{
  "id": 3099110,
  "title": "IT labour market brief",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/24/it-labour-market-brief",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-24T19:46:22.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/bulataleev/it-labour-market-brief-20m9"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nIn 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.",
  "summary": "I spent a while pulling together posting data, government projections and salary guides across four labour markets — the US, Europe, Russia and the GCC — for four role families that don't get as much coverage as \"software engineer\": cybersecurity, QA/test, product & project management, and IT support/sysadmin. The same split shows up in all four regions: security is short of people, support is…",
  "key_points": [
    "Cybersecurity projected 29% growth by 2034, ten times average",
    "Product & project management growth at 6%, QA testing at 10%",
    "IT support and sysadmin roles facing structural declines -3% and -4%"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}