Microsoft surveyed 500 UK business leaders and found that a knowledge of IT was seen as the seventh most important workplace skill.
Instead, team working and interpersonal skills were seen as the core factors, followed by initiative.
Speaking to the BBC Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said IT skills were needed from the shop floor to the chief executive.
“In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively."
Yet in an article written for the BBC News website, Gates added that team work was also a core requisite for success in the software industry.
“Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs," he said.
In third place in the survey behind team working and interpersonal skills, and initiative, was analysing and problem solving.
This was followed by verbal communication, personal planning and organising, flexibility, and IT skills in seventh place.
Microsoft's survey was conducted to mark the first anniversary of the Leitch report into overcoming the skills gap in the UK economy.
The Top 7 Skills
1. Team working and interpersonal skills
2. Initiative
3. Analysing and problem solving
4. Verbal communication
5. Personal planning and organising
6. Flexibility
7. IT skills