Why the digital skills gap in Middle East banking is a burning issue

AS THE REGION’S BANKS accelerate cloud migrations, launch open-API platforms, and court fintech partnerships, the digital skills gap in Middle East banking grows wider. Budgets for new technology have risen, yet many institutions still lack enough cloud engineers, data scientists, or UX designers to run modern services. Competitors from Big Tech and nimble fintechs are ready to fill the void, leaving late movers at risk of losing both customers and talent.

See our White Paper: Preparing the Workforce for Generative AI Adoption in Financial Services

Survey snapshot: where MEA banks stand today

Our cross-industry survey spans 232 companies in 18 Middle-East and African markets. Three truths stand out:

• Banking trails tech-savvy sectors. ICT, media, and professional-services firms outscore banks by up to 25 percent on digital-readiness indices.
• Leaders widen the gap. The top quintile of MEA banks already doubles their peers in cloud-native talent, making catch-up harder each year.
• Investment alone is not enough. Capital expenditure on technology rose 18 percent in 2024, yet skills scores barely moved—showing that buying tools without growing talent leaves value on the table.

What digital leaders do differently

Recruit at speed. DBS Bank fills key tech posts in 45 days by using AI screening and skills-first interviews.

Upskill the whole workforce. Westpac’s academy offers micro-courses on Python, design thinking, and agile to everyone from branch staff to executives.

Link learning to business KPIs. Leaders track training hours, certifications, and deployment of new skills back to revenue growth or cost-to-income ratio gains.

These practices turn talent into a flywheel: skilled employees build better digital products, which in turn attract even more talent.

Four-step talent roadmap for MEA banks

Step 1—Map critical skills
List every capability required by the transformation roadmap: cloud, DevOps, cybersecurity, data science, UX, and product management. Compare supply to demand and flag gaps by business unit.

Step 2—Adopt creative recruitment
Look beyond traditional finance hubs. Sponsor regional hackathons, partner with coding bootcamps, and use remote contracts to reach diaspora talent willing to work flexibly.

Step 3—Embed continuous learning
Launch an in-house digital academy that delivers bite-size lessons. Aim for ten learning hours per employee per quarter, with badges or micro-credentials that motivate completion.

Step 4—Develop digital leaders
Run an executive programme covering cloud economics, AI governance, and agile portfolio management. Leaders who “speak digital” allocate resources faster and model the behaviors teams need.

5 | Policy matters: lessons from Singapore

Public-private partnerships speed progress. The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s TechSkills Accelerator reimburses up to 70 percent of training costs for new tech roles and has placed more than 12,000 professionals since 2016. A similar program—perhaps run through regional central-bank institutes—could turbo-charge digital skills across GCC and wider MEA markets.

Recommended actions for HR and business heads

• Set bold targets. Double core tech talent inside 24 months.
• Make progress visible. Publish dashboards showing hours trained and certificates earned.
• Reward learning. Tie ten percent of bonuses to completion of priority programs.
• Rotate talent. Give data engineers six-month tours inside product squads to spread expertise.
• Measure impact. Tie upskilling to faster release cycles, higher mobile-sales share, and lower cost-to-serve.

Between January and April 2025 we surveyed HR chiefs, digital officers, and line managers at retail and commercial banks across 18 Middle-East and African countries. Respondents scored their workforces on 35 digital competencies using a five-point scale. Data were normalized against benchmarks from ICT and media firms to show relative readiness.

The prize for closing the gap

Banks that tame the digital skills gap in Middle East banking enjoy concrete wins:

• Launch new digital products 40 percent faster.
• Cut cost-to-income ratios by two to four points via intelligent automation.
• Boost cross-sell by delivering hyper-personalized offers in app.
• Improve cyber resilience and meet rising regulatory expectations.

These gains compound over time, creating a moat that late movers struggle to cross.

See if our Digital Transformation Program Consulting Practice can help you.