The picture is mixed, and that's the honest starting point. Across 2025, businesses took a cautious approach to hiring against a subdued economic backdrop, but there were clear demand hotspots for specialist tech skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook for 2026. So it isn't a slow market everywhere. It's a selective one.
The wider labour market is best described as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment but only slight increases in redundancies, and vacancies sitting below pre-pandemic levels the Low Pay Commission Report 2025. Even so, technical and scientific work is holding up. In the three months to October 2025, the largest volume increase in vacancies came from the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, up by 5,000 roles ONS vacancies data for November 2025.
AI is the strongest pull. Demand for AI skills rose nearly 200% in a year, with London accounting for 80% of AI-related job postings and nearly two-thirds of all technology vacancies in the UK Accenture figures reported by The Register. If you build software, that's where the competition for people is fiercest.
Two things are happening at once. Demand for senior, specialist and hard-to-fill roles stays strong, while the traditional entry point into software is narrowing. Adzuna has recorded a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT launched, with graduates facing the toughest market since 2018 techUK's analysis of entry-level and graduate jobs. The UK tech sector cut graduate roles by 46% in a single year, with a further 53% drop projected Institute of Student Employers figures reported by The Register.
That reshapes what a product team looks for. When routine coding is increasingly assisted, the value shifts to people who can frame the problem, review AI output critically and connect design, engineering and product decisions. Roles like IT business analysts, architects and systems designers sit among the occupations in critical demand, with three of five indicators flagged critical in 2025 the GOV.UK Occupations in Demand report.
Employers are also rethinking how they build early-career talent. Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 the DSIT AI Labour Market Survey 2025. And security remains a persistent gap: 70% of cyber firms reported at least one hard-to-fill vacancy the AI Labour Market Survey 2025, against a UK cyber workforce of around 143,000 people GOV.UK cyber security skills data.
Start by writing the role around outcomes, not tool lists. In an AI-assisted team, you're hiring for judgement: can this person spot a weak solution, question an AI's output and choose the right thing to build? Ask for a short, real-world exercise that mirrors your actual work, then talk through the reasoning behind it. How someone thinks matters more than how fast they type.
Speed helps too. Top technology firms can pay sizeable wages to skilled specialists, which pushes the strongest candidates off the market fast the Migration Advisory Committee's report on IT and engineering professionals. A clear process and a short time to decision are quietly two of your best hiring advantages.
We built Reed.ai to make specialist product hiring fast and precise. We search a database of 15 million people, rank a shortlist against your role in seconds and handle the process end to end, from matching to booking interviews. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Tell us the role you're building and we'll surface a shortlist to review today.
