Research from Inmarsat, a global leader in satellite communications, shows that skills shortages are holding back IoT innovation, hindering the adoption of the technology and the effectiveness of enterprise-to-enterprise IoT deployments.

The findings highlight that little progress has been made in addressing the skills shortage since the company's 2018 report identified it as the biggest barrier to IoT deployment. The situation persists, and oil and gas companies need to do more to upgrade skills, bring in new talent or partner with outsourcers who have the necessary skills.

According to the study, based on interviews with 450 global respondents in the agriculture, power, mining, oil and gas, and transportation and logistics industries, organizations don't always have the skills needed to take full advantage of their IoT projects.

More than a third (34%) of oil and gas respondents in the study said that a lack of in-house skills remains the biggest barrier to IoT deployment. In terms of the specific skills companies need, more than half (55 percent) of oil and gas respondents said they lack cybersecurity talent, and need more employees with experience and skills in network connectivity technologies (55 percent), data science and analytics (53 percent) and technical support (46 percent).

Many oil and gas companies also lack the strategic IoT skills needed by top management or senior leadership teams to fully integrate IoT into their overall business strategy, with less than a third (28 percent) of oil and gas respondents claiming to have all the skills needed at this level.

Damian Lewis, market development manager at Inmarsat Enterprise, said, "It is clear that for oil and gas companies, there is a significant gap in the skills required to make the most of IoT data in their operations. This is most evident when it comes to effectively integrating IoT projects. Sourcing off-the-shelf solutions is one way for oil and gas companies to close this gap, but respondents in this industry are less likely to understand how such solutions meet their needs.

IoT service providers, however, appear to have a role to play in improving this situation. Enhancing their services to the industry is critical to fully exploiting the value of IoT in the oil and gas sector."

The study also revealed that only a third (32 percent) of oil and gas organizations have the required in-house skills when it comes to successfully integrating IoT into their operations. This drops to less than a quarter (23%) for ongoing support and maintenance of IoT projects in the oil and gas sector, while in procurement, only one in five (19%) procurement staff have the skills needed to effectively support IoT projects.

While oil and gas organizations acknowledge a clear gap between the skills they have in-house and those needed to deploy IoT projects, only a few are outsourcing as a solution. Overall, slightly more than a third (34%) of oil and gas respondents typically want to work with an IoT service provider to support an end-to-end solution and work with them to plan, implement and maintain that solution.

The largest organizations (more than 5,000 employees) and enterprises in North America and the Middle East are more likely to work with an IoT service provider. Organizations that lack the best skill sets to select, deploy and leverage their IoT projects need to work more closely with specialized service providers to fill their IoT skills gaps to get the best out of their IoT projects.