In 2024, the global Succession & Leadership Planning software market grew to $702 million, marking a 12.2% year-over-year increase. The top 10 vendors accounted for 64% of the total market. SAP led the pack with a 12.6% market share, followed by UKG, Workday, and Oracle.
Through our forecast period, the Succession & Leadership Planning applications market size is expected to reach $1 billion by 2029, compared with $702 million in 2024 at a CAGR of 7.2%.
Top 10 Succession & Leadership Planning Software Vendors in 2024 and their Market Shares
Source: Apps Run The World, July 2025
Other Succession and Leadership Planning software providers included in the report are ADP, Arcoro, Avature, Cegid, Constellation Software Inc., CatalystOne Solutions, Cezanne HR, ELMO Software, Empxtrack, Saigun Technologies, HITS Solutions, Haufe, HR Performance Solutions, Infor, Insperity, Inc., Ingentis, KNOLSKAPE, LG lugar de gente, LGI Health Solutions Formerly (Logibec Groupe Informatique), Madison Performance Group, MentorcliQ, MHR International Ltd, Nakisa, NEOGOV, P&I Personal & Informatik, PageUp, Paylocity, Phenom, Paycom, Paycor, Pilat HR, PowerSchool Group, Symphony Talent, ServiceNow, Sopra Steria, SD Worx, TalentQuest, TalentGuard, TEDS, INC., UNIT4, Workhuman, Zellis (ex NGA Human Resources UK & Ireland), and others.
Vendor Snapshot: Succession and Leadership Planning Market Leaders
SAP
SAP’s 2025 SuccessFactors release introduced over 250 enhancements, many AI-assisted, to its Succession and Development capabilities—expanding personalized career pathing, predictive readiness scoring, and low-code configuration of talent pools. The platform now more tightly links internal mobility with leadership pipeline modeling via real-time talent insights and scenario simulations, aiming to reduce succession risk and accelerate internal promotions. These updates, coupled with continued investment in machine learning across its talent management suite, reinforce SAP’s emphasis on adaptive leadership continuity in complex enterprises.
UKG
UKG has expanded its Pro Succession offering with enhanced AI-powered talent profiling and scenario modeling to improve leadership bench strength and internal mobility. The platform now supports intuitive, conversational interfaces and automated succession workflows that reduce manual oversight. UKG’s recent strategic partnerships and R&D investments underscore its commitment to embedding intelligent automation across talent lifecycle management.
Workday
Workday has incorporated advanced AI and data visualization into its Succession Planning product to provide dynamic scenario planning and talent readiness assessments. Its integration with broader Workday HCM workflows enables seamless talent mobility and development tracking. Workday’s roadmap highlights continued AI innovation and user experience enhancements to support strategic leadership continuity.
Oracle
Oracle has incorporated generative and traditional AI into its Cloud HCM succession planning workflows, enabling automated identification of high-potential successors, contextual “fit” recommendations, and scenario modeling to anticipate leadership gaps. Its broader AI for HCM initiative emphasizes decision support—balancing predictive talent insights with guardrails around fairness and explainability—to strengthen continuity planning across business units. Continued investment in cloud infrastructure and integration across workforce planning further situates succession as connected to enterprise talent strategy.
Dayforce
Dayforce integrates AI-driven talent recommendations, readiness scoring, and career development planning into a unified succession workflow. Recent product updates include role-based dashboards, enhanced reporting, and tighter links between succession, payroll, and performance data. This consolidation supports faster, data-driven decisions for leadership appointments.
Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone links succession planning with AI-driven skills gap analysis, personalized leadership development, and pipeline health visualization. Configurable successor selection criteria and integration with learning content allow targeted upskilling for high-potential talent. Product innovation continues to focus on improving talent intelligence and adaptability within dynamic workforce environments.
SHL
SHL continues to position its succession and enterprise leader development solutions around real-time, data-driven talent assessments combining psychometric science with scenario planning. The platform’s capabilities support agile pipeline decisions by surfacing best-fit successors across contexts, backed by validated leadership behavior analytics and development insights that aim to increase leader adaptability. SHL’s focus remains on improving succession accuracy through machine-learning-enhanced predictive assessments and integrating those insights into scalable development programs.
Paycom
Paycom has expanded its Position Management and Succession Planning capabilities with AI-enhanced talent profiling and real-time succession scenario planning. Emphasizing automation and user-centric design, Paycom aims to reduce administrative complexity while improving leadership pipeline visibility. Recent enhancements align with its broader vision to integrate AI-driven HR processes for strategic workforce management.
Gloat
Gloat released Agile Workforce OS 2.0 in 2024, enhancing its internal talent marketplace with new AI-powered Skills Planner and Studio tools that provide in-the-moment succession insights, talent pool activation, and dynamic role readiness assessments. The platform uses continuous AI-driven talent matching and the Major Workforce Graph to surface successors, skill transferability, and mobility opportunities while enabling real-time adjustment of leadership pipelines. Recognition on growth lists and awards, along with integrations like the Microsoft 365 Copilot agent, underscore its positioning as an AI-native engine for agile succession and internal career development.
ARTW Technographics Platform: Succession and Leadership Planning customer wins
Since 2010, our research team has been studying the patterns of Succession and Leadership Planning software purchases, analyzing customer behavior and vendor performance through continuous win/loss analysis. Updated quarterly, the ARTW Technographics Platform provides deep insights into thousands of Succession and Leadership Planning customer wins and losses, helping users monitor competitive shifts, evaluate vendor momentum, and make informed go-to-market decisions.
List of Succession and Leadership Planning customers
Source: ARTW Buyer Insights Technographic Database
Custom data cuts related to the Succession and Leadership Planning Applications market are available:
- Top 100+ Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Vendors and Market Forecast 2024-2029
- 2024 Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Market By Vertical Market (21 Industry)
- 2024 Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Market By Country (USA + 45 countries)
- 2024 Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Market By Region (Americas, EMEA, APAC)
- 2024 Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Market By Revenue Type (License, Services, Hardware, Support and Maintenance, Cloud)
- 2024 Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Market By Customer Size (revenue, employee count, asset)
- 2024 Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Market By Channel (Direct vs Indirect)
- 2024 Succession and Leadership Planning Applications Market By Product
Through our forecast period, the HCM applications market is expected to reach $81.1 billion by 2029, compared with $58.7 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate of 11.7%.
Through our forecast period, the Core HR and Talent Management applications market, which is comprised of nine subsegments, is expected to reach $48.6 billion by 2029, compared with $35.5 billion in 2024 expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 11.6%. For the Top 10 vendors in each of the nine subsegments, please check their own index page by following the link below.
Through our forecast period, the Talent Acquisition applications market, which is comprised of six subsegments, is expected to reach $20.3 billion by 2029, compared with $14.5 billion in 2024 expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 11.7%. For the Top 10 vendors in each of the six subsegments, please check their own index page by following the link below.
Through our forecast period, the Workforce Management applications market, which is comprised of six subsegments, is expected to reach $12.1 billion by 2029, compared with $8.7 billion in 2024 expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1%. For the Top 10 vendors in each of the six subsegments, please check their own index page by following the link below.
Our HCM Top 500 research team also tracks Time Clock Hardware vendors separately by zeroing in on their embedded software as well as their extensive use of OEM and distribution partners.
Exhibit 3: Worldwide HCM Software Market 2024-2029 Forecast, $M
Source: Apps Run The World, July 2025
Exhibit 4 shows our projections for the HCM enterprise applications market by HCM sub-segment, based on the buying preferences and the customer propensity to invest in new software within those industries as they continue to upgrade and replace many legacy industry-specific applications that have been identified and tracked in our Buyer Insight Database.
Methodology
Similar to any of the hundreds of reports that we have published since 2010, HCM Top 500 is a labor of love. Since 2013, our team of researchers have been conducting rigorous research on thousands of HCM vendors, surveying them quarterly, reviewing their products at even shorter intervals because of the compressed Cloud release cycle, and discussing HR vision with their customers to better understand user needs as well as different paths to upgrade and replace their existing systems.
Each year we also attend many industry-wide and vendor-specific user conferences – HR Tech, Dreamforce, SAPPHIRENOW, Oracle Open World, just to name a few, to gauge what customers are looking for.
Throughout this process comes a rich database of more than 2,000 HCM vendors as well as over 50,000 HCM customers that have been touched one form or another through regular surveys, phone and in-person interviews, email exchanges, and social media interactions, etc.
On a proactively basis, we contact the vendors directly to tabulate their latest quarterly and annual revenues by HCM segment, vertical market, revenue type, region, country and customer size.
We supplement their written responses with our own primary research to determine quarterly and yearly growth rates in each of the 22 segments and 21 verticals, in addition to customer wins to ascertain whether these are net new purchases or expansions of existing implementations.
Another dimension of our quantitative research process is through continuous improvement of our customer database, which stores more than one million records on the enterprise software landscape of over 100,000 organizations around the world.
The database provides customer insight and contextual information on what types of HCM, enterprise software systems and other relevant technologies are they running and their propensity to invest further with their current or new suppliers as part of their overall HCM and IT transformation projects to stay competitive, fend off threats from disruptive forces, or comply with internal mandates to improve overall enterprise efficiency.
The result is a combination of supply-side data and demand-generation customer insight that allows our clients to better position themselves in anticipation of the next wave that will reshape the HCM marketplace for years to come.
HCM Market Taxonomy
Definition of Human Capital Management (HCM) Applications
Core HR and Performance Management
| Core HR and Performance Management | Description |
|---|---|
| Personnel and Organization Management | Core human resource management system, personnel records, HR master file, accruals, organizational development, org chart visualization |
| Payroll | Payroll processing, tax filing, language support, country-level updates, payslip calculations, automatic deductions and other government requirements for proper disbursement of employee compensation. |
| Benefits Administration | Benefits and health administration. Plan and design benefits lifecycle, billing and payment. Carrier solutions are also included for integration purposes. |
| Pension Administration | Pension and retirement fund(401K) administration as well as software that helps manage profit sharing plan, defined benefit plan, or cash balance plan. |
| Compliance | Compliance, regulatory updates and reporting including such laws as Affordable Care Act, Overtime Regulations, Fair Labor Standards Act |
| Performance and Goal Management | HR performance management applications are designed to automate the aggregation and delivery of information pertinent to the linking of job roles and the mission and goals of the organization. More specifically, the system allows users to automate the performance review process by using mechanisms such as training and key performance indicators to continuously track and monitor the progress of an individual employee, work team, and division. Some of the key features include: Assessment of individual career objectives and organizational skills gaps that impede performance and job advancement. Continuous reviews and establishing milestones. 360-degree evaluation and real-time feedback. Performance appraisal automation. Goal setting and tracking. Employee surveys. Alignment of human assets to corporate objectives. Fast tracks for top performers. |
| Learning and Development | Learning management systems refer to applications that automate the administration, tracking, and reporting of training events. Other tools may include courseware and other delivery, management, tracking, or integrated solutions whose focus is on the learning environment, including learning content management systems. Career development tools include apps for coaching, mentoring, employee development planning, and diagnosing of development needs. |
| Succession and Leadership Planning | Identify and address current and potential talent gaps to create succession management reporting. Develop and maintain a continuous supply of internal talent to fill critical job roles. Improve employee engagement through digital tools to advance career path development opportunities. |
| Compensation Management | Compensation management applications are designed to automate the process of providing cash, noncash, variable and nonvariable compensation to employees through advanced modeling, reporting, and built-in interfacing to payroll processing systems. Other key features include seamlessly manage compensation budgets and allocation in a single, shared tool. Streamline pay recommendation workflows and approvals. Support multiple pay and incentive practices. Ensure budget compliance and adherence to compensation guidelines. Quota and territory management. Calculation and distribution of commissions, spiffs, royalties, incentives to employees, and channel and business partners. Compensation analysis using internal and external data for retention risk analysis. Linking salary, commission and incentives — cash and noncash — to business objectives. Payroll and payment engine interfaces. Account payables integration. |
Talent Acquisition
| Talent Acquisition | Description |
|---|---|
| Applicant Tracking | Applicant tracking software automates such functions as management of resumes, applicant information, scoring, workflow, matching, search, interview scheduling, job descriptions, EEOC reporting, job postings and notifications |
| Recruiting | Recruiting applications are designed to automate the recruitment process of salaried and hourly employees through screening and skills assessment, as well as automated selection processes to improve hiring pipeline by identifying talent inside or outside the organization. Other key features include: Manage skills inventories. Create and manage job requisitions. Coordinate team collaboration within hiring processes. Video Interviewing, team building and digital coaching. |
| Candidate Relationship Management | Applications designed to attract and engage candidates and employees. Other tasks automate functions such as candidate relationship management apps, career site technology, social recruiting, employee referrals, branding, video engagement, campus recruiting and internal hiring |
| Contingent Labor Management | Processing of hiring of contingent labor, search, skills matching, assessment, interview scheduling, negotiation of rates, approvals, project milestone payments, project completion tracking, performance ratings |
| Sourcing | Facilitate resource planning for staffing firms as well as vendor managed system, allowing for front office integration for employment agencies as well as talent acquisition apps designed for staffing firms. |
| Onboarding | Applications designed to deploy workers to appropriate jobs, projects, or teams for accelerated on-boarding. |
Workforce Management
| Workforce Management | Description |
|---|---|
| Absence and Leave Management | Absence management applications offer automated features to support employee leave management, employer authorized leave, Short-Term-Disability/Workers’ Comp coordination, federal and state compliance, customized leave correspondence, medical certification processing, insurance premium payment tracking as well as employee self-service capabilities. Leave Management supports compliance activities related to government regulations such as the Family and Medical Leave Act in the United States and other local leave laws in different countries. |
| Workforce analytics | Workforce analytics are used to analyze compensation, benefits, and other employee variables. These applications can also be used to analyze and optimize labor allocation for particular projects. |
| Fatigue Management | Fatigue Management apps help automate key facets of fatigue risk mitigation, enforcing employee work-hour limits and aligning with fitness for duty best practices. Similar apps may act as electronic work diaries for real-time reporting and compliance with transportation laws. |
| Hardware (Time Clock) | Time capture is the hardware platform that provides authentication features for clock-in and clock-out times, meal and rest breaks, as well as timesheet and payroll reporting and compliance. |
| Scheduling | Products are designed to Increase forecasting accuracy by factoring in a variety of methods and historical patterns. Create optimal schedules to meet customer demands, while reducing costs and maximizing resources |
| Task Management | Task Management offers labor management capabilities such as task-based and project-based activity tracking as well as measurement and reporting functions against performance standards like engineered labor standards, team standards and reflective standards. |
| Time & Attendance | Time and Attendance applications are designed to automate employee time tracking in different locations, help reduce overtime expenses, improve payroll accuracy, eliminate pay errors and adjustments, along with the need to simplify and optimize administrative tasks and complex rate calculations by making available accurate and current labor data and full audit trail of payroll data. |
- Internet Archive, a United States based Non Profit organization with 169 Employees
- PricewaterhouseCoopers, a United Kingdom based Professional Services company with 370000 Employees
- University Of Saarland, a Germany based Education organization with 375 Employees
| Logo | Company | Industry | Employees | Revenue | Country | Evaluated |
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