The picture is mixed, and that matters when you're planning a hire. Across the wider labour market, conditions are best described as 'low hire, low fire': recruitment is weaker and vacancies have dropped below pre-pandemic levels, even though redundancies have risen only slightly the Low Pay Commission's 2025 report. Businesses took a cautious approach to hiring through 2025 against a subdued economic backdrop according to Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook.
But caution isn't the whole story. There are clear demand hotspots for specialist tech skills, including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security as Computer Weekly reports. Professional, scientific and technical activities saw the largest volume increase in vacancies of any sector between August and October 2025, up by 5,000 per the ONS vacancies bulletin. Digital and engineering occupations sit among the priority occupations expected to keep growing strongly according to Skills England's 2026 report. So if you're building a software sales function, the talent is out there, but you're competing for it.
A sales engineer is a hybrid. They need enough technical depth to demo your product, answer architecture questions and win the trust of a buyer's engineers, plus the commercial instinct to move a deal forward. That blend is rare, and the market dynamics make it rarer still.
Demand for AI skills alone increased nearly 200% in a year, with London accounting for 80% of AI-related job postings and nearly two-thirds of all UK technology vacancies according to Accenture data reported by The Register. At the same time, the pipeline of new technical talent is tightening at the junior end. The UK tech sector 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. Adzuna has seen a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT launched as techUK reports. Fewer juniors entering the field today means a thinner pool of experienced hybrid hires tomorrow.
Start by defining the role precisely. A sales engineer for a self-serve product looks nothing like one selling complex enterprise software, so write the brief around the specific technical conversations they'll have and the deal cycle they'll support. Enterprise applications are one of the named demand hotspots per Computer Weekly, so be clear about which systems and integrations matter.
Then hire for demonstrable skills, not pedigree. A short technical demo task tells you far more than a job title. Screen for how someone explains a complex product simply, because that's the daily job. And plan your own pipeline: with entry-level tech hiring falling sharply according to ISE figures, growing sales engineers from technically strong junior hires may be smarter than waiting for the perfect finished profile. Some sectors are already leaning this way, with apprenticeships rising from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 per the DSIT AI Labour Market Survey.
Above all, move quickly. In a low-hire market the best hybrid candidates still get snapped up fast, and a slow process is how you lose them.
This is where we come in. Reed.ai searches a database of 15 million candidates to surface people who match your brief, then manages the process end to end, from a ranked shortlist through to a booked interview. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Tell us what your growing software team needs, and we'll start building your shortlist today.
