Private Equity Talent Outlook: Q4 2025 Reflections & Q1 2026 Priorities

Written By Liam Grier

2025 Was About Execution. 2026 Will Reward the Teams Built to Compound.

Across our Q1 to Q3 2025 Talent Outlooks, the signals were consistent. Execution pressure arrived early. Carve-outs and integrations pulled delivery work forward. The market moved from ambition to ROI, sequencing and value proof.

By Q4, the picture was clear: value creation did not wait for exits to fully reopen. While parts of the exit market improved marginally late in the year, liquidity remained uneven and behaviour adjusted accordingly.

Two dynamics stood out.

First, continuation vehicles moved firmly into the mainstream, shaping how sponsors think about ownership horizons, governance and operating cadence.

Second, AI adoption widened rapidly, while scaled delivery lagged. The constraint was rarely the technology. It sat in operating models, integration, governance and execution capacity.

This report looks back at what held, what surprised us and what that means for talent in 2026.

What We Called Correctly in 2025

1. Delivery pressure arrived early, even as exit timelines stretched

In Q1, we expected execution work to pull forward, driven by carve-outs, integration complexity, and longer hold realities. That played out.

Even as IPO activity and announced M&A showed early signs of recovery towards the end of 2025, sponsors continued to manage portfolios conservatively. Exit routes reopened unevenly, and many assets remained held longer than originally underwritten (J.P. Morgan, Eye on the Market Outlook 2026).

The result was consistent. Most teams behaved as if ownership would extend, raising the bar on delivery certainty and operational momentum.

2. Execution overtook ambition

By Q2, the market was moving at two speeds. Deal processes slowed and budgets tightened, but operational pressure did not ease.

That logic held throughout H2. Sponsors focused more sharply on sequencing, ROI, and time-to-impact. Delivery plans narrowed. Ownership became clearer. The question shifted from ‘what could be done’ to ‘what could be delivered in the next 90 to 180 days’.

3. Proof mattered more than potential

As momentum returned in Q3, tolerance for narrative dropped.

Leaders were expected to demonstrate impact. Specialist talent consistently outperformed generalists, particularly across: finance infrastructure, transformation, integration, data and commercial acceleration.

What Surprised Us

AI moved faster in conversation than in delivery

AI featured in almost every board and portfolio discussion. Adoption widened quickly. Scaled execution lagged.

McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI captures the gap clearly:

  • 88% of organisations report using AI in at least one business function.

  • McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI research suggests that, for most organisations, AI has yet to materially affect enterprise-wide profitability. While 39% of respondents attribute some level of EBIT impact to AI, the majority of those report that less than 5% of total EBIT is attributable to AI use, indicating that financial impact remains limited at an enterprise level (McKinsey & Company, The State of AI in 2025).

  • McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI research shows that 23% of organisations report scaling agentic AI in at least one business function, defined as expanding deployment and adoption within that function. A further 39% say they are experimenting with AI agents, highlighting that while interest is widespread, scaled deployment remains limited and function-specific (McKinsey & Company, The State of AI in 2025).

Where delivery stalled, the causes were consistent:

  • Integration remained the primary bottleneck. 57% of leaders cite integration with existing systems as the top risk when scaling AI (Accenture, The new rules of platform strategy in the age of agentic AI).

  • Operating model and enablement gaps persisted. Accenture also highlights insufficient training programmes (51%) and limited training budgets (47%) as key barriers to scaling AI. These explain why adoption and delivery slow. Where teams lack skills, clarity, or support, hesitation is a rational response rather than resistance.

The differentiator in 2025 was not speed. It was judgement. Knowing when to move, how to sequence, and who to bring in to execute protected and created value.

The Continuation Vehicle Effect

Ownership horizons lengthened, and talent strategy moved earlier

Continuation vehicles did not resolve the exit challenge. They deferred it. In doing so, they reshaped behaviour.

Across private markets research, secondaries and GP-led solutions became core liquidity tools:

  • Secondaries volumes are approaching $200bn in 2025, reflecting the scale at which continuation vehicles and GP-led transactions are now operating within private markets (Goldman Sachs, Global M&A Outlook 2026).

  • LP-led secondaries volume reached $56bn in H1 2025, up 40% year on year, reflecting increased use of the secondaries market by limited partners as a proactive portfolio management and liquidity tool (BlackRock, Private Markets Outlook 2026).

    34% of GP-led deals included cross-fund commitments into continuation vehicles in H1 2025, highlighting the growing use of continuation structures by sponsors to retain exposure to high-conviction assets while extending ownership (BlackRock, Private Markets Outlook 2026).

  • Continuation vehicles are now viewed as a structural feature of the market, rather than a short-term or cyclical response to constrained exits, signalling a shift in how sponsors and LPs think about holding periods and value realisation (Goldman Sachs, Global M&A Outlook 2026).

In practice, this reinforced a simple reality. When sponsors chose to retain assets, they committed to continued execution.

This shift showed up clearly in hiring behaviour we saw across large and mid-cap sponsors, including those operating at the scale of KKR, Apollo, Advent, and Vista:

  • Execution-critical roles were strengthened earlier in hold periods

  • Greater emphasis was placed on leadership teams with repeatable PE operating experience

  • Interim and specialist operators were deployed more deliberately, injecting capability without locking in long-term structures before value creation was de-risked

Talent increasingly sat at the centre of downside protection as well as upside delivery.

What This Means for Talent in 2026

The next cycle will reward operating depth and delivery discipline

If 2025 marked the shift from ambition to value proof, 2026 looks set to separate AI-aware portfolios from AI-executing ones, and loose operating models from repeatable platforms.

Three forces anchor that outlook:

1. Private capital will continue to shape how value is created

Flexible ownership structures are becoming more prevalent as sponsors adapt to constrained exits and uneven liquidity. Rather than forcing timing-driven outcomes, private capital is increasingly underwriting longer ownership horizons, sustained governance, and continued reinvestment. That places greater weight on leadership teams capable of delivering performance over extended cycles, rather than only preparing assets for sale.

2. Secondaries and continuation vehicles are extending ownership horizons and raising the execution bar

The continued growth of secondaries and GP-led continuation vehicles reinforces a longer-hold mindset across private markets. These structures prioritise compounding value through operational performance rather than crystallising returns through exit timing alone. As ownership periods extend, the cost of weak execution rises, and talent decisions are being pulled earlier into the lifecycle to protect downside and support sustained delivery.

3. Agentic AI is shifting platform strategy into operating model design

As agentic AI adoption moves from experimentation to targeted scale, value is increasingly determined by how effectively organisations redesign workflows, governance, and decision-making structures around it. Accenture’s research is clear that integration, enablement, and operating model readiness, not tool selection, determine outcomes. In 2026, AI advantage will accrue to organisations that embed execution capability into the core of how work gets done.

2026 hiring demand: where pressure is building

  1. AI delivery owners

    Demand will concentrate on operators who can integrate AI into workflows, manage governance, and measure enterprise impact, rather than advise on strategy.

  2. Platform and integration leaders

    As agentic systems expand, integration and data foundations remain the constraint. Transformation leaders who can modernise platforms and drive cadence across business and technology will remain in demand.

  3. Finance, data, and performance infrastructure

    Longer holds increase the cost of weak reporting, dashboards, and unit economics. CFO organisations, FP&A, and value creation offices will continue to see hiring pressure.

  4. Interim as a strategic lever

    Interim and contract leaders will remain central to sequencing and speed, particularly where portfolios need rapid capability injection without permanent cost expansion.

  5. Change leaders who can drive adoption

    Enablement, process change, and governance will differentiate outcomes as AI deployment deepens.

2026 Priorities

How sponsors and portfolio leaders should respond

  • Treat AI as an operating model change. Redesign workflows, assign ownership, and measure impact at enterprise level

  • Build delivery capability earlier. Longer ownership raises the cost of delay

  • Strengthen foundations. Integration, data, and platform readiness gate scale

  • Use interim talent to de-risk sequencing. Inject capability, build momentum, and leave portfolios stronger

  • Raise the standard on value proof. In 2026, exploratory narratives will not hold

My Final Thoughts

2025 reinforced a shift that is now embedded.

Private equity is moving further away from exit timing as the primary lever and towards compounding performance through longer ownership, with higher expectations on operating depth. Continuation vehicles accelerated that mindset. AI increased pressure and exposed gaps between ambition and delivery.

In 2026, the edge will come from judgement, sequencing, and execution capability. Firms that build teams to deliver consistently will define the next cycle in this period of Alpha.

At inicio talent, we partner with funds and portfolio companies to deploy operators, transformation leaders, and interim specialists who build, integrate, and deliver measurable outcomes across the UK, Europe, and the US.

Create. Achieve. Partner.

Further Reading

Liam Grier
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Private Equity Talent Outlook: Q3 2025 Reflections & Q4 Priorities