitte’s Global Outsourcing Survey.
Discussion