Historically, SoW has appeared in managed service programmes (MSP) tenders as a compliance afterthought, lacking clear definition. Is it services procurement, consultancy delivery, or capturing the grey area between day-rate contractors and professional service consultants? This blurred definition causes fragmentation and weakens outcomes.
SIA’s 2025 Workforce Solutions Buyer Survey reveals that most organisations still struggle to run mature, well‑governed statement of work (SoW) programmes. According to the research, only 25% of companies consider their contingent workforce practices “leading edge,” while 28% openly acknowledge they are “lagging behind,” a clear indication that governance, ownership and strategic integration of SoW remain underdeveloped across many enterprises.
Key challenges remain:
Ownership confusion: Procurement, contingent workforce teams, HR or managed service providers - whose responsibility?
Regulatory pressure: Post-IR35 compliance still drives many SoW initiatives more than strategic value
Technology gaps: Vendor management systems (VMS) handle contractors well, but struggle with multi-phase SoW projects
Environmental, social and governance (ESG): Increasing demand for service providers to demonstrate social responsibility, sustainability and green credentials
Hidden skills impact: Critical capabilities embedded within SoW deliverables often remain invisible to workforce planning teams. This lack of visibility prevents organisations from forecasting future skill needs, creating gaps in talent strategies and limiting agility.
Without shared strategic goals, well-defined roles, or technology support, SoW becomes an administrative burden, not a value driver.
The path forward: moving beyond the ‘bolt-on’ approach
To move beyond treating SoW as a compliance add-on, organisations need to reframe how they govern and deliver such services. This begins with establishing clear ownership and governance between procurement, HR and MSP teams, ensuring responsibilities are connected rather than fragmented. Alongside this, adopting SoW- specific platforms becomes essential, particularly those that use AI to support vendor analysis, track milestones more effectively and create transparent workflows that reduce ambiguity and delay.
As expectations around responsibility and brand values rise, organisations also need to embed ESG and diversity considerations into the way they select and manage suppliers. This shift aligns SoW delivery with broader business priorities rather than leaving it to operate in isolation. Ultimately, the goal is to treat SoW as a strategic lever that supports talent, innovation and quality outcomes, rather than viewing it simply as another compliance requirement.
Tools to uncover hidden skills in SoW
Surfacing hidden skills within SoW deliverables is critical for future workforce planning. Without visibility into these capabilities, organisations risk underestimating talent gaps, missing opportunities for internal mobility, and failing to align project outcomes with long-term skill strategies.
To address the challenge of hidden skills within SoW deliverables and improve workforce planning, organisations can leverage the following tools and approaches:
AI-powered talent analytics platforms
- Eightfold.ai – Uses deep learning to infer skills from project descriptions and deliverables
- Gloat – Maps hidden capabilities to workforce planning and internal mobility
VMS with skills taxonomy integration
- Beeline Extended Workforce Platform – Offers skill tagging for SoW resources
- SAP Fieldglass – Integrates with skill libraries to surface competencies from project milestones
Skills intelligence engines
- Workday Skills Cloud – Automatically extracts skills from job and project data
- Degreed – Builds a dynamic skills graph from learning and project history
Natural language processing (NLP) tools
- Custom NLP models can scan SoW documents to identify implicit skills (e.g. Python, Agile, cyber security) and feed them into workforce planning dashboards
Data visualisation & dashboards
- Combine SoW milestone data with human resource information systems (HRIS) and learning management systems (LMS) systems to create skills heatmaps for future planning
How these tools integrate with HR
What connects to what:
HRIS (e.g. Workday, SAP SuccessFactors): Bi‑directional sync of worker profiles, skills taxonomies, job architectures and org structures. SoW platforms/VMS push discovered skills and assignment history back to the system of record; HRIS provides canonical skills/roles to standardise tagging
Applicant tracking systems & internal mobility: Hidden skills identified in SoW feed talent pools and internal marketplaces (e.g. gig boards, short-term projects), enabling re‑deployment before buying new services
LMS/learning experience platforms (e.g. Degreed, LinkedIn Learning): Gaps surfaced by SoW analysis trigger personalised learning paths and upskilling campaigns; completions loop back to update the skills graph
Identity & compliance: Single sign-on (SSO)/system for cross-domain identity management (SCIM) keep supplier resources and internal users governed; completion of mandatory training/certifications gates access to SoW workstreams
Procurement & finance (peer-to-peer/enterprise resource planning): Milestones, deliverables and acceptance data reconcile with purchase orders and invoices; performance and risk metrics roll into supplier scorecards
People analytics: Data lands in a central lake/warehouse for dashboards (skills heatmaps, capacity forecasts) consumed by human resources business partners, centre of excellence and procurement.
How we help
Reed Talent Solutions draws on more than 25 years of experience in managing contingent workforces, and this perspective shapes how we support organisations with their SoW programmes. Our work typically begins with establishing structured governance that clarifies the roles of procurement, HR and MSP teams, creating a consistent framework that helps organisations manage their projects with fewer disconnects.
Technology plays a key part in this, we integrate tools that provide clearer visibility of milestones and project progress, including AI enabled dashboards where appropriate. Alongside this, we help organisations embed ESG expectations into their supplier relationships so that sustainability, compliance and accountability are considered from the outset rather than added later.
Much of our support is consultancy led, drawing on experience across areas such as IT and healthcare delivery, contract risk management and performance measurement. The aim is to provide a balance of structure and flexibility, strengthening oversight without disrupting established partnerships, and ensuring organisations maintain visibility and control while still enabling suppliers to deliver effectively.
Want to optimise your SoW programme? Talk to an expert.
