The majority, or 67% of recruitment leaders in the UK fear that the shift from a predominantly human workforce to a hybrid workforce, where humans will work alongside robots and AI, is likely to make recruiting high-quality talent even more challenging over the next five years, according to new research from Capita Resourcing.

According to Capita, the study suggests a growing concern within UK businesses that skills shortages and recruitment challenges are set to become even more severe.

Capita’s research also found that as skills shortages reach a critical level within many industries, two thirds (65%) of recruitment and HR leaders expect candidate experience to become a key differentiator within business over the next five years.

The majority, or 69%, believe that candidates will come to expect the same personalised service that they get from consumer brands such as Amazon. As a result, 70% plan to accelerate the digitisation of recruitment in their organisation in order to compete effectively.

Approximately 35% of organisations are already deploying chatbots to answer candidates’ questions, 28% are using Robotic Process Automation, and 20% are integrating AI into their systems for sourcing and advertising jobs. The research shows that adoption of these newer technologies is set to soar in the next five years, with a further 57% of organisations planning to integrate AI into their recruitment processes and 43% planning to implement Robotic Process Automation.

On the current efforts to digitise recruitment processes, Capita found that 14% of recruitment leaders describe the digitisation of their HR function as ahead of others.