The picture is split. Broad tech hiring stayed cautious through 2025, but specialist demand is loud and specific. Demand for AI skills rose nearly 200% in a year, with London accounting for 80% of AI-related job postings and close to two-thirds of all UK technology vacancies according to Accenture data reported by The Register.
The wider market moved in the same direction. The largest volume increase in vacancies over August to October 2025 came in the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, which rose by 5,000 per the ONS Vacancies and jobs bulletin for November 2025. Forecasters expect the same pattern to hold: businesses stay careful overall, but keep chasing specialist skills in AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security as Computer Weekly's 2026 tech recruitment outlook sets out.
So what does that mean for team design? Firms are building smaller, sharper delivery teams. The scarce capability sits at the centre, and everything else is arranged to support it.
A modern delivery team leans on a handful of critical roles. IT business analysts, architects and systems designers, a group of roughly 193,000 workers, sit among the occupations in critical demand, with three of five indicators flagged as critical in 2025 according to the GOV.UK Occupations in demand 2025 statistics. These are the people who turn an AI idea into something that ships.
Security is the other pillar. The UK cyber security workforce stands at around 143,000 people, with growth accelerating from 2% in 2022 to 5% in 2024 per the GOV.UK Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2025 report. The bottleneck is real: 70% of cyber firms reported at least one hard-to-fill vacancy as the AI Labour Market Survey 2025 notes.
The way teams fill these seats is shifting too. Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 according to DSIT's AI Labour Market Survey 2025. That growth matters because the graduate route has narrowed. UK tech cut graduate jobs by 46% in the past year, with a further 53% drop projected per Institute of Student Employers figures reported by The Register, and entry-level postings have fallen about 30% since ChatGPT launched as techUK reports using Adzuna data. Firms are growing more of their own talent.
Start with the shape of the team, not a job title. Define the two or three specialist roles that carry your delivery risk, then build around them. Pay for engineering roles on the Skilled Worker route sits broadly in line with the UK average, while top firms pay far above the salary threshold for the scarcest skills according to the Migration Advisory Committee's IT and engineering review, so be clear about where each role really sits.
Look local first. For engineering roles, the vast majority of new hires come from the resident labour force, showing low reliance on international recruitment as the GOV.UK Professionals in IT and engineering review finds. A strong UK-based search often fills the seat faster.
Build a pipeline, don't just fill a vacancy. With graduate routes tightening and apprenticeships growing, blend experienced specialists with people you train up. And move quickly when the right person appears: the wider jobs market stays competitive per the KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs, so a slow process loses good people.
We help you find the right specialists fast. We search 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in under 30 seconds, contact matched people in under a minute and book an interview in under three minutes, then manage the whole process end to end. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Ready to build your AI delivery team? Start your search with Reed.ai today.
