Yes—NaaS can ease a network skills gap when a provider contractually takes on specific work your team cannot cover, such as monitoring, troubleshooting, updates, or network engineering. It is a way to supplement a stretched team, not proof that you can eliminate internal networking expertise. The result depends on what the service actually includes and whether your organization retains enough visibility and control to govern it.
What NaaS can—and cannot—mean
Network as a Service (NaaS) is not a consistent list of managed duties. Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) describes it as a cloud-consumption model that can shift networking expenditure from capital spending toward pay-as-you-go or subscription spending while outsourcing aspects of network operations. Offerings may cover cloud and WAN interconnectivity, managed SD-WAN or SASE, WAN connectivity, data-center networking, or campus switching and Wi-Fi. EMA notes there is no consensus on which network types the term covers. EMA’s NaaS research
For a skills-gap decision, focus on the specific work and accountability in the service agreement, not the NaaS label. A provider might handle design and build, or it might also take responsibility for monitoring, troubleshooting, updates, and change management. A service that only supplies connectivity will not fill an engineering or operations gap by itself.
Which network skills gaps are most commonly reported?
In EMA’s 2024 survey of 250 enterprise stakeholders in North America and Europe, respondents identified these gaps in their network infrastructure and operations teams:
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| Skill area | Respondents reporting a gap |
|---|---|
| Network security, including policy management | 44.0% |
| Monitoring, troubleshooting, and ongoing optimization | 37.6% |
| Cloud networking, such as AWS and Azure | 35.6% |
| Network automation, including Python and commercial tools | 34.8% |
| WAN engineering, including SD-WAN and routing | 30.8% |
| Data-center network engineering, including EVPN-VXLAN and SDN overlays | 29.2% |
| DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI) | 20.4% |
| Wi-Fi engineering | 11.2% |
| None of the listed gaps | 2.0% |
These are survey respondents’ perceptions, not a count of vacancies or a universal measurement of workforce skills. The findings also varied by role and region: security gaps were especially apparent to cybersecurity respondents and could be missed by IT executives; middle managers were particularly concerned about cloud networking; and technical staff were more likely than executives or middle managers to identify DDI gaps. Monitoring and troubleshooting concerns were more pronounced in midsized organizations with 2,500 to 9,999 employees and among North American respondents than European ones. EMA’s 2024 report
How delegating work can help a constrained team
The practical mechanism is transferring defined operational tasks to a provider with the people and expertise to perform them. If a team lacks monitoring capacity, for example, a managed service that includes monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimization may cover part of that shortfall. If its weak point is cloud networking or WAN engineering, the service must explicitly include the corresponding design and operational expertise.
EMA research leader Shamus McGillicuddy said that only 32% of surveyed respondents felt their organization had enough networking talent to support any task or project that arose. That is a finding from EMA’s 2024 research, not a current universal workforce statistic. It points to why teams may need to prioritize work; it does not show that NaaS has reduced backlogs or vacancies. Network World’s report of McGillicuddy’s remarks
Delegation can also let existing employees shift toward work that remains strategically important. McGillicuddy identified end-user experience, AI initiatives, cloud transformation, and network automation as areas where staff might be redirected. Cisco similarly argues that reducing repetitive work can free network professionals for higher-value tasks. These are arguments for redeploying staff—not evidence that NaaS guarantees headcount reductions or savings. Cisco’s NaaS guidance
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Where NaaS does not remove the skills requirement
Outsourcing execution does not make internal oversight unnecessary. Your organization still needs people who can define requirements, judge whether the provider is meeting them, understand the operational information supplied, and make decisions about risk and security responsibilities. EMA identifies visibility into service quality and security concerns as roadblocks to NaaS adoption. EMA’s NaaS research
In particular, clarify who approves security-policy changes, handles threat remediation, and authorizes network changes. A contract may assign some execution to a provider without transferring your organization’s decision-making responsibility or removing the need for informed review.
How to delegate without surrendering needed control
Cisco describes a gradual approach: a company might first delegate patching and updates while keeping security-policy and threat-remediation decisions in-house or with a trusted partner, then consider shifting more functions as governance and confidence develop. This is vendor guidance, not a universal standard; use a contract-specific security review to decide what is appropriate for your environment. Cisco’s NaaS guidance
Before signing, make the division of work and accountability explicit. Compare providers against these questions:
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- Scope: Which sites, networks, engineering tasks, and day-two operations are included? Are design, monitoring, troubleshooting, updates, and change management covered, or only some of them?
- Responsibility and control: Who monitors, troubleshoots, approves changes, sets security policy, and remediates threats? Which decisions remain with your team, and which are delegated?
- Visibility and service quality: What operational information can your team access? What service-level commitments, reporting, and escalation paths let you evaluate performance?
- Integration and transition: How will the service work with your existing networks and systems? Can you move responsibilities in phases rather than all at once?
- Provider fit and cost model: Is a carrier focused on network transport or a hyperscaler associated with cloud-hosted workloads better suited to the need? How does consumption pricing work, and what would dependence on one provider mean for you?
Transition complexity, integration with existing systems, and uncertainty about consumption pricing can complicate adoption, according to ISG. EMA also identifies service-quality visibility and security as concerns, so these should be addressed in the operating model and agreement rather than assumed away. ISG’s NaaS study EMA’s NaaS research
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What current adoption figures do—and do not—show
ISG’s 2026 study of 200 senior network decision-makers at enterprises with more than 1,000 employees across the Americas and Europe found that 61% had adopted NaaS at least partially, while 1% described their environment as fully mature, service-based, and continuously optimized. ISG also reports that respondents favor provider-supported models balancing self-service, governance, and operational risk. These figures describe adoption and maturity, not NaaS’s measured effect on skills shortages. ISG’s 2026 study
ISG’s June 2026 release separately says 60% had broadly or partially adopted NaaS and 31% were piloting or evaluating it. Those categories are phrased differently from the report page’s at-least-partial figure, so they should not be combined as though they were the same measure. ISG distinguishes carrier NaaS, which connects workloads and can optimize network paths, from hyperscaler offerings associated with cloud-hosted workloads. Provider type matters because the two may serve different parts of an enterprise’s technology stack. ISG’s June 2026 release
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