Let k and m be positive integers and λ/µ a skew partition. We compute the principal specialization of the skew Schur polynomials s λ/µ (x 1 , . . . , x k ) modulo q m − 1 under suitable conditions. We interpret the results thus obtained from the viewpoint of the cyclic sieving phenomenon on semistandard Young skew tableaux of shape λ/µ. Ä SSYT m (λ), c , q −κ(λ) s λ (1, q, . . . , q m−1 ) ä