How important are AI skills for a career in IT?
Amid hype and controversy, the uptake of artificial intelligence in the workplace has grown rapidly. According to the 2026 Spiceworks State of IT, a survey of 800+ IT professionals in North America and Europe, adoption of AI in businesses has doubled over the last two years and currently stands at 52% of organizations represented in the study.
AI is mainstream, but how does it impact IT careers?
In the fast-moving world of tech, there’s one consistent piece of advice that successful IT professionals live by: Always keep learning.
But what you choose to learn matters. If you were an up-and-coming technology professional 10 years ago, you would have done great if you chose to specialize in cybersecurity… but less great if you put all of your eggs in the Metaverse or NFT baskets.
Now that AI is the buzzworthy tech, how important do IT professionals think it is to acquire AI prompting skills? In the 2026 State of IT, we asked IT professionals of all stripes whether they believe AI prompting skills are important to have for a career in IT.
In our study, 63% of IT professionals said AI prompting skills are important or very important for a career in IT. However, opinions differed widely depending on who we asked.
How seniority and company size impact AI skills sentiment
According to our research, there’s a mismatch between what IT bosses and their staff think about AI. Employees with hiring authority were much more likely to believe AI proficiency matters: Senior leaders with a director-level title or higher were ~2x as likely as IT staff members to believe AI prompting is important.
Additionally, the size of the company respondents work for factors into how they feel about the need for AI knowledge. Respondents working in Enterprises (1000+ employees) were significantly more likely to value AI prompting skills than IT professionals working in smaller organizations.
This company size stat becomes more relevant to potential job seekers if you know that Enterprises represented in our study were 3x as likely to plan to increase the size of their IT department, compared to small businesses (1-99 employees).
How age relates to feelings about AI
A recent Pew Research study found that younger Americans use AI much more frequently than their older counterparts. According to Pew, workers under 30 are 3x as likely to use ChatGPT for work tasks as employees 50 or older.
Our data tells a similar story. Among 2026 Spiceworks State of IT respondents, IT professionals in Gen Z and Millennial IT cohorts were ~3x as likely to say it’s “very important” to have AI prompting skills as their older Boomer IT counterparts.
Maybe it’s the hubris, or perhaps younger IT professionals have put in more hours honing their craft, but our data also indicates that IT professionals with more working years in front of them are far more likely to be confident in their AI prompting skills. According to the 2026 State of IT, Millennials were ~2x as likely and Gen Z were ~3x as likely to say that they are very or extremely confident in their AI prompting skills.
If you’re an IT job hopeful in the market for a new role, know that even if you don’t think AI prompting skills are important, 7 out of 10 of those who make the hiring decisions believe they are.
Additionally, if you’re a younger IT professional hoping to have a successful, long-lasting career in IT, know that peers in your age group (who might also be potential competition for roles) are currently sharpening their AI prompting skills.
