London, 16 September 2025 – UK-based startup, BenchBee, has launched the first talent sharing economy for IT consultancies, providing a solution to the industry’s growing skills shortage. The platform, which was founded by CEO Hassen Hattab, allows consultancies to monetize their ‘bench’ consultants, reduce recruitment costs, and respond quickly to project demands.
BenchBee offers a dynamic and skills-rich community where member organisations can collaborate by subcontracting available talent within a trusted ecosystem. This approach turns idle bench time into profitable revenue streams, providing a vital solution for the current market landscape where hiring freezes, budget cuts, and skills shortages are putting delivery under intense pressure.
“This isn’t just another job board – it’s an entirely new category of talent sharing that disrupts the traditional recruitment model,” says Hattab. “We’ve created a member-driven ecosystem where consultancies can connect, match available talent to project needs in real-time, and access hidden talent pools that traditional recruitment simply can’t reach. It’s a smarter way to fill skills gaps and unlock underused expertise that would otherwise remain invisible.”
According to a report by IDC, IT skills shortages are expected to affect 90% of organisations by 2026, resulting in an estimated cost of $5.5 trillion (£4.18 trillion) to the global economy. As demand for niche expertise continues to surge, consultancies can no longer afford to have highly skilled professionals sitting idle between projects. In the UK, the average IT consultant spends 15-20% of their time on the bench, fully employed but not generating revenue. For a consultancy with 500 consultants, this translates to £15.3 million in lost revenue per year. That figure reaches an eye-watering £3.06 billion in non-billable hours annually.
The traditional recruitment channels that consultancies rely on are broken, with agencies charging 15-20% placement fees on inflated salaries but rarely delivering the niche skills companies need, when they need them. The best talent is already working and invisible to traditional hiring channels, leaving consultancies with limited options: pay expensive recruitment fees, take risks on unknown freelancers, or watch projects collapse while perfect candidates sit unused elsewhere in the industry.
“After more than a decade in the industry, I kept seeing the same problem,” says Hattab. “One organisation has brilliant people on the bench. Another is losing work due to a lack of skills. The old system doesn’t work anymore. Consultancies need agile access to skills, not lengthy recruitment processes. BenchBee directly connects those dots, providing businesses with the skills they need while dramatically reducing costs.”
BenchBee’s collaborative, consultancy resource sharing model solves three of the industry’s biggest challenges: monetising underused consultants, accessing hidden talent pools, and eliminating recruitment inefficiencies. Instead of competing for scarce talent, BenchBee enables members to share and monetize underutilized consultants during bench periods, while accessing specialized skills from trusted peers when needed.
Vetted consultancies can join the secure network and subcontract talent as required. A flat membership fee replaces costly commissions, providing predictable costs and real-time access to pre-qualified professionals already working in the industry.
As the IT skills shortage intensifies and economic pressures grow, BenchBee empowers consultancies to take control, maximize their existing talent, protect margins, and move faster in an increasingly competitive market.
“This isn’t just better recruitment; it’s a completely different approach to uncovering unseen and underused talent,” summarizes Hattab. “It’s an entirely new way for companies to work together and share expertise. BenchBee is talent sharing for the real world: faster, smarter, and built around how consultancies actually operate.”