SAP’s Q2 results confirm what we have been hearing in every client conversation for the past six months. Cloud backlog keeps climbing. The migration pipeline shows no sign of slowing. And the talent pressure that comes with it is compounding rather than easing.
Companies across the DACH region are committing to S/4HANA timelines they cannot staff with their current teams. A manufacturing client in Stuttgart told us last month they had signed off on a migration roadmap, then realised their internal SAP team had zero cloud-native experience. They are now competing for the same profiles as every other mid-market company running the same calculation.
The roles we fill in SAP now require a specific combination: deep Basis knowledge plus hands-on cloud deployment experience. A senior consultant we placed in Munich earlier this year was hired specifically because she could bridge legacy ECC environments and S/4HANA Public Cloud. Almost every job specification we receive asks for that pairing. Employers treat it as essential, and the pool of candidates who have been through a full cloud migration from scoping to go-live remains shallow.
We expect the pressure to persist through the next twelve months. Every quarter of sustained backlog growth pulls from the same limited supply of experienced professionals. Companies that move early on senior hires are filling their project teams. Those waiting for the market to loosen will keep waiting, because the backlog keeps growing and the migration deadlines keep arriving.
Prompted by reporting from SAP News Centre.