It's a selective market, not a stalled one. Against a subdued 2025 economic backdrop, businesses took a cautious approach to hiring, 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. If you're building a sales engineering function, that's the context you're hiring into: fewer roles overall, but fierce competition for the specific skills that move software deals forward.
The wider labour market is best described as 'low hire, low fire', with weaker recruitment but only slight increases in redundancies, and vacancies dropping below pre-pandemic levels the Low Pay Commission Report 2025. Even so, the professional, scientific and technical activities sector posted the largest volume increase in vacancies from August to October 2025, up by 5,000 the ONS Vacancies and jobs bulletin for November 2025. Demand for the right technical-commercial people is still there. You just have to find them.
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 technology vacancies in the UK figures from Accenture reported by The Register. Digital and engineering occupations also appear most commonly among priority occupations expected to keep growing strongly the Skills England annual skills report 2026. Sales engineers sit right where that demand concentrates.
A sales engineer is the bridge between your product and your buyer: someone who can run a technical demo in the morning and handle a commercial objection in the afternoon. In a growing software team, that person often works alongside account executives, solutions architects and customer success. The tighter that group, the faster deals close. So the dynamics you hire for matter as much as the individual skill set.
One structural point shapes your search. For the engineering profession, the vast majority of new hires come from the resident labour force, indicating low reliance on international recruitment GOV.UK's review of professionals in IT and engineering. In practice, that means your strongest pool of technical-commercial talent is already here in the UK, and your process should be built to reach it.
The junior end of the pipeline is thinner, though, which affects how you build a team over time. The UK tech sector cut graduate jobs by 46% in the past year, with a further 53% drop projected figures from the Institute of Student Employers reported by The Register, and Adzuna has seen a 30% drop in UK entry-level job postings since ChatGPT's launch techUK's analysis of entry-level and graduate jobs. In engineering specifically, entry-level hiring has fallen to -19% while senior hiring sits at -10% GOV.UK's snapshot of entry-level hiring in the UK. If you rely only on ready-made senior sales engineers, you'll be fishing in a crowded pond. Growing your own matters.
There are signs the market is finding new routes into technical roles. Apprenticeships have risen from 3% of AI hires in 2020 to 19% in 2025 the DSIT AI Labour Market Survey 2025. For a founder, that's an opportunity: blend a small number of experienced hires with a home-grown track, and you build resilience into the team.
Start with a role definition that respects both halves of the job. Write down the technical depth you actually need (the stack, the integrations, the product areas) and the commercial behaviours that close deals (discovery, objection handling, stakeholder mapping). Then test both. A demo exercise on your real product tells you more than any CV line.
Aim your search at the demand hotspots that match your product. If you sell into cyber, remember there are roughly 143,000 individuals in the UK cyber security workforce, with growth accelerating from 2% in 2022 to 5% in 2024 GOV.UK's cyber security skills report 2025. That's a defined, growing pool. Knowing its size helps you set realistic timelines and cast your net in the right places.
Move quickly. In a 'low hire, low fire' market, the best technical-commercial people rarely stay available for long, and a slow process loses them. Keep your shortlist short, your stages few, and your feedback fast. Give one person clear ownership of the decision so momentum doesn't stall between interviews.
Finally, think about breadth. Look beyond the obvious job boards to the resident talent pool that already holds most engineering roles GOV.UK's IT and engineering review, and consider people moving across from adjacent technical fields. A great sales engineer often comes from a solutions or support background rather than a straight sales path.
When you're ready to move, Reed.ai searches a database of 15 million candidates to surface a ranked shortlist of technical-commercial talent in seconds, so you can focus on the people who fit both sides of the sales engineering role. Our recruitment agent manages recruitment end to end for 8% on a successful hire, with no monthly fee and no upfront cost. Start your search with us today.
