Rich Wilson & Davie Gow, The 40-40-20 Workforce: From Theory to Reality at Arnold Clark

The 80-20 workforce model is dead. Rich Wilson, CEO of Gigged.AI, says we're headed for 40-40-20: 40% full-time, 40% contingent, 20% AI agents. And Davie Gow, CTO at Arnold Clark, is actually building it inside one of the UK's largest family-run businesses.

Gigged.AI built a blended workforce platform that lets enterprises tap into on-demand talent through outcome-based statements of work, not just day-rate contracts. Arnold Clark uses it to bring in specialized tech talent for projects ranging from Umbraco migrations to mobile app development, all while keeping procurement, legal, and compliance teams comfortable.

We're building Human Cloud to solve the same problem from the buyer's side: helping companies discover, compare, and deploy the right flexible talent solutions in minutes instead of months.

In this episode, Rich and Davie share:

• Why the 40-40-20 workforce model is replacing the old 80-20 split, and what that means for every CHRO and CTO listening
• How Davie transformed Arnold Clark from "we don't use contractors" to a scalable on-demand talent program in under two years
• The IR35 compliance framework that got Arnold Clark's legal and accounting teams to say yes to outcome-based contracting
• Why the biggest blocker to workforce innovation isn't technology, it's procurement teams who weren't brought on the journey early enough
• How AI agent adoption follows the exact same organizational playbook as contractor adoption, and why solving one accelerates the other

Rich Wilson is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gigged.AI, previously at Gartner and the Allegis Group, with deep expertise in contingent staffing and future of work advisory. Davie Gow is the CTO at Arnold Clark with 40 years in technology, including 20 years as an independent contractor and senior roles at Lidos and Lockheed Martin.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

About Human Cloud: We help companies find and deploy the right flexible talent solutions in minutes instead of months. We automate discovery, compliance, and orchestration across 1,000+ workforce platforms so business teams move fast, procurement teams stay in control, and rogue contractor spend turns into a strategic advantage.