For most integrators, the biggest barrier to growth isn’t about weak backlogs, insufficient budgets or finding new customers. Rather, it is about the people.
When NSCA has spoken to leaders, talent and workforce pressures are mentioned more than any other challenges, and it has been that way for years. In fact, this year is no different, with 78% of integrators sharing in a 2026 State of the Industry survey that talent will be their biggest challenge, overshadowing concerns like tariffs, supply-chain issues and inflation.
“The talent demand equation is real,” says David Fisher, president of the systems integration division at IMS Technology Services. He discussed this problem at length in the January 2026 State of the Industry webinar, presented by NSCA, Commercial Integrator and Security Sales & Integration. “Demand continues to outpace supply. Where we’re headquartered, just outside of Philadelphia, we’ve identified 27 other integrators that have staffing needs just like ours. We all have that same need for talent,” says Fisher.
The State of the Industry survey also reveals that 61% of integrators report “lack of qualified candidates” as their biggest barrier to filling open positions. This means strategies built on hiring from competitors or waiting for fully formed candidates to appear will no longer work.
Instead, integrators need to think differently about talent pipelines.
The Talent Profile Is Changing
The talent challenge is not only about your bench of workers, but also about the skills and mindsets they bring.
Integrators need team members who are comfortable operating in IP environments; can hold their own with IT and security stakeholders; support services and RMR models; understand networking concepts and IT strategies; act as advisors; spot opportunities to apply AI and automation in customer workflows; and are comfortable having conversations about cybersecurity.
Firms also increasingly need employees who can help them move toward the “master systems integrator” concept, which is shaping how customers source and standardize technology.
This means workers must be able to see across silos, collaborate with partners and think in terms of ecosystems.
Four Ways to Be Intentional About Talent
Below are strategies you can deploy to treat talent development as a core part of business.
1. Grow Your Own Talent
Consider hiring for traits like character, curiosity, reliability and problem-solving. Then, teach industry-specific skills along the way. Once new workers learn the ropes, they can be moved through structured paths into the right roles.
Putting that approach into action might mean creating new positions, pairing hires with seasoned mentors and mapping out expectations for progression.
Instead of building training assets from scratch, NSCA has many resources to bring new hires up to speed faster, from leadership and project management training to industry onboarding programs.
2. Retain the People You Hire
After you bring people on, you must ensure they stay. In a market where workers with experience can often find jobs quickly, culture and purpose become differentiators.
Be intentional about showing employees how their work matters. Give them visibility into the business and involve them in decisions that affect projects and services.
Additionally, make career paths visible. Spell out how employees can move from a field role into other leadership roles, along with the skills and behaviors required at each step. That helps them envision a future instead of viewing it as a steppingstone.
3. Upskill for What Comes Next
Today’s requirements will outpace yesterday’s skill sets unless you build upskilling into your business. This can mean creating learning plans around high-impact areas along with relying on a mix of vendor certifications, NSCA education and peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing.
4. Outsourcing to Fill Gaps
Outsourcing certain functions can be a practical way to extend capacity while you develop internal talent.
Strategic outsourcing also supports the master systems integrator model. By partnering with firms that share similar standards, you can offer customers a broader, more sophisticated set of services without over-hiring or stretching your existing team too thin.
Build Your Talent Pipeline with Ignite Internships
Ignite — an NSCA Education Foundation initiative — introduces students and early-career professionals to careers in commercial AV and gives employers a structured way to turn that interest into capability.
By giving integrators and manufacturers a framework to create meaningful, paid internships, Ignite makes it easier to turn students into contributors and potential hires.
How the Ignite Internship Model Works
Ignite internships are focused on learning and contribution, and run for at least eight weeks, averaging close to full-time hours. Interns are paired with a mentor and are exposed to several departments.
Early on, the interns spend time in key areas to understand how an integration firm works. As the internship progresses, they go deeper in an area that aligns with their interests and skills, taking on tasks and projects that make an impact while allowing room for learning and reflection.
The internship framework is also backed by the Ignite Internship Grant program, which offers integrators and manufacturers $1,000 per intern to jumpstart new or expanding internship programs and offset costs.
It is a program that is highly beneficial to integrators and manufacturers of any size. For instance, a small company might have a single intern who rotates through departments, while a large company could run a cohort program with interns assigned to different departments or specialties.
Shape Internships Around Specific Skills
If you are having trouble finding workers with the skills that integration roles require, internships can be built around helping develop those capabilities. For example, in the recent State of the Industry survey, 72% of integrators say they’re not fully ready to tackle IT installations.
If this is the case for you, consider pairing interns with engineers who design AV-over-IP systems or have them join customer meetings regarding IT and network readiness.
As your internship program becomes more established, you can be more explicit about next steps, letting interns know they’ll be considered for certain entry-level positions. You can also explain what their first few years of full-time work would look like and describe how past interns have progressed to full-time roles. This helps interns view the program as a starting point for a career instead of a temporary job.
Building the Workforce Your Future Needs
Whether it involves delivering complex, networked systems; standing up services and RMR models; or stepping into an AI advisory role, the work is there. The question is this: Do you have enough people with the right mix of skills to deliver consistently and profitably?
Ignite allows you to answer this by expanding industry awareness, creating structured onramps for new talent and developing people who can grow into the roles that will be in demand in the future.
Learn more at IgniteYourCareer.org/internships.
Tom LeBlanc is NSCA’s executive director. Learn more about becoming an NSCA member by visiting NSCA.org.
