I spent a while pulling together posting data, government projections and salary guides across four labour markets — the US, Europe, Russia and the GCC — for four role families that don't get as much coverage as "software engineer": cybersecurity, QA/test, product & project management, and IT support/sysadmin.
The same split shows up in all four regions: security is short of people, support is being automated and legislated away, QA is thinning, and every door has narrowed at the junior end. Competition is worst in Russia. The emptiest seats are in the Gulf.
Every number below is traceable to a source. Where sources disagree, I've shown both rather than averaging them. Where a number doesn't exist, I say so — there's a whole section on that at the end, because a lot of confident numbers floating around this topic are extrapolated.
A note on data coverage before we start. LinkedIn, Dice and Indeed cover the US very well, Europe decently, Russia barely (LinkedIn is blocked there; hh.ru is the real source) and the GCC only partially. I've used regional substitutes — hh.ru, Habr Career, GulfTalent, Cooper Fitch, foundit — wherever the big three go dark, and labelled every figure by source.
TL;DR
Role family Verdict The number that decides it
Cybersecurity Best odds +29% projected US growth to 2034 — roughly 10× the all-occupation average
Product & project mgmt Holding, barely US posting index 112.7 vs Feb 2020, but only +6% projected growth
QA, test & SDET Splitting in two +10% projected vs +16% for developers; automation pays a 20–45% premium
IT support & sysadmin Structurally closing −3% and −4% projected — the only declining families here
- Where competition is worst
This was the question I most wanted answered, and it turns out almost nobody publishes applicants-per-opening broken out by role. Not Indeed, not LinkedIn, not Dice, not Bayt, not GulfTalent, not any national statistics body. Only Russia and Poland publish a directly comparable figure.
Here's what they publish:
Russia — junior roles, large firms ████████████████████████████████████ 350
(300–400 responses per vacancy)
Poland — junior frontend ███████████████ 146
(CVs per posting)
Poland — junior, all IT █████ 47
(CVs per posting, average)
Russia — all IT (hh-index) ██ 22
(was 14.2 in 2025, 4.4 in 2021)
Russia — all industries █ 11.4
(for comparison)
Russia is the hardest market in this study, and it isn't close. The hh-index for IT sits at 22 CVs per vacancy — up from 4.4 in 2021 — and roughly double Russia's all-industry average of 11.4. A junior vacancy at a large Russian tech company draws 300–400 responses. Junior salary expectations cluster near ₽95,000/month while typical entry offers run ₽50–70,000, and 60–75% of applicants are cut at CV screening.
For everywhere else, we're stuck with proxies:
Proxy metric Value What it tells you
US CS graduate unemployment 7.0% vs 5.6% across all majors. Computer engineering is worse at 7.8%
US IT professional unemployment 2.8% vs 4.1% nationally. The experienced tier is fine
US entry-level applications from people with 10+ years 30% The largest single group applying to entry-level roles
US cyber supply/demand ratio 74 Fewer than 100 qualified workers per 100 openings — undersupply
That 2.8% vs 7.0% gap is the whole story of the US market in two numbers.
The easiest market: Gulf cybersecurity. 90% of UAE companies report difficulty finding qualified security talent, and cyber is described as the single hardest technical hire in the country. In the quarter when overall Gulf private-sector employment fell 3%, Cyber still grew 2% and Data & AI grew 4%.
- What actually grew
Year-over-year US posting change, from Dice's analysis of roughly 7 million tech postings:
Category YoY change
AI-titled postings +173%
Finance-sector tech +47%
Data analysis +10%
Cybersecurity +4%
IT support +1%
Software development −22%
The headline isn't that tech recovered. It's that AI absorbed the growth and software development paid for it.
The share of US tech postings requiring AI skills:
Period Share
Jan 2024 15%
May 2026 73%
Jun 2026 75%
Jul 2026 79%
That's the steepest change in any series I found — 15% to 79% in thirty-one months.
One interesting exception: only about 10% of cybersecurity listings on CyberSeek ask for AI skills, against 79% of tech postings overall. Either security hiring managers haven't caught up, or the role genuinely depends on it less. Worth knowing before you rewrite your CV around AI keywords for a security application.
Europe is still below its 2020 baseline almost everywhere
Change in tech job postings since February 2020 (Indeed Hiring Lab):
Country vs Feb 2020
Luxembourg +37%
Spain +21%
Poland −10%
Netherlands −12%
Belgium −14%
Italy −16%
Ireland −22%
Germany −30%
Sweden −32%
France −39%
United Kingdom −41%
Switzerland −46%
Two growth markets out of twelve. The UK has the highest visa salary threshold in Europe and the second-thinnest market — a rough combination if you're trying to relocate there.
