career advice

The Career Moat: How To Make Yourself Too Valuable To Let Go (Even During Layoffs)

The Career Moat: How To Make Yourself Too Valuable To Let Go (Even During Layoffs)

There’s a fear that sits quietly in the background for a lot of people. It’s not the fear of being made redundant tomorrow. It’s the fear that if that happened, your absence wouldn’t really cause a ripple. That the business would carry on just fine without you. That nobody would need to fight to keep you.

And it’s not a completely irrational fear either. I’ve worked in recruitment for over two decades, and I’ve seen this play out far too often. It doesn’t matter how well liked you are, how long you’ve been with the company, or how solid your performance reviews have been. When budgets get cut, restructures land, or strategic shifts happen, the people who stay aren’t always the top performers. They’re often the ones who are hardest to replace.

And that’s where this idea of a “career moat” comes in.

Because the people who end up keeping their jobs, even in the middle of sweeping changes, usually have something that makes them difficult to remove. They’re embedded in ways that go beyond just doing their job well. And if you want real job security, in a world where traditional job security barely exists anymore, this is where your focus should be.

What a Career Moat Is (And Isn’t)

The term “moat” gets thrown around a lot in investing circles. Warren Buffett talks about companies with strong economic moats — meaning they’ve got something that protects them from the competition. That could be brand strength, proprietary data, exclusive partnerships, or anything else that gives them an unfair advantage.

The same logic applies to people. A career moat is what protects your role and reputation, even when the business is under pressure. It’s the combination of skills, credibility, and connections that makes replacing you either difficult, expensive, or a risk nobody wants to take.

It’s not about being busy or doing more. It’s about being known for doing something important. Something useful. Something that, if removed, would cause pain. Because if your name ends up on a list of people at risk, you want someone to speak up and say, “We can’t afford to lose them.”

That’s what a career moat gives you. It doesn’t make you untouchable, but it gives you defensibility. Options. Leverage. And confidence.

Why Job Security Has Shifted

Job security used to mean staying somewhere for 10 or 20 years and moving up the ladder. Those days are gone. Now, companies are leaner, more cost-driven, and far more reactive to economic conditions. Entire functions get outsourced. Layers of management get removed. Whole teams disappear because priorities change.

Even if you’re performing well, that might not be enough. Good performance won’t always save you if the business sees your role as replaceable, automatable, or simply non-essential.

And that’s the shift most people still haven’t fully adjusted to. Job security is no longer provided by your employer. It’s provided by your positioning within your employer. It’s how you’ve made yourself valuable, visible, and connected. And that’s where the work lies.

So how do you build it?

The Three Layers of a Strong Career Moat

Think of your career moat as having three layers. Each one adds depth and makes you harder to replace. If you can strengthen all three, you dramatically improve your chances of not just surviving the next round of cuts, but thriving in your career over the long term.

1. Skills – What You Can Do

This is the foundation, but not all skills carry the same weight. You can split them into three categories:

  • Commodity skills – widely available and easily automated. Think basic admin, entry-level reporting, low-level data entry. These don’t provide much protection.
  • Transitional skills – still valuable now, but may not be in three years. This includes knowledge of certain tools or systems that could be replaced or phased out.
  • Enduring skills – timeless capabilities that continue to add value even as technology and industries evolve. Communication, influence, stakeholder management, adaptability, problem solving.

If you’re not sure where your current skill set falls, ask yourself this: could what you do every day be replaced by software, outsourcing, or a cheaper hire in the next three years? If the answer is yes, then your moat isn’t as deep as you think.

To strengthen this layer, focus less on breadth and more on depth and relevance. Don’t just chase certifications or technical skills for the sake of it. Focus on learning that compounds. And keep track of your outcomes — not just your responsibilities. Being able to show how your work made things better, faster, cheaper, or more efficient is far more compelling than simply listing what you do.

2. Reputation – What People Say When You’re Not in the Room

Reputation is one of the most overlooked assets in a career. And it’s usually built in the day-to-day, not through big moments.

When people talk about you internally, what comes up? If your name is raised in a meeting, is there a clear understanding of what you’re known for? If not, your reputation isn’t doing much to protect you.

Ideally, your name should be attached to a sentence. Something specific. Something helpful. Things like:

  • “She’s the one who sorts the chaos.”
  • “He always delivers, even when it’s messy.”
  • “They’re the go-to when we need something fixing.”

That’s what stickiness looks like.

To build it, you need to be intentional. You can’t just assume that doing a good job is enough. People are busy. They don’t always notice. You have to make your work visible. Not in a way that’s arrogant or showy — just clear, consistent, and outcome-focused. If you fix something, share the result. If you solve a problem, tell the story. Build a narrative around what you want to be known for, and reinforce it regularly.

3. Relationships – Who Would Speak Up For You

This is the deepest layer of your moat. And it’s the one that’s often ignored until it’s too late.

Because when redundancies happen, someone is sitting in a room, reviewing a spreadsheet, and making decisions. If nobody speaks up on your behalf, your role becomes easier to cut.

What protects you in that moment is relationships. People who trust you. People who know your value. People who will say, “We’d really struggle without them.”

Those relationships need to be built deliberately — up, across, and outside the organisation.

Upwards, you need managers or senior leaders who understand what you bring and why it matters.

Across, you need peers who enjoy working with you and trust you to deliver.

Outside, you need contacts who could open doors for you or help you move quickly if needed.

Don’t wait until you need something to reach out to your network. Build those relationships when you don’t. Keep in touch. Offer help. Stay visible. Relationships decay over time — you have to maintain them.

How to Audit Your Career Moat

If you want a quick way to assess where you’re at, use this simple audit. Give yourself a score between 1 and 5 for each question, where 5 is ‘absolutely’ and 1 is ‘not at all’.

Skills

  • Are your top three skills in growing demand?
  • Can you prove your impact with real examples or metrics?

Reputation

  • Do senior people know what you’re good at?
  • Are you seen as someone who delivers under pressure?

Relationships

  • Would three or more colleagues actively recommend you?
  • Do you have real options outside your current company?

Total up your score:

  • 25–30: You’ve built a strong moat. Keep going.
  • 18–24: Good progress, but still some exposure.
  • 12–17: At risk if the business changes direction.
  • Below 12: Time to make some changes.

Building the Moat

If your audit shows gaps — or even if it doesn’t — here’s how to build each layer more deliberately.

For skills:

  • Identify the overlap between what you’re good at and what’s hard to find.
  • Combine technical skills with human ones — that’s where the real leverage is.
  • Focus less on being the best at one thing, and more on being really effective across a mix that’s valuable.
  • Keep records. Build a file of wins, results, feedback and impact.

For reputation:

  • Decide what you want to be known for, and reinforce it through your actions and communication.
  • Don’t rely on your work speaking for itself. Speak for it — clearly and concisely.
  • Share credit when things go well. Make other people look good too. That builds trust.

For relationships:

  • Stay in touch with people you’ve worked with before. A message every few months is enough.
  • Help others without asking for anything in return. Reciprocity will follow.
  • Build visibility in your network by showing up. Comment on posts. Share ideas. Join conversations. You don’t need to be loud — just consistent.

And for optionality:

  • Always have a current CV and updated LinkedIn profile.
  • Know who you’d reach out to if your role disappeared tomorrow.
  • Explore small ways to monetise your skills outside of a full-time role — consulting, mentoring, or freelance work.

Hang on. Let’s think twice

You can’t predict when a restructure will land. You won’t always get a warning. And by the time you’re in the middle of it, it’s usually too late to start building a safety net.

The career moat isn’t something you build when things go wrong. It’s something you build quietly, consistently, over time.

It’s not about being irreplaceable. Nobody is. But it is about making sure that if your name ends up on a list, someone stops and says, “Hang on. Let’s think twice.”

And that moment might be the difference between staying and going.

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