IT labour market brief

In the IT labor market, four role families were examined: cybersecurity, QA/test, product & project management, and IT support/sysadmin. Cybersecurity had the best odds with a projected 29% growth by 2034, roughly ten times the average growth for all occupations. Product & project management held steady with only a 6% projected growth.

QA and testing were thinning, with a projected 10% growth versus 16% for developers, reflecting the impact of automation that pays a 20-45% premium. IT support and sysadmin roles were also experiencing structural declines with projected decreases of -3% and -4%, respectively.

The study found that competition was the worst in Russia, where the hh-index for IT (the average number of responses per vacancy) was 22 CVs per vacancy, compared to a 4.4 average for IT across all industries. This led to a junior vacancy at a large Russian tech company attracting 300-400 responses. Junior salary expectations were also lower, clustering near ₽95,000/month while entry offers typically ran from ₽50-70,000. Additionally, 60-75% of applicants were cut off at CV screening.

In contrast, the easiest market was the Gulf for cybersecurity, where 90% of UAE companies reported difficulty finding qualified security talent. Cybersecurity was the single hardest technical hire in the country, growing 2% despite the Gulf private-sector employment falling 3% during the same period. Meanwhile, data and AI sectors grew 4%.

Overall, AI absorbed the growth in the tech job market, with a steep increase in AI-titled postings (173%) and a shift in the share of tech postings requiring AI skills. In 2024, AI skills accounted for 15% of AI postings, rising to 79% by July 2026. This change contradicts the belief that tech recovered, as software development saw a 22% decline.