The market is steadier than the headlines suggest. Permanent placements have finally stabilised, ending a decline in place since Liz Truss's premiership 45 months ago, while temporary billings increased for a fourth consecutive month the REC and KPMG Report on Jobs. That growth in temporary work matters here: legacy migrations are project-shaped, so much of the demand lands as contract and interim work rather than permanent headcount.
Underneath the caution, specialist skills are the exception. 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 Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook. Enterprise applications and data are exactly what old systems are built on, so the people who understand both the old and the new are in a strong position.
Scarcity drives the rate. The work is unglamorous: mapping decades-old databases, untangling undocumented business rules, keeping a live service running while you rebuild it underneath. Few people volunteer for it, and fewer still have done it before, which is why the skills sit in critical demand. IT business analysts, architects and systems designers, at 193,000 workers, are among the occupations in critical demand, with 3 out of 5 indicators in critical demand in 2025 the GOV.UK Occupations in demand 2025 data.
Pay tracks that scarcity. Top technology firms can pay sizeable wages to skilled workers, leading to wages far above the salary threshold, while pay for engineering professionals is broadly in line with the UK average the Migration Advisory Committee's Professionals in IT and Engineering report. For migration specialists, the combination of rare experience and business-critical risk is what pushes contract rates up.
A migration is rarely one person. It usually needs a business analyst to document what the old system really does, an architect or systems designer to plan the target platform, and engineers to build, test and cut over. Those analyst, architect and systems designer roles sit squarely in the group flagged as critically in demand this year GOV.UK's Occupations in demand 2025.
Start by hiring for the shape of the work. Because migrations are finite and project-based, contract and temporary hires often fit better than permanent ones, and the temporary market is the part that's currently growing according to the REC and KPMG Report on Jobs. Define the outcome, not just the tech stack: a clean cutover with no data loss, a documented target system, and knowledge handed back to your team.
Then screen for evidence, not buzzwords. Ask candidates to walk you through a real migration they've delivered: what broke, how they handled rollback, how they kept the business running. Because these skills are scarce, move quickly once you find the right person. Slow processes lose specialists to the next contract.
This is where we come in. Reed.ai searches a database of 15 million people to find the specialists who've actually done migration work before, and we manage the process end to end: matching, shortlisting and booking interviews so you can focus on choosing. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. If you've a legacy project waiting on the right team, start your search with us today.
