The Human Side of ERP Modernisation in an AI-First World
ERP modernisation was already stretching the capacity of UK technology teams by the start of 2026. Organisations were planning significant programmes, SAP migrations, Oracle cloud transitions, Dynamics implementations, and finding the specialist talent to run them harder to secure than anticipated. Now, AI is being embedded into ERP platforms faster than most programme timelines allowed for, arriving on top of transformation work that was already underway and already stretched. The skills challenge behind ERP modernisation has moved from forecast to lived experience.
ERP is undergoing its most significant architectural shift in decades
McKinsey published an article this month that addresses a question many organisations are asking right now: will ERP be replaced by AI? The answer, based on their analysis, is no. However, the architecture is changing fundamentally.
AI-native solutions, built as networks of autonomous agents, are moving beyond task automation to orchestrating entire business processes end to end. Early adopters of AI-integrated ERP are already reporting improvements in operating profitability of 5% or more. Across the major platforms, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics and Workday, the most capable features in AI ERP software are being built exclusively into cloud products. Organisations still running legacy systems instead of modernising their outdated ERP environments are falling behind competitors who completed their migrations and are already accessing AI capabilities that legacy platforms cannot support.
Why the migration case is stronger now, not weaker
The case for staying on legacy systems and building AI capability on top of them is superficially attractive, avoiding the cost and disruption of a full migration. McKinsey draws a direct parallel with robotic process automation (RPA): organisations that layered automation on top of legacy systems achieved quick wins at the edge but left structural problems in the core untouched. The same pattern applies to agentic AI, at far greater scale. McKinsey's article suggests AI can reduce ERP modernisation effort by at least 50% and cut programme duration by half, but only for organisations approaching the transition with the right foundations in place from the outset.
Those foundations extend well beyond the technology itself. In April, Consultancy.uk reported over-customisation and the underestimation of human and operational complexity as the defining reasons ERP programmes fall short. Treating transformation as a purely technical exercise and failing to embed change management from day one consistently produces systems that are installed rather than adopted. Understanding the business first, its culture, its workflows, the people working within them, is what determines whether the investment delivers lasting value.
Two demands, one talent pool
Organisations running legacy ERP modernisation programmes are now managing two simultaneous requirements: the technical skills to complete the migration, and a newer, different set of skills to implement and govern AI within the modernised platform. McKinsey is clear that the shift will reduce demand for transactional specialists and increase demand for professionals who can balance deep platform knowledge with AI fluency, govern agent performance and continuously refine decision logic. That profile is scarce. Experienced ERP professionals with expert cloud and AI fluency take years to develop. While headline redundancy figures across the tech sector have created an impression of a loosening market, the specialist transformation skills that active UK programmes need remain as competitive to secure as they were twelve months ago.
Human judgement matters more now, not less
The organisations getting the most from AI-integrated ERP are the ones with specialists in place who understand the platform deeply enough to govern agent performance, identify where AI logic needs refining and ensure the system works for the people using it. The technology needs human expertise to function well. The same is true of the hiring process itself.
Technical skills listed on a CV date faster than at any previous point in this industry's history. A candidate who was highly relevant to an S/4HANA implementation two years ago may have real gaps in areas like BTP (SAP's cloud development platform) or AI governance that are not visible from their profile. Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise report identifies insufficient worker skills as the single biggest barrier to integrating AI into existing workflows, and yet most organisations are responding with broad training programmes rather than a more fundamental reassessment of what they are hiring for.
Screening on job titles and keyword matches cannot surface how successfully someone has navigated complex platform shifts before, whether their experience is meaningfully current, or whether their approach to work suggests they will absorb ongoing change rather than resist it. Those are the questions that determine whether a hire works out on a complex transformation programme, and they require the kind of judgement that comes from working extensively in this market. As Consultancy.uk notes, the human dimension of an ERP transformation is where it succeeds or fails. That applies as much to how you approach hiring as it does to how you build the system.
If you are building a team for an ERP modernisation programme, or trying to understand what the current hiring market looks like for these roles, Square One has been placing specialists across ERP, cloud, infrastructure and integration for over 30 years. View our live roles here or get in touch to talk through what you need.
