Is the Future of Work Actually Project-Based?

Author: Greg DiMattia

Economic uncertainty, shifting project demands, and rapid technological advancement have companies hesitating to make long-term staffing commitments. It’s no surprise, then, that project-based hiring is having its moment in the sun—especially in IT, engineering, and professional services.

But is the shift toward project-based work a blip or a blueprint? Is it a short-term trend, or will it define the future of work over the long term?

Truth be told, it’s complicated. Yes, many companies are reorienting their staffing strategies around specific skills and outcomes instead of traditional org charts. At the same time, project-based hires aren’t a fix-all, and come with risks of their own. While permanent roles may be less common in the future, those jobs aren’t disappearing completely.

After decades of helping companies navigate these choppy waters, we’ve found there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to balancing permanent vs. project-based hires. Each organization needs its own strategies, workforce models, and partners to be successful.

The shift toward project-based models

Project-based work is nothing new. However, recent years have seen a “perfect storm” of factors that has increased its appeal.

First, technological innovation has changed the nature of skills demand, especially in technical fields. Nearly 40% of existing skill sets will be transformed or become obsolete over the next five years. Companies are understandably hesitant to hire for a job they won’t need in the near future.

On top of that, economic uncertainty is still high in 2025. Trade policy shocks and tariffs add to already volatile financial markets, persistent inflation, and diminished confidence—all of which is delaying future investments.

The result: uncertain demand which makes it difficult for companies to plan and hire for the future. By limiting hires to a short-term, confirmed need, project-based work provides a solution to mitigate risk and improve cost efficiency.

Why project-based hiring isn’t a silver bullet

Many people see project-based hiring as the future of work. While I think we’re going to see more project-based hires in the future than the past, permanent hires aren’t going away anytime soon.

Despite the short-term economic benefits, project-based workers do have some shortcomings that could impact the business’s long-term success:

• A solely project-based focus can lead to tunnel vision, as those involved in the project can fail to see or understand the bigger picture
• Challenges with ownership and accountability, as project-based teams may fail to consider the consequences of their actions outside their designated scope
• Isolating certain workers to specific projects can result in skill redundancies and potential inefficiencies
• Some highly skilled workers may cost more hourly than salaried employees
• Permanent workers are necessary to build culture and institutional knowledge that can carry over to other projects

The key isn’t to go “all in” on project-based or permanent teams. It’s to choose the right hiring approach based on business strategy, marketing demand, and your organization’s current gaps.

Evaluating the need for project-based work

Today, outcomes matter more than org charts; filling “roles” is less important than hiring for specific skills. Project-based hiring offers flexibility in closing critical skill gaps. At the same time, permanent team members provide institutional knowledge, cultural fit, a more holistic view of the business, and, in some cases, more cost efficiency than some high-value contract roles.

How do you thread the needle? Here are some areas I urge our clients to think about when conducting their own staffing needs assessments.

Strategic & cultural assessment

Organizations looking to hire project-based workers typically focus on the short-term savings and agility, often to the detriment of the long term. A key question to ask before you even start your staffing needs assessment is: what kind of company do we want to build?

If one of your strategic objectives is stability and longevity, leaning too hard into project-based work may be counterproductive; likewise, if you don’t want a revolving-door culture. On the other hand, if you’re building a culture of innovation, it helps to have continual “fresh blood” bringing new skills and ideas with them.

Addressing these core questions provides a North Star that can help guide more specific, tactical decisions.

Assess your management style

Traditional management styles, workforce practices, systems, and processes have been built for employees, not contingent or external workers. For example:

• Onboarding and engagement is lengthy, tailored to long-term employees vs. workers who need to demonstrate immediate productivity and value
• Performance management centered on annual reviews and long-term career development, rather than more frequent project updates
• Focus on hiring for holistic job titles instead of more targeted skill-based hiring (although this is changing rapidly)
• Legacy workforce planning systems that encourage siloing between permanent and contingent workers
• Compliance and risk management systems that are built for employee protections and benefits, not the complex legal landscape of contingent labor

It’s important to consider whether your management and HR structure is built to handle contingent or contract labor. If you plug project-based workers into a system designed for permanent employees, you run the risk of inefficiencies and missed opportunities to improve productivity.

Perform a skill gap assessment

The next step is to perform a skill gap assessment: analyzing your current and future projects to determine which skills you need in the near- and long-term and figuring out which skills you are either unstaffed or understaffed on at present.

In addition to identifying skill gaps, it’s important to prioritize them. For instance, if you want to hire an AI engineer for a project with a twelve-month timeline, you need to start hiring now—as there’s a high demand for these skills and time-to-placement is longer. That hire should be top priority, while roles for future projects may take longer.

Map hiring and workforce decision to your needs

Once you have a clear idea of the strategic, cultural, and managerial picture, you’re in a better spot to map out your hiring and workforce needs. Here are some of the core questions we encourage clients to ask:

• Which skills apply to multiple projects vs. only needed for a short-term engagement?
• Are there groups of skills that can map onto the same role?
• What is the cost effectiveness of hiring contractors for certain skills vs. a full-time employee?
• In which roles or skills is the risk of a bad hire the highest, and temp-to-perm roles may be a better fit?
• What changes do we need to make to our internal processes to align with future workforce needs (and where do we need to bring in partners to augment those processes)?

Ongoing analysis and flexibility

One thing that’s constant about today’s market is change. External demands, internal dynamics, and strategic shifts may require you to change your workforce makeup. As such, make sure you’re constantly revisiting your decisions and validating them with ongoing real-time analytics and performance tracking. That way, you can make quick pivots to seize opportunities and avoid major problems.

The growing number of advanced staffing platforms, AI-driven matching, and remote work capabilities make it easier than ever to find, onboard, and manage temporary workers quickly and efficiently.

Final thoughts

These practices aren’t quick fixes: blind spots, knowledge gaps, and lack of experience with flexible staffing can get in the way of effectively building a project-based workforce. A partner like PEAK can provide a fresh perspective informed by decades of collective experience in IT, engineering, and professional staffing.

Rather than focusing on a particular placement, we’ll help you build a winning team, where every person, permanent, contingent, or contract, contributes to your strategic goals.

Want to learn more? Reach out to PEAK today to get started.