Demand for engineering talent is tight, and it is getting tighter at the specialist end. Right now, 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist sustainability skills topping the list according to the Institution of Engineering and Technology's 2025 skills data. That pressure matters for software teams, because compliance by design asks engineers to hold two things at once: deep technical craft and a working grasp of the rules their code has to meet.
The demand picture reaches into core software roles too. IT business analysts, architects and systems designers, a group of 193,000 workers, are among the occupations in critical demand, with three out of five indicators in critical demand in 2025 per the GOV.UK Occupations in demand 2025 analysis. These are exactly the people who translate regulatory requirements into system design, so when they are hard to find, compliance-heavy briefs get harder to fill.
The market is not hiring evenly. Against a subdued 2025 economic backdrop, businesses took a cautious approach to hiring, but there were demand hotspots for specialist tech skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security as Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook for 2026 sets out. Each of those hotspots carries a compliance load, from data protection to security standards, which is why role briefs keep widening rather than narrowing.
Security sits at the centre of this shift. There are approximately 143,000 individuals in the UK cyber security workforce, with growth moderately accelerating from 2% in 2022 to 5% in 2024 according to the GOV.UK Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2025 report. As compliance by design pulls security thinking into everyday development, more software briefs now expect secure-coding and threat-awareness skills that used to sit with a separate specialist.
Regulated sectors push the bar higher still. In financial services, recruitment was generally for Regulatory Qualification Framework (RQF) 6+ roles, rather than RQF 3-5 as the GOV.UK Temporary Shortage List: Stage 2 report notes. For software teams building regulated products, that signals a preference for people who can reason about rules at a higher level, not just follow a checklist.
Start by splitting the brief into what is essential and what you can develop on the job. With 76% of engineering employers struggling to recruit for key roles per the Institution of Engineering and Technology's 2025 findings, a rigid wish list only shrinks your pool further. Name the compliance outcomes you need, such as secure data handling or auditable pipelines, then look for engineers who show the judgement to reach them.
Next, test for reasoning, not recall. Ask candidates to walk through how they would design for a regulatory requirement from the start, which reveals whether compliance by design is a habit or a slogan. Given the demand for IT business analysts, architects and systems designers highlighted in the GOV.UK Occupations in demand 2025 analysis, prioritise people who connect technical choices to business and regulatory needs.
Finally, move quickly and keep the process clear. In a market with demand hotspots for AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security as Computer Weekly reports for 2026, strong engineers hold options. A short, well-structured process that respects their time gives you a real edge.
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