Tag: shortage

CCPC calls on Government to open up Irish taxi market

New research from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) highlights a supply shortage in the taxi sector as four in 10 people who tried to get a taxi in December reported difficulties doing so.

With a significant share of taxi users wanting the choice of ride-hailing (49%), the CCPC is calling for the removal of regulatory barriers to facilitate entry of these services. Ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber or Bolt, connect private drivers to passengers via apps. This would mean allowing these private drivers to provide services using their own cars, subject to appropriate regulatory safeguards.

According to the research, 57% of those who expressed an opinion believe that there are not enough taxis available in their area. However, there are stark differences across geographical locations.

While 56% of those living in Dublin believed there are enough taxis in their area, only 28% of those outside of Dublin agree. This drops to 21% for those living in Connacht or Ulster.

Participants were asked whether they would like the choice of accessing ride-hailing services, subject to regulatory requirements.

While 49% of taxi users surveyed would like the option of ride-hailing services, this figure rose to 57% for those who believe there are not enough taxis in their area.

When asked whether they would prefer a fixed fare or a metered fare, 60% said they would support a fixed fare option.

The research also found that 53% of respondents surveyed tried to get a taxi in December 2025. Two in five who tried to get a taxi in December experienced problems, with 27% saying they had to stop looking as no taxis were available.

The research comes ahead of the National Transport Authority’s (NTA) regulatory assessment of the licensing of dispatch operators, which is due to begin later this year.

Brian McHugh, CCPC chair said: 

“Regulatory barriers in the taxi market have failed to facilitate innovations that have flourished in other countries and consumers are suffering as a result. Our research shows a clear preference for more choice among consumers who are not getting the service they need.

“This is not about abandoning oversight or regulation.  Any new entrants could and should be regulated to maintain high service and safety standards. Consumers and businesses deserve an innovative, functioning taxi sector that provides choice. Consumers shouldn’t be faced with long waits or the possibility of staying home due to a lack of taxi availability.

“The CCPC is calling on the Government to remove key regulatory barriers in the taxi market so that it can be more responsive to consumer needs and align better with how transport systems are evolving all over the world. The goal is to achieve a balance that protects consumers and ensures access, while also allowing competition and innovation to improve the market. We look forward to engaging with the NTA in their consultation process and to exploring all solutions that might increase capacity and choice.

See more 

Ekco launches Cybersecurity Graduate Programme to tackle tech talent shortage

Ekco, one of Europe’s leading security-first managed service providers, today announces that it is launching its brand-new Cybersecurity Graduate Programme at the company’s Dublin HQ.

Creating roles for five graduates, the new 12-month programme will provide hands-on experience across six key areas of the business: security engineering, penetration testing, threat detection and response, cyber resiliency, security architecture, and GRC (governance, risk management, and compliance).

Based within the Professional Services practice, participants will work with more than 100 Ekco security specialists across a range of customers in the FinTech, construction, healthcare, retail, and public sectors. Graduates will learn how to apply cutting-edge cybersecurity tools and solutions to real-world scenarios, support customer growth, have the opportunity to earn industry-recognised certifications, and collaborate with Ekco’s global teams.

This exposure will equip graduates with the skills and experience to kickstart their careers in cybersecurity. They will also benefit from both one-to-one and group mentoring sessions, with clear pathways for progression and specialisation within Ekco. Additionally, this immersive programme will enable participants to become a key part of Ekco’s people-first culture, and contribute to a number of charitable and community initiatives.

Ekco is launching the programme in response to the ever-increasing demand for highly-skilled cybersecurity professionals and a growing cybersecurity talent shortage in Ireland. Initially creating roles for five graduates, Ekco will double this to 10 in 2026 and aims to continue to double the number year-on-year. The company also plans to expand the programme to its cloud division, and roll it out across its global locations including the UK and Malaysia.

Ekco is holding an assessment day at its Sir John Rogerson’s Quay HQ on Wednesday, 8th October 2025 for interested candidates, which will include talks from Ekco experts and candidate interviews. The Cybersecurity Graduate Programme will kick off later in October.

Declan Timmons, Managing Director for Professional Services, Ekco, said: “Most of us have that one person or role that helped us up the career ladder, and we want to be that step for graduates entering the workforce. We are opening the door to the next generation of cybersecurity talent, giving high-potential graduates the tools, mentorship, and experience to make an impact on the modern technology landscape. It will provide an invaluable opportunity to experience first-hand how cybersecurity operates at scale in complex, fast-paced environments, and enable graduates to see how their own contributions directly strengthen customers’ defences against real-world cyber threats. In an increasingly competitive talent market, we plan to expand the technology talent pool with skilled graduates who will bring fresh thinking and new ideas to both our business and to the wider industry.”

Skills Shortage impacting Technology Growth in Ireland

New findings from Morgan McKinley, the Irish global talent services company, reveal that 25% of hiring managers have identified a lack of skilled candidates as their main challenge in 2024.

Research conducted as part of Morgan McKinley’s 2024 Salary Guide indicates that the recruitment landscape in Ireland’s technology sector remained tight in 2023, with 76% of hiring managers experiencing tough competition in making new hires.

The guide identified key challenges for 2024, with 25% of hiring managers citing a shortage of skilled candidates as their primary obstacle. Other challenges included difficulties in competing on pay and benefits (22%) and a lack of organisational approval for new headcount (19%).

For 2024, the outlook is more optimistic, with 50% of technology hiring managers planning to expand their teams in the first six months. Additionally, 46% of tech workers are considering new opportunities during this period, with another 31% contemplating a job change.

In terms of career moves, tech professionals prioritise a higher salary (40%), followed by opportunities for career advancement (14%) and the option to work remotely (13%).

The value placed on flexibility, such as working from home and flexible hours, remains high among tech workers, ranking as the most and third most important benefits respectively, along with bonuses, health insurance, and pension plans. Notably, the tech sector has the highest percentage of individuals who consider remote work as a top benefit (71%).

When it comes to workplace preferences, 4-in-10 tech professionals would like to work in the office 1-2 days per week, while only 8% prefer being on-site full-time. Over half (53%) would forgo a salary increase for more flexibility. In response to the competitive hiring environment, 69% of employers anticipate raising salaries for hard-to-fill tech roles, with an additional 20% planning to increase salaries across all tech teams.

Eoin Connolly, Operations Director, Morgan McKinley Ireland, commented: “While the technology market as a whole definitely softened during 2023, we also saw several areas such as Cybersecurity and Data Science experience strong growth. This was coupled with growth in contract opportunities, across multiple facets of technology. Throughout Q3 and Q4, we saw a marginal increase in both permanent and contract jobs available, which bodes well for positive levels of hiring activity in 2024.”

“Technology salaries in Ireland increased slightly in 2023, partially due to the impact of inflation, but also due to the shortage of talent. This has also increased the prominence of counteroffers, with employers offering their top performers 15-20% increases to stay on board.”

“The sentiment from organisations is generally positive for 2024; there is still some cautious decision making when it comes to hiring budgets for the year, but by and large, the fight for top talent is still a real issue for most companies. January started slowly as it always does but it has been a very busy month for us, which is an indicator of a strong quarter, and hopefully year ahead.”

94% of businesses in Ireland suffer from IT skills shortages despite tech layoffs

Expleo, a global technology, engineering and consulting service provider, today announces the results of a new survey which has found that 94% of businesses on the island of Ireland are struggling to find IT staff, despite recent layoff announcements from many of the world’s largest tech companies. The research found that business leaders believe that the issue is widespread, with nearly three-quarters (74%) saying that Ireland is struggling to attract top technology talent.

Expleo carried out independent research* of 141 business leaders on the island of Ireland and found that organisations face internal and external challenges when it comes to tech talent. Most (86%) business leaders believe their organisations have under-invested in the skills base of their employees. A further 74% believe that automation must be part of their organisation’s solution, as there simply won’t be enough skilled people to get the necessary work done.

As they struggle to recruit and retain talent, the vast majority (83%) of business leaders are finding themselves under pressure to meet rising salary expectations amid ongoing inflation. More than one-third (38%) said that candidates are receiving salary offers that are 20% higher, or more, elsewhere.

The ease at which employees can change jobs to take on a more senior role or receive a higher salary is a key challenge for business leaders, along with their ability to meet employee expectations regarding modern workstyles. The research found that the top challenges when it comes to attracting and retaining tech talent are: offering a better work/life balance and reduced workload (47%), offering competitive promotion and career advancement opportunities (36%), and meeting expectations relating to flexible or remote working arrangements (35%).

As they continue to be challenged by IT skills shortages, 70% of business leaders on the island of Ireland say these shortages are impacting their business and transformation plans, with one in five saying they are having a significant impact.

To address the issue, more than one-third (38%) of businesses are now outsourcing more functions to third parties or consultants. Internal measures, meanwhile, include investing in external training for staff (42%), hiring more for remote roles (39%) and adopting hyperautomation principles to automate as many business processes as possible (39%).

Paul O’Malley, Chief Operating Officer, Expleo Ireland, said: “Our research highlights that business leaders in Ireland are acutely aware of the role that technology talent plays in their growth and success. With this in mind, and despite some very high-profile layoff announcements in recent months, businesses are continuing to struggle to find and retain the IT talent that will be pivotal to their – and the economy’s – future.

“While organisations can only do so much when it comes to external pressures such as inflation and salary competition, our research shows that businesses who are suffering from IT talent issues must take a bolder approach and tackle this issue head-on. We can see that business leaders in Ireland are open to this, with almost three-quarters saying that part of the solution lies in automation, while others are outsourcing more functions.

“At Expleo, we are helping businesses with the successful blending of internal and external expertise. In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, business leaders are under increasing pressure to keep their organisations ahead of the curve to remain competitive. By providing them with the best technology solutions, teams and talent – such as highly-skilled software teams or agile pods – we are ensuring that businesses are equipped with the right resources to work on the right projects, at the right time.

“With such an overwhelming majority of business leaders admitting that their company has under-invested in the skills base of their employees, now is the time to pave the way to a successful, sustainable future by investing in employees, their potential and their wellbeing.”

Skills shortage and low budgets considered biggest challenges for managing incident detection and response

Integrity360, Ireland and the UK’s largest cyber security services specialist, has today announced findings from a Twitter poll gaining visibility into the value of managed detection and response services (MDR). The poll, with 2,000+ responses and conducted between 8-10 March, highlights the pitfalls of existing detection and response, with the skills shortage and low budgets cited as the biggest challenges when it comes to managed detection and response – 28% respectively.

Furthermore, a third (33%) of respondents believe that threat detection is lacking most when it comes to cyber security and incident detection and response. This was closely followed by training and testing (27%). Meanwhile 26% of respondents said slow response times and 18% selected lack of visibility.

Richard Ford, CTO, Integrity360, comments: “Preventative measures, to protect and prevent threats targeting our critical systems and data are important, but not enough in this increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape. Organisations need security solutions and services that are effective peri-incident, that can detect, analyse and respond to threats that have bypassed preventative controls – threats both internal and external. Training and testing of these solutions, including platform tuning and training employees, is equally critical to maintaining a strong security posture.

“There remains a huge skills shortage in the cyber security industry, and particularly in high value skills and experience such as threat detection and incident response. MDR helps close the gap. In fact, organisations bridging the skills gap and utilising MDR services have a 62% reduction in the average number of security incidents per year”.

The poll did reveal that respondents look set to take action to address issues around incident detection and response, agreeing that MDR should be prioritised and highlighting that they will allocate the most cyber security budget to managed security (29%). A further twenty five percent noted that cyber security testing (25%) would receive a budget boost.

This is positive given that four in ten (40%) believe cyber security testing is best outsourced over handling in-house. Additionally, over a third (35%) believe a service provider better manages cloud computing security.

It appears in-house approaches may also require investment or improvement with the poll revealing that almost a third (31%) of respondents said that thirty percent of their cyber security budget is allocated to tools and solutions that are not used to their full potential.

When it comes to what people see as the most damaging impact of a cyber security breach, financial loss came top of the list (46%), followed by loss of trust (28%). Meanwhile, reputational damage was selected by twenty percent of respondents.

Ford adds: “We’re currently experiencing a time of economic downturn, when cyber security budgets are tight, and risks are heightened. However, slashing cyber security budgets can put a company at risk of losing their cyber security professionals which are already in short supply and can result in gaps in an organisation’s defences. Organisations are visibly assessing the value and efficiency of their security solutions and it’s great to see that they are looking to put budgets to good use by investing money and trust in service providers.”

Further, the poll found that over a third (36%) see increased defences as the most significant benefit of cyber security collaboration, with (36%) also seeing faster response times as being the biggest benefit of a managed detection and response service.

Integrity360’s MDR offering delivers real-time threat detection, proactive threat hunting, incident containment and response, security incident analysis and threat intelligence, compliance reporting, and 24/7 monitoring to businesses across Ireland and the UK. As well as enhancing organisations’ detection and response capabilities and enabling the protection of systems and data, the service provides businesses with access to on-demand and proactive support via Integrity360’s experienced security team.

Integrity360 leverages the latest threat intelligence and state-of-the-art solutions to deliver its MDR service to identify new threat actor Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) across networks, endpoints, servers, and the cloud.

Integrity360 has also recently announced that it has been named as a Representative Vendor in the 2023 Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services.

Ford added: “As cyber threats continue to evolve in frequency, sophistication and efficacy, companies must roll out a comprehensive service to meet their security needs. That’s where MDR comes in. Through our offering we aim to deliver even deeper technical expertise and innovative technologies which enable companies to secure their operations and allow us to serve as an extension of their team.”