Soft Skills

In recruiter context

The cliché word for the genuinely hard part of hiring. Hard skills (Python, Excel, AutoCAD) are easy to assess via tests; soft skills are harder to measure and harder to develop. UK employers increasingly hire on soft-skills strength when candidate technical skills are roughly comparable. The two soft skills I see win out most often in 2026: written clarity (because it scales remote work) and stakeholder management (because hybrid teams have more cross-team friction than co-located ones). 'I have great communication skills' on a CV says nothing — instead, demonstrate it with a specific example where the soft skill produced a measurable result.