The term ‘shortage of learning talent’ will be one of the most important topics for L&D organizations in the upcoming year. Organizations are running out of skilled employees and are moving towards a period of economic and talent uncertainty. Hiring managers must work diligently to get the top L&D talent their organizations seek. An outsourced learning talent provider will help find (and retain) the best L&D talent and skills organizations need to thrive. The term is popularly known as staff augmentation.
According to the 2025 Global Talent Shortage Survey, nearly 74% of employers are struggling to find skilled talent, signaling a prolonged and systemic skills shortage across industries—including learning and development.
Staff augmentation is like bringing in temporary help from outside to tackle specific tasks and meet project deadlines. It mixes your regular in-house team and external experts, each working on different project parts. Before diving in, you assess your current team and project to determine what extra skills are needed.
The awesome thing about this approach is that the extra employees you bring in aren’t permanent employees. They’re independent contractors, only called in and paid when you need them. So, ending the collaboration is straightforward because everyone knows it’s based on a per-project or per-engagement basis.
8 Ways External Learning Talent Providers Will Transform Skilled Talent Hiring in 2026
A learning talent vendor or staff augmentation provider enables businesses to focus on other high-priority activities through recruitment analytics, robust candidate pipelines, proper sourcing, and reduced turnover. Many companies actively find the right candidates, with a particular emphasis on exploring the possibilities offered by talent outsourcing partners.
Organizations that partner with an external vendor for their L&D talent needs have access to extensive recruiting, marketing resources, modern technologies, and the ability to expand and react fast to ever-changing markets. Partnering with a learning talent provider is beneficial.
Following are the eight reasons why:
Access to Specialized L&D Expertise
Hiring skilled learning talent during periods of economic uncertainty and rapid transformation will continue to pose significant challenges. Partnering with an external vendor for L&D hiring needs will help organizations access experienced professionals who understand modern learning ecosystems.
By 2026, over 90% of organizations are expected to treat learning and development as a core business driver rather than a support function, significantly increasing demand for niche L&D expertise.
Organizations will remain focused on strategic business priorities while external learning talent providers manage recruitment. Staff augmentation vendors will continue to reduce premium hiring costs, improve cultural alignment, and strengthen long-term talent retention.
Reduces Time to Hire
Reducing time is one of the primary reasons many organizations outsource their recruitment process nowadays. An external learning talent partner with expertise in hiring is clear about how time-consuming it is to screen, hire, and train new employees.External learning talent partners will leverage established hiring frameworks, talent pools, and AI-enabled screening tools to deliver faster results.
It is because they have robust processes, experience, and advanced technologies to find the right people for an organization in a timely and effective manner. In addition, an L&D talent vendor can help an organization determine the specific talent needs (both now and in the future) and provide a list of qualified applicants. Thus, saving a lot of current time and time in the future.
By 2026, L&D talent providers will also help organizations anticipate future skill needs, ensuring faster deployment of talent for both immediate and upcoming initiatives.
Greater Cost Efficiency and Budget Control
Recession, mass resignations, and any major business upheaval bring a lot of economic disruptions that ask hiring managers to cut unnecessary expenses wherever they can. An L&D talent provider or a staff augmentation vendor takes all an organization’s long-term and short–term recruitment efforts. It includes the hiring and operational costs and costs during an economic turndown.
For instance, hiring managers may not have to spend money advertising open positions because the talent outsourcing vendor may cover this expense. Finding the right candidate also makes it easier for organizations to retain them for the long term. That way, organizations could spare themselves the potential financial fallout of losing the employee.
Access to Data-Driven Talent Insights
Successful workforce planning relies heavily on data-driven decisions that organizations can only collect when they source new candidates. An L&D talent provider pays close attention to market data that can enhance efficiency, pinpoint improvement areas, and suggest when a change in talent hiring strategy is required.
In 2026, L&D leaders are expected to rely heavily on real-time talent analytics and AI-driven workforce insights to proactively close future skill gaps. These insights will help organizations remain competitive and prepared for future learning needs.
Enhanced Scalability and Workforce Flexibility
In times of uncertainty, organizations must be adaptable to survive. With fluctuating markets, it is easy to slip into the expensive cycle of hiring and training recruiters when talent needs grow and then laying them off when the need for talent drops. When organizations partner with an L&D talent provider, resources may be scaled up or down based on recruiting needs. The learning talent providers have the recruitment, technology, and knowledge required to provide cost-effective support for the shifting talent demands
An external talent provider will also help enhance employer brand, candidate quality, improved recruitment efficiency, hiring manager satisfaction, and more.
By 2026, staff augmentation models will allow L&D teams to scale resources up or down seamlessly ensuring cost-effective support for fluctuating talent demands without compromising quality.
Faster Adoption of Emerging Learning Technologies
As AI, learning analytics, and immersive technologies become mainstream by 2026, external L&D talent providers will play a key role in helping organizations adopt and operationalize these tools. Augmented teams will include specialists in AI-enabled learning design, LMS modernization, learning analytics, and digital content transformation—capabilities that are difficult to build internally at speed.
Reduced Risk in Talent Hiring Decisions
By 2026, organizations will increasingly rely on staff augmentation to mitigate hiring risks associated with long-term commitments in uncertain markets. External learning talent providers will allow organizations to validate skills, performance, and cultural fit before extending longer-term engagements, reducing mis-hire risks and improving hiring outcomes.
Stronger Alignment Between Learning and Business Outcomes
In 2026, L&D teams will be expected to demonstrate direct impact on business performance. External learning talent providers will support this shift by supplying outcome-driven professionals—learning architects, consultants, and analysts—who align learning programs with organizational goals, KPIs, and ROI expectations.
Conclusion
Outsourcing L&D talent may be the most viable solution for addressing the current shortage that the L&D industry will experience. Outsourcing talent requirements to an L&D talent vendor or a staff augmentation provider helps reduce time-to-hire, and cost-to-hire, offers scalable support, valuable data insights, and expertise in tech and other talent-hiring capabilities.
Are you looking for a learning talent provider or a staff augmentation vendor to help with your L&D talent requirements? Infopro Learning can be an extra pair of trusted hands by taking all-inclusive talent requirements.
Our extensive network boasts over 50,000 L&D professionals and over 300 L&D recruiting and talent management experts. Our mission is to provide enterprises worldwide with top-tier L&D talent. Through a rigorous search process, we elevate the most active and qualified candidates to the forefront of the talent pool, ensuring the best fit for the role. With customized engagement models, including full-time, short-term contracts, dedicated teams, and hourly/half/single day, we specialize in hiring instructional designers, learning architects, business analysts, project managers, and LMS administrators. Let’s Talk!
