Skills employers ask for in HR jobs
In 11,145 HR jobs in the SkillDrift job index, the most requested skill is Recruitment, named in 28% of postings. Employee relations follows at 23.8%, then Talent acquisition at 22.6%.
Based on 11,145 job postings in the SkillDrift job index, read on 1 October 2026.
The 8 skills named most often
Each share is the part of all HR jobs that name the skill. One posting usually names several skills, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
- 1Recruitment28%3,122 of 11,145 postings
- 2Employee relations23.8%2,649 of 11,145 postings
- 3Talent acquisition22.6%2,514 of 11,145 postings
- 4Employee engagement21.1%2,353 of 11,145 postings
- 5Performance management20.4%2,273 of 11,145 postings
- 6Stakeholder management19.3%2,149 of 11,145 postings
- 7Onboarding18%2,011 of 11,145 postings
- 8Hr operations18%2,011 of 11,145 postings
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The SkillDrift job index collects live job postings and reads the skills each one asks for. This page counts the postings in the HR role group, across all industries, and shows the share that name each skill. Skills appear as employers write them, so close variants such as Excel and MS Excel can both appear, because a posting may use either. The page is refreshed from the index, and the date above shows the last read.
Questions people ask
What is the most requested skill in HR jobs?
Recruitment. It is named in 28% of the 11,145 HR jobs in the SkillDrift job index on 1 October 2026.
How many job postings is this based on?
11,145 postings, read from the SkillDrift job index on 1 October 2026. Each share is the number of postings that name the skill, divided by all postings in this group.