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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Chapter 4: Workforce Gap Analysis

Once the foundation was set by past work, the next step in the research approach was synthesizing available information to build an understanding of the most prominent challenges faced by transportation agencies and their partners. This chapter summarizes the identified workforce gaps into matrices. These matrices detail root causes of observed challenges and their associated resource gaps. The purpose of these matrices was to narrow in on the resources that could be most valuable to produce within the NCHRP 20-102(20) guide.

Workforce Gap Analysis Approach

The workforce gap analysis identified persisting workforce needs and resource gaps for all levels of staff responsible for planning, designing, operating, and maintaining emerging technologies. The project team analyzed the data collected through the literature review and stakeholder outreach to identify the root causes that lead to workforce gaps such as, the availability of resources, challenges with agency organizational structures, and areas of improvement related to recruiting, hiring, developing, and retaining staff. The diverse geographies, agencies/organizations, and staff levels represented in the stakeholder outreach, enabled the project team to understand the challenges that impact agencies and the industries’ ability to prepare/preparedness for emerging technologies. These challenges were categorized into workforce gaps and their root causes as defined below:

Root Causes – Challenges or tensions experienced as organizations prepare for emerging technologies based on the literature review or stakeholder outreach.
Workforce Gaps – The manifestation of the root causes in the workforce and the gaps that are created/worsened. One root cause may result in multiple workforce gaps.

Additionally, this chapter identifies gaps in available resources for agencies, providing insights into the types of resources and materials that may be most desired and useful for agencies. The findings from this analysis informed the content and presentation of information in the workforce preparedness guide.

Overarching Themes

As the project team synthesized identified issues and workforce gaps, three overarching themes emerged defined in Table 4. Figure 12 details the root causes within each of the emerging themes. The following matrices, Table 5–Table 7 are organized by theme and root cause and provide insight into how these challenges affect the workforce and the availability of literature and resources for each. In general, stakeholders validated the barriers in the stakeholder webinar. The root causes stakeholders selected that most resonated with their experiences are denoted with a ★.

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Table 4: Workforce Gap Analysis Emerging Themes

Institutional Agility	Staffing Adaptability	Workforce Pipeline
Challenges that impact an organization or agency’s ability to respond quickly to evolving technologies through its policies, organization, and culture.	Challenges associated with quickly evolving skillset requirements to support emerging technologies, adapt hiring processes to introduce new candidate pools, and retain the existing workforce by upskilling.	Challenges associated with bolstering the workforce pipeline by encouraging engagement between industry and academic or trade educational programs.

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

The illustration is organized into three columns. Column 1: Institutional Agility. Description: Challenges that impact an organization or agency’s ability to respond quickly to evolving technologies through its policies, organization, and culture. Challenges: Career pathways reflect the perception that the transportation agency staff is primarily staffed by civil engineers (C Es). Thus, agency organizational charts do not include emerging positions and skills, both C E and non C E, needed to support emerging technologies. Lack of knowledge about emerging technologies and challenges in calculating or communicating return on investment analyses (R O I) on new technologies can result in a lack of support from leadership. Departments and groups within agencies are at different stages of implementation of emerging technologies and or lack shared goals from leadership. Factors outside of agencies’ control have direct, and significant, influences on their ability to prepare the workforce. The necessary collaboration across disciplines may be constrained due to silos in the organizational chart, disconnected processes, and or organization culture. Local, state, and federal funding and mandates drive an organization’s investment (time, budget, and resources) to prepare the workforce for emerging technologies. Over-reliance on individual champions or consultants to deploy and maintain new and emerging technologies. Column 2: Staffing Adaptability. Description: Challenges associated with quickly evolving skillset requirements to support emerging technologies, adapt hiring processes to introduce new candidate pools, and retain the existing workforce by upskilling. Challenges: Skills new to the transportation industry are quickly evolving and organizations are currently and predicted to continue experiencing skill gaps. Availability of resources on emerging positions, position KSAs, and competencies vary by emerging technology. Opportunities within the transportation industry, specifically those focused on emerging technologies, are not well-known and advertised. Organizational structures, positions, and career pathways are limited to civil engineering and licensure. Salaries and benefits of traditional and non-traditional industry positions are not competitive with private industry. Technologies are implemented before identifying staff who will focus on the technology and providing adequate training for the technology. Staff are experiencing a lack of design, review, integration, and data analysis experience. A lack of knowledge of the intricacies of the emerging technologies. Organizations are experiencing challenges sourcing and retaining staff, especially technician staff to install and maintain new technologies. Column 3: Workforce Pipeline. Description: Challenges associated with bolstering the workforce pipeline by encouraging engagement between industry and academic or trade educational programs. Challenges: Academic pathways and training certifications do not always provide adequate multidisciplinary education, breadth of the transportation industry, real-world implementation of academic principles, or preparation for installation and maintenance staff and the skills and trainings needed in the field. Academic institutions (and boards) may be resistant to change due to lack of awareness of technologies, perception of accreditation limitations, justifying the courses for a small student size, and showing the value of the courses. Many of the agency training programs are in early development phases and thus tracking or metrics are often not available. Training materials are not adequate for continued learning. Candidates who have transferable skills or general interest in the transportation industry may experience financial barriers to acquire the necessary transportation or technology-specific certificates or technical skills. Local, state, and federal funding and mandates drive investment in adapting the curricula and training programs needed to prepare the workforce for emerging technologies. — Figure 12: Top Three Themes and Root Causes

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Table 5: Institutional Agility Root Causes and Workforce Gaps Matrix

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature Review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Career pathways largely reflect the perception that the transportation agency staff is primarily staffed by civil engineers (CEs). Thus, agency organizational charts do not include the emerging positions and skills, CE and non-CE, needed to support emerging technologies.	➩ Significant skill gaps in teams that are responsible for planning for and deploying new technologies. ➩ Staff are unable to advance through the organization due to a lack of advancement paths, state-defined job classification, or updated licensure requirements for non-CE staff, resulting in higher turnover rates. ➩ Organizational structures and policies may limit teams from hiring staff that align with the work-type needs.	✓	✓	*Available resources discuss strategies* to adapt organizational charts and expand career pathways to better incorporate non-CE pathways. While the identified issue spans multiple technologies, many of the resources provide strategies through a TSMO lens. Agencies continue to experience challenges, thus there may be barriers to implementation and/or unawareness of the available resources. *Available resources include* (18), (20), (25), (27), (31), (40), and (60).
Limited knowledge of emerging technologies and challenges in calculating/communicating return on investment	➩ Challenges to proactively plan for full-time equivalents (FTEs) needs and skill needs for emerging technologies. ➩ Technology deployment begins before the proper staff is identified and trained.		✓	*Limited existing resources* provide concise and graphic information to inform leadership about the necessary steps to plan the overall organization for emerging technologies and the potential benefits to workforce efficiency that could be gained through the implementation of new

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature Review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
analyses (ROI) on new technologies can result in a lack of support from leadership.	➩ Challenges advocating for new technologies that may improve process efficiencies that can reduce mundane and repetitive tasks, offset overloaded staff, and increase employee morale. ➩ The lack of knowledge or inability to decipher “hype”/“fad” from innovation within leadership may result in existing or new policies that slow the pace of innovation and/or lead to inaction on urgent needs.			technologies. Few resources are available to guide agencies to frame discussions about traditional return-on-investment discussions. Resources such as the Building Information Model (BIM) ROI Study provide frameworks for evaluating ROI.
Departments and groups within agencies are at different stages of implementation of emerging technologies and/or lack shared goals from leadership.	➩ Differing levels of acceptance or momentum within the organization may impact the pace of preparing and training the workforce. ➩ Some departments may be more proactive in planning for emerging technologies while others are unable to do so as they focus on near-term workforce gaps. ➩ Challenges collaborating with or sharing resources with other departments.		✓	*Available resources provide general strategies* for agencies considering different types of technologies and at varying levels of implementation.

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature Review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Factors outside of agencies’ control have direct (and significant) influences on their ability to prepare the workforce. ★	➩ Uncertainty and inability to control significant factors that contribute to an organization’s workforce. ➩ The private industry often develops new technologies, and public agencies leverage these technologies, though, they may not have the required skills to operate and leverage new technologies.	✓	✓	While available resources discuss the impacts and influence of these outside factors, the *ability to address the root cause of the issue is limited* as the resources provide context to mitigate negative impacts and do not change the structure that creates the issues. *Available resources include* (16), (18), and (25).
The necessary collaboration across disciplines may be constrained due to silos in the organizational chart, disconnected processes, and/or organization culture.	➩ Necessary collaboration partners (with in-demand skills) are inaccessible to the team trying to implement emerging technologies. ➩ The organization’s workforce experiences challenges implementing technologies that require multidisciplinary skills. ➩ Staff experience gaps in communication and collaboration.	✓	✓	*Existing resources provide strategies* to integrate teams for emerging technologies. Stakeholders highlighted the implementation barriers and adaptations to process and culture that could support the implementation of existing research and strategies. *Available resources include* (20) and (25).

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature Review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Local, state, and federal funding and mandates drive an organization’s investment (time, budget, and resources) to prepare the workforce for emerging technologies.	➩ Organizational structure is slow to change to add and/or adapt positions to fill the needs to prepare for and operate new technologies. ➩ Lack of available funds to take actions to prepare the workforce (e.g., new FTEs, salary adjustments, trainings).	✓	✓	Existing resources emphasize the importance of identifying and exploring funding opportunities. Some organizations provide lists of funding sources; they are *often not included in combination with the strategies,* which may create a hurdle for agencies to identify their available options.
Over-reliance on individual champion(s) or consultants to deploy and maintain new and emerging technologies. ★	➩ If the agency champion(s) leave the organization or changes roles, the momentum within the organization is often lost.		✓	Existing resources discuss the benefits of identifying champion(s) for emerging technologies and strategies to improve staff retention.

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Table 6: Staffing Adaptability: Skills, Sourcing, Incentivizing, and Retaining Root Causes and Workforce Gaps Matrix

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Skills ‘new’ to the transportation industry are quickly evolving and organizations are currently (and predicted to continue) experiencing skill gaps. Availability of resources on emerging positions, position KSAs, and competencies varies by emerging technology.	➩ The workforce cannot keep pace with the emerging skill needs. ➩ KSAs may be out of date and create challenges to recruit for the appropriate skills. ➩ Agency staff may be unaware of the positions and skills needed to plan for while pursuing emerging technologies. ➩ Skill gaps in the existing workforce. ➩ Specific technical skill gaps include systems engineering, software and programming, data analysis and post-processing, and electrical systems and communications. ➩ Specific non-technical skill gaps include communication, integration of skills/disciplines, ability to advocate for training, and critical thinking (to understand ‘the why’ or tradeoffs).	✓	✓	*Available resources provide new and emerging positions, KSAs,* and roles broadly for emerging technologies and more specifically for TSMO, EVs, and other technologies. Resources are not available for all technologies and some may be outdated. Available resources include (18), (19), (20), (25), (28), (29), (31), (37), and (47).

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Opportunities within the transportation industry, specifically emerging technologies, are not well-known and advertised.	➩ Candidates with related or transferable skills are not seeking out transportation-related positions. ➩ Candidate pool for sourcing staff does not include parallel industries. ➩ Students who may be interested are unaware of the opportunities within the transportation industry.	✓	✓	*Existing resources discuss* the importance and *strategies* to better advertise opportunities within the transportation industry. *Available resources include* (19), (20), (25), (33), (34), (39), and (61).
Organizational structures, positions, and career pathways are limited to civil engineering/licensure. ★	➩ Limits the source candidate pool. ➩ Candidates may not have the skills related to or needed for emerging technologies. ➩ Challenges incentivizing new staff and retaining existing staff who are unable to advance through the organization (advancement is based on CE milestones). ➩ Staff turnover can halt momentum, create knowledge gaps in teams, and overload existing staff.	✓	✓	*Available resources provide strategies* to increase the candidate pool while recruiting. *Available resources include* (16), (19), (20), (33), and (34).

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Salaries and benefits of traditional and nontraditional industry positions are not competitive with private industry. ★	➩ Agencies are unable to incentivize and retain staff with the necessary skills.		✓	*Few existing resources* provide salary benchmarks for positions related to emerging technologies.
Technologies are implemented before identifying staff who will focus on the technology and providing adequate training for the technology.	➩ The organization’s workforce experiences inefficiencies due to technologies that are not properly integrated. ➩ Not identifying staff roles, or integrating vendor support may leave the organization’s workforce without the skills or bandwidth to operate, maintain, and leverage data from emerging technologies. ➩ Staff may not have the skills to verify the data from technologies, products, or vendors. ➩ Staff may be overloaded and/or feel as though they do not have the appropriate skills to work on the technology, leading to discontentment.	✓	✓	*Available resources discuss best practices* for implementing emerging technologies, some of which include strategies to prepare the workforce. There are challenges with the sequential implementation of the strategies. *Available resources include* (28).

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Staff have limited design, review, integration, and data analysis experience.	➩ The organization’s workforce lacks the skills to post-process the data, quality check, oversee, operate, maintain and manage the technology, and fully leverage the full benefits of the technology.		✓	Existing resources focus on the technical and non-technical skills needed to implement emerging technologies. *Management skills are implied, but often not explicitly stated or strategized.*
Limited knowledge of the intricacies of the emerging technologies.	➩ Challenges to planning and programing for new technologies. ➩ The anticipated staffing and training needs are unknown. ➩ Inaccuracies can result in inefficient workforce planning. ➩ Skill gaps resulting from the inability to post-process data or other outputs from new technologies may result in inefficient use of, inability to communicate the outcomes to leadership, and/or the inability to leverage emerging technologies.		✓	Available resources provide strategies for emerging technologies. The intricacies of each technology in combination with the uniqueness of each jurisdiction is *challenging to integrate into resources accessible and useable by a wide audience*.

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Organizations are experiencing challenges sourcing and retaining staff, and especially technician staff to install and maintain new technologies. ★	➩ Organizations do not have the specific skills needed to successfully implement and monitor new technologies. ➩ Staff shortages may result in overloaded existing staff (both internal to the agency and within outsourced vendors/contractors).		✓	*Existing resources are limited* in providing a range of actionable strategies to better source and retain technician level staff.

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Table 7: Fostering the Workforce Pipeline Gaps Matrix

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature Review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Academic pathways and training certifications do not always provide adequate: Multidisciplinary education Breadth of the transportation industry Real-world implementation of academic principles Preparation for installation and maintenance staff in the skills and trainings needed in the field.	➩ Candidates lack the nontechnical and critical thinking skills necessary to plan for and deploy new technologies. ➩ Candidates and employees may have specific technical skills but are unable to apply those skills within a multidisciplinary team or project. ➩ Candidates may be unaware of breadth of skills and roles needed within the transportation industry. ➩ The delta between in-classroom learning and real-world scenarios (and needed skills) creates a steep learning curve for new staff. ➩ Installation and maintenance of new technologies is very specific to the technology and manufacturer; thus, candidates often must engage with additional training.	✓	✓	*Resources emphasize the need to improve curricula and programs* to respond to new technologies. Resources provide emerging skill sets and associated programs. Resources with specific curricula or academic resources for universities are limited. Resources are available to foster and bolster STEM and transportation careers in *K-12 programs. There are limited to no resources available* to develop installation, maintenance, and technician training programs. There are also *limited available widely accepted technician training programs* for some emerging technologies. *Available resources include* (31), (34), and (39).

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature Review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
Academic institutions (and boards) may be resistant to change due to the lack of awareness of technologies, perception of accreditation limitations, justifying the courses for a small student size, and showing the value of the courses. ★	➩ Coursework does not align with the skills needed by the industry. ➩ Limits the pathways to the transportation industry.		✓	*Existing resources are limited* in identifying the return on investment and/or justification of program and curriculum changes.
Many of the agency training programs are in early development and thus tracking or metrics are often not available.	➩ Training programs are in their infancy and organizations are unable to report on return on investment, impact of trainings, and needed improvements.		✓	*Few available resources* with metrics to track the impact of training programs and potential refinements.
Training materials are not adequate for continued learning. ★	➩ Challenges with upskilling existing staff to respond to evolving technologies. ➩ Organizations that conduct their own internal training do not receive certificates, which may limit the contracts and/or technologies staff can support. ➩ Without an understanding of the technology, managers experience challenges to		✓	*Training materials are available for a wide range* of technologies and staffing levels, though *trainings are not available for all emerging technologies. There is a desire for more management-level training programs* from technician to leader and/or team leader roles.

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Suggested Citation: "4 Workforce Gap Analysis." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2026. Preparing the Transportation Workforce for Emerging Technologies: Developing a Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/29406.

Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Source		Resource Availability for Organizations
Root Causes	Related Workforce Gaps	Literature Review	Stakeholder Outreach	Resource Availability for Organizations
	adequately manage their teams who plan for, operate, and maintain the emerging technologies. ➩ Conducting or attending the trainings requires time investment.			*Available resources include* (31), (36), (43), (47), (62), (63), and (64).
Candidates who have transferable skills or general interest in the transportation industry, may experience financial barriers to acquiring the necessary transportation/technology specific certificates or technical skills.	➩ Candidates with transferable skills may not be incentivized to enter the transportation workforce. ➩ Candidate pool for recruiting is more limited.		✓	*Few resources* on how to provide incentives for candidates to upskill before joining an organization. Non-technical training is less available.
Local, state, and federal funding and mandates drive investment in adapting the curricula and training programs needed to prepare the workforce for emerging technologies.	➩ Staff at organizations may not be able to access trainings to upskill and/or best manage, operate, and maintain the technology and its workforce. ➩ Existing trainings may be inaccessible to potential and existing staff.	✓	✓	*Some organizations provide lists of funding sources, though they are not specific for academic and other educational organizations and often not included in combination with strategies,* which may create a hurdle for agencies to identify their available options.