The move from on-premise software to SaaS is reshaping what employers hire for, and the broader engineering market is already tight. 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles, with technical and specialist sustainability skills topping the list the Institution of Engineering and Technology's October 2025 skills statistics. That pressure runs straight into software teams building and maintaining cloud platforms.
The wider demand picture backs this up. Digital, engineering and construction occupations appear most commonly among priority occupations, many already experiencing high recruitment demand and expected to keep growing strongly Skills England's 2026 annual skills report. Looking further ahead, occupations in Digital, Adult Social Care, Construction and Engineering have the greatest additional employment demand between 2025 and 2030 Skills England's assessment of priority skills to 2030.
Even in a cautious market, the hotspots are clear. 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 for 2026. Those four areas map almost exactly onto the capabilities a SaaS platform needs.
When a team runs on-premise software, the job descriptions are narrow: install, patch, maintain. Move to SaaS and the work spreads out. You need people who can design cloud architecture, integrate APIs, handle data pipelines, build in security from the start and keep services running at scale. One role quietly becomes four.
That widening shows up in national demand data. IT business analysts, architects and systems designers, a group of 193k workers, are among the occupations in critical demand, with 3 out of 5 indicators in critical demand in 2025 the Occupations in demand 2025 statistics on GOV.UK. These are the people who translate SaaS strategy into working systems, so demand for them rises as the shift accelerates.
The competition for this talent is fierce, and movement is high. 79% of UK technical professionals plan to change employers in 2026 Rise Technical's 2025/26 Insights Report, which surveyed over 500 employers and 1000 candidates. When most of the market is open to moving, a strong, fast hiring process is a real advantage.
Start by writing for the role you actually need, not the one you used to have. If the work now spans cloud, data and security, say so, and separate the skills you can train from the ones you cannot. That alone widens your pool without lowering the bar.
Given that 76% of engineering employers struggle to recruit for key roles according to the IET, the employers who win are the ones who make it easy to apply, decide quickly and treat people well throughout.
We built Reed.ai to take the slow parts out of hiring so you can reach the right people before they accept another offer. We search a database of 15 million candidates, rank a shortlist in seconds and help you book interviews fast, with our team managing recruitment 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. If you are hiring software engineers for the move to SaaS, start a search with us today.
