Identifying Non-Technical Skill Gaps in Software Engineering Education: What Experts Expect But Students Don't Learn

As the importance of non-technical skills in the software engineering industry increases, the skill sets of graduates match less and less with industry expectations. A growing body of research exists that attempts to identify this skill gap. However, only few so far explicitly compare opinions of the industry with what is currently being taught in academia. By aggregating data from three previous works, we identify the three biggest non-technical skill gaps between industry and academia for the field of software engineering: devoting oneself to continuous learning, being creative by approaching a problem from different angles, and thinking in a solution-oriented way by favoring outcome over ego. Eight follow-up interviews were conducted to further explore how the industry perceives these skill gaps, yielding 26 sub-themes grouped into six bigger themes: stimulating continuous learning, stimulating creativity, creative techniques, addressing the gap in education, skill requirements in industry, and the industry selection process. With this work, we hope to inspire educators to give the necessary attention to the uncovered skills, further mitigating the gap between the industry and the academic world.