On 31 December 2027, SAP ERP 6.0 (ECC) leaves mainstream maintenance. For many French companies, the date speaks first to IT leaders. Yet it matters just as much to HR and finance: SAP HCM, ECC’s long-standing HR module, follows the same timeline. And the real issue is not technical: it is the availability of the skills needed to complete the transition in time.
What actually happens at the end of 2027
Mainstream maintenance for ECC enhancement packages 6 to 8 ends on 31 December 2027. Older versions have already left it. In practice, SAP will no longer deliver new legal updates or fixes under standard maintenance.
Three options exist to buy time, each with a cost:
- Extended maintenance, from 2028 to the end of 2030, for an additional 2 percentage points on the maintenance base.
- Customer-specific maintenance from 2031: the system keeps running, but the scope of support shrinks significantly.
- SAP ERP, private edition – Transition Option, announced in February 2025 for very large and complex SAP landscapes: it allows ECC to be extended until the end of 2033, as part of a move to private cloud and a migration to SAP Cloud ERP.
None of these options removes the deadline. They move the date, and often the bill.
For payroll and HR, a choice of path
On the HR side, the question is not just migrating to S/4HANA. Companies have two main routes:
- Stay on-premise with SAP HCM for SAP S/4HANA (often called H4S4), designed for customers who want to keep HR and payroll on site. SAP says it plans to maintain at least one S/4HANA release until the end of 2040.
- Move to the cloud with SAP SuccessFactors (Employee Central, Employee Central Payroll, talent modules), often in a hybrid setup during a transition phase.
- And, for some groups, switching vendor to Workday or Oracle Cloud HCM, a decision that opens a whole different programme.
Each route calls for different profiles. That is where the timeline tightens.
The real bottleneck: skills
Hundreds of companies in Europe will launch or speed up their projects in the same window. They will all be looking for the same profiles at the same time:
- SAP HCM and French payroll consultants, able to understand the existing system before migrating it;
- Employee Central and Employee Central Payroll consultants;
- architects and integration experts (SAP Integration Suite, payroll and time interfaces);
- project managers and workstream leads who have already delivered an HR migration.
Profiles who master both the old world (HCM, French payroll, schemas and rules) and the new one (SuccessFactors or S/4HANA) are the rarest. They are also the ones data migration and payroll continuity depend on.
What you can do now
- Map your dependency on SAP HCM: payroll, time, personnel administration, interfaces. The more precise the inventory, the clearer the skills you need.
- Choose your path early. H4S4, SuccessFactors or a vendor change: the decision determines who you need to hire.
- Secure in-house knowledge. Your HCM experts are also in demand on the market; losing them mid-project is costly.
- Plan critical hires ahead, permanent and freelance alike. For these profiles, waiting for the project kick-off often means arriving after everyone else.
In short
The end of 2027 is not a hard stop for your system, but it is a hard stop for your plan. Extension options exist; the availability of experts does not extend. Companies that secure their key skills in 2026 and 2027 will approach the transition in far better shape.
Preparing your SAP HR roadmap and looking for HCM, SuccessFactors or S/4HANA experts? Let’s talk about your needs.