IT Job Market Insights Q3 2025
IT recruitment in 2025 remains active, despite wider economic pressures. The sector continues to be driven by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, increased cybersecurity threats, and an ongoing demand for cloud-first digital transformation. As employers seek to modernise their infrastructure and automate processes, competition for specialist skills remains high - particularly in AI, data, and cyber security-related disciplines.
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State of the IT Job Market
The IT sector has not been immune to the current period of economic inactivity.
While broader economic uncertainty has led to some caution in hiring, investment in digital, AI, and automation remains a priority for most UK businesses.
The necessity to deliver IT projects for efficiency gains has led to much of the IT hiring being delivered on a contract or project basis to maintain the momentum of transformation programmes.
The rise of AI has led to the evolution, not replacement, of existing job families. Rather than creating new standalone titles, many organisations are expanding the remit of existing roles to incorporate AI competencies, automation, and data analytical skills.
Salary inflation still ahead of the national average of 3% within the private sector
Salary increases of 10% or more for automation, data, and niche cyber skills
Most In-Demand Technical Skills in 2025
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning. Powering automation and customer experience platforms
- Cybersecurity. Threat intelligence, AI Cyber Security, and SOC analyst roles are among the hardest to fill.
- Data Engineering & Analytics. Supporting real-time decision-making and predictive insights
- DevOps & Platform Engineering. Focused on CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure scalability
- Full-Stack Software Development. With continued demand for Python and JavaScript, there has been a drop in demand for .Net dev skills
- Cloud Engineering. Particularly across AWS and Azure
IT Salary Trends
Sector wide, salary inflation has slowed but is still ahead of the national average of 3% within the private sector. The salaries for in-demand skills are still led by market forces and talent availability, with salary increases of 10% or more not uncommon for those with automation, data, and niche cyber skills. Salaries across IT remain resilient, with some moderation following the spikes of 2022–2023. Contract rates have also risen in areas such as infrastructure security and DevOps, where short-term expertise is required to support time-sensitive projects.
Ashdown Group salary benchmarking data shows:
AI, machine learning, and cloud architecture skills are achieving inflation beating salaries
Cybersecurity and data engineering roles are commanding greater salary increases compared to other infrastructure roles
Workplace Trends and Flexibility
Hybrid working is now standard across most technology teams, with many organisations maintaining optional remote-first policies. For candidates, flexibility around location and working hours remains one of the top priorities when evaluating job offers.
Although there is a loosening of talent availability compared to prior years, employers offering flexibility, autonomy, and opportunities to work on modern tech stacks continue to outperform the market in attracting and retaining talent.
Hiring timelines have lengthened slightly in 2025, with a greater focus on due diligence and candidate cultural alignment and less urgency around filling skills gaps. This is a general reflection of the broader job market, but it can cause problems within high-demand niche skill areas.
Our 2025 IT Salary Guide focuses on major roles in the tech sector, created from data analysed from over 3,550 organisations, 22,000 registered jobs, 314,000 recently active candidates, ONS data and other external data sources. Explore industry specific salary data and salaries for individual job roles, based on experience and location.
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