[March 2026] Tech Job Market Trends Monthly

Welcome to the 3rd issue of Tech Job Market Monthly! If you missed the previous months, you can check out the previous issues of Tech Job Market Monthly here.

So, a quick recap of how this works:

Each month, we sit down and check out the US job market for each major field in tech, so that you can get a mile-high view of how each industry is looking.

Why the US?

Mainly because it's the biggest market and because a lot of the other markets trail the US by a few months. This means it's fairly indicative of upcoming trends in other regions as well, although there may be specific geographic factors where you're based.

How do we come up with this information?

For now, we do this by evaluating data from 2 sources:

1. LinkedIn, and

2. Google trends

This way, we can see the number of open jobs available and compare that against previous months, as well as current search trends to see if there are any spikes or dips in public interest.

One more thing to note is that LinkedIn by no means has all of the job postings that are available for any of these roles. There are many other job sites (broad and niche) with many more postings. However, since LinkedIn has openings for all the major roles, it's very helpful for us to see directional changes month-over-month and see how many jobs are roughly available relative to others.

With all that out of the way, let's get into the data for March 2026.

Current Job Trends in the Tech Industry for March 2026

I know some of you just want the hard data, so I've made a handy dandy table here to show you the total # of job openings for each role and month-over-month ("MoM") change:

As you can see, Software Engineer roles fell 15.6%, and Software Developer roles fell 20%, which are significant drops. However, they both remain by far the largest pools of open jobs in the dataset by a wide margin.

In terms of growth this month, DevOps, Data Scientist, BI Analyst, ML Engineer, and UI/UX all posted solid gains.

We're also seeing some wild swings in the smaller roles. Blockchain Developer jumped 184%, and Game Developer jumped 131%, but bear in mind that both of these roles have small absolute numbers, so large percentage swings are par for the course. Blockchain Developer openings did the same thing in reverse in January, dropping 71% before bouncing back.

Before I get into the role-by-role breakdown, we need to address the elephant in the room...

March 2026 was not a normal month

As you well know, there are a lot of things going on in the world right now, especially in the US, which is where we base this data on.

• The US labor market was already in a "low-hire, low-fire" freeze heading into the month, with hiring at its lowest rate in over a decade

• Add in the fact that labor reports at the start of the year estimated there would be an addition of 60,000 new jobs in Feb, but instead there were 92,000 jobs lost

• Then, on February 28th, the US and Israel launched military strikes on Iran. The conflict immediately triggered the largest oil supply disruption since the 1970s energy crisis, with crude oil jumping over 30% in under four weeks as the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed to tankers. Goldman Sachs estimates the oil shock alone will suppress US payroll growth by 10,000 jobs per month through year-end

• For tech specifically, there was one development that deserves a mention: Drone strikes targeted commercial data centers in the UAE, which was the first time in history that any military has deliberately attacked commercial data center infrastructure. This put a spotlight on the concentration of AI infrastructure in a geopolitically volatile region, and it's a conversation that will shape where companies invest in the next generation of cloud and AI capacity

Now obviously, this is all a little crazy, and it's going to have an impact on job growth.

Without getting into details too much, the key thing we need to understand is that when businesses are uncertain, the first thing they pause is hiring, particularly for generalist roles. And that's exactly what the March data shows.

They learned their mistake during COVID when they overhired for the growth at the time and then had to let people go. So they're just being more cautious. That being said, tech is still hiring and is doing well above other industries that have been impacted, and this is especially true in AI and cybersecurity roles.

If you're still with me, let's break down the data for each role.

1. Software Developer and Software Engineer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 61,442 Software Engineer (-15.6%/monthly)

• 42,923 Software Developer (-20%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graphs:

Now, don't freak out or read too much into these drops!

Why?

• Well, even after a 15-20% fall, these are still the two biggest roles in the entire dataset by a long way. We're talking about over 100,000 combined open positions on LinkedIn alone

• Not only that, but February was running unusually hot, and this month's broader economic context was about as difficult as it gets for hiring numbers across any industry

• Add in the fact that Software Engineer and Software Developer are also the most generalist roles in tech, which makes them the first to feel a slowdown

What do I mean by this?

Well, when companies get cautious, they usually pause hiring on the broader, more generalized skills first and protect the specialised roles that are harder to replace. That's exactly what we're seeing play out across the data this month.

It's also worth knowing that the FRED database, run by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, tracks software development job postings separately using Indeed data, and that's actually been trending upward over the past year and into early 2026:

So one difficult month on LinkedIn doesn't change the longer-term picture. If the current economic uncertainty starts to ease in the coming months, these numbers should bounce back.

Want to get started in these roles? Check out the career path below. It will help you get set up in both Software Development and Software Engineering roles:

2. AI and Machine Learning Engineer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 7,784 AI Engineer (+7.1%/monthly)

• 4,503 ML Engineer (+11.4%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graphs:

Alright, time for the heavy hitters!

Three months in, and neither of these roles has dropped once. In fact, every single month since we started tracking, both AI Engineer and ML Engineer have grown.

And sure, that growth has slowed down compared to February's big +26.6% jump for AI Engineer, but that's actually a good sign. That kind of explosive month-on-month growth isn't something you want to see continue indefinitely because it usually means a correction is coming. Steady, consistent growth in the same direction is what you actually want, and that's exactly what's happening here.

So why are these roles holding up so well when everything else is feeling the squeeze?

The short answer is that companies have already committed serious money to AI projects, and those projects need engineers to actually build them. Stopping an AI initiative halfway through costs more than it saves. That makes these roles a lot harder to pause than a general software headcount plan, and right now that's working very much in favour of anyone building skills in this space.

Want to get started in these roles? Check out the career path below:

3. Data Scientist

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 5,955 Data Scientist (+19.3%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

A great month for Data Scientists. In fact, it's the strongest growth of any stable role in our entire dataset this month, and it builds on February's +5.3% gain. Two consecutive months of growth start to look a lot more like genuine momentum than a one-off bounce.

And when you think about why, it actually makes a lot of sense.

When companies get cautious about spending, it's not that they stop making decisions, but that they want to make better ones, and Data Scientists are the people who tell you exactly where your money is working and where it isn't. So in uncertain times, that skillset becomes more valuable, not less.

So while generalist hiring is being paused, the people who help leadership figure out what to do next are very much still in demand. The long-term picture backs this up, too, with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting 33% employment growth for this role through 2034, which puts it among the fourth fastest-growing occupations in the country.

Three months of our own data isn't enough to call a definitive trend, but everything is pointing in the right direction so far.

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

4. Cybersecurity Analyst and Cybersecurity Specialist

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 3,142 Cybersecurity Specialist (-1.7%/monthly)

• 2,628 Cybersecurity Analyst (+14.7%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Cybersecurity is a bit of a mixed bag this month. The Analyst role grew a solid 14.7%, while the Specialist role dipped slightly at -1.7% after its big jump last month. (Honestly, that kind of small correction after an 18.9% spike is completely normal, so don't read anything into it).

The bigger story here is everything happening in the world right now, because if there was ever a month that made the case for cybersecurity as a career, this was it.

Think about it. We've already talked about the drone strikes on commercial data centers in the UAE, but on top of that:

• Stryker, a major medical technology company, was hit by a cyber attack in March where employees literally watched their computers being wiped in real time, while offices were forced to shut down

• Security researchers have been tracking around 60 active hacktivist groups operating since the conflict began, running everything from data theft operations to attacks on energy companies and healthcare systems

• And that's just the war-related stuff. February saw major breaches hit PayPal, France's national banking registry, among others

The point is, this field doesn't slow down when the economy does.

If anything, it goes the other way, because the attacks keep coming no matter what's happening on Wall Street. The global cybersecurity market is projected to hit around $211 billion by end of 2026, and given the last few weeks, even that might be underselling it.

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

5. AI Developer and Prompt Engineer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 227 AI Developer (-24.1%/monthly)

• 97 Prompt Engineer (+18.3%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graphs:

These two are the wildcards of the dataset, and honestly, that's not going to change anytime soon.

Why?

Well, part of the reason is that these roles are still so new that companies themselves aren't sure what these roles should look like, what skills they need, or even what to call them. That uncertainty makes the numbers jump around a lot.

Also, when you're dealing with pools this small, a handful of companies pausing or posting jobs in a given month can swing the percentage dramatically. So take the month-on-month figures here with a bigger pinch of salt than usual.

The AI Developer drop is a little surprising given how strong the broader AI picture is right now, but 227 total openings is a small enough number that this could simply be noise. A few big employers pulling their listings for a month would explain it entirely.

While Prompt Engineer ticking back up to 97 after dipping to 82 in February is the more interesting one to watch. We've seen this pattern before, where the standalone job title dips, then you get a sudden surge in other roles asking for prompting as an additional skill on top of everything else. In fact, back in January, before Indeed stopped showing exact numbers, there were around 126,000 dev roles listed that required prompting skills as a requirement!

So the demand is very much there, it's just that the industry hasn't decided yet whether it deserves its own job title or whether it just becomes part of everyone else's. I would still highly recommend learning prompting and working with LLMs regardless of your current role.

Want to get started in these roles or pick up these skills? Check out the career path and courses below:

Beginner

Prompt Engineering Bootcamp (Working With AI & LLMs): Zero to Mastery

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Stop memorizing random prompts. Instead, learn how Large Language Models (LLMs) actually work and how to use them effectively. This course will take you from being a complete beginner to the forefront of the AI world.

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6. UX and UI Designer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 1,090 UX/UI Designer (+28.1%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Two months in a row of strong growth for UI/UX, with +45.9% in February followed by +28.1% in March. In a month where a lot of roles pulled back, that kind of consistency stands out.

It also puts to rest something you hear a lot right now, which is that AI design tools are going to replace human designers. The job data just isn't supporting that story. If anything, what seems to be happening is the opposite.

And we got a pretty good real-world example of why this week with OpenAI just shutting down Sora, its AI video app, after only six months. One of the big reasons it struggled (other than cost) was that the output was widely described as generic and uninspired, and what a lot of people in the industry were calling "AI slop".

It had millions of users, but not enough of them felt the results were actually good enough to keep coming back. That gap between what AI can generate and what people actually want to look at? That's a human problem. That's a design problem.

It makes total sense when you think about it. Yes, you can use AI tools to make an image or a UI, but you need a creative eye to know what to ask for and whether what comes back is any good. That's why, as more companies churn out AI-generated interfaces, the demand for designers who can look at that output critically, refine it, and bring actual craft to the end result is going up rather than down.

The tools can generate, but someone still has to decide what's good... maybe that could be you?

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

7. DevOps Engineer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 3,412 DevOps Engineer (+20.6%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Another strong month for DevOps, and three months of consistent growth are starting to paint a pretty clear picture for this role.

The reason isn't hard to figure out. Every AI product that gets built needs infrastructure behind it, and that's what DevOps engineers do. So as AI investment keeps growing, so does the demand for the people maintaining the foundations it runs on.

That said, this month did throw up an interesting signal worth paying attention to...

As I said before in the UX Designer section, OpenAI shut down Sora, which is its AI video app. This then led to Disney immediately cancelling the $1 billion investment deal that was tied to it. It turns out that running Sora was estimated to cost as much as $15 million per day in computing power alone, which even OpenAI described as completely unsustainable.

It's also a good reminder that building AI products is one thing, but building the infrastructure to run them efficiently and cost-effectively is something else entirely.

And to achieve that? We need a lot more DevOps thinking, not less.

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

8. Data Engineer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 8,455 Data Engineer (+4.1%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Three months of consecutive growth for Data Engineers, and while +4.1% is a step down from February's +12.6%, the direction hasn't changed once since we started tracking.

The reason this role holds up so well is pretty simple, and that's because almost everything else on this list depends on it.

You can't build AI products, run machine learning models, or produce useful business intelligence if the data feeding into them is a mess. And because Data Engineers build and maintain the pipelines that make all of that possible, when companies invest in AI or Data Science, they're also investing in Data Engineering!

That's a good place to be in any market, but especially this one.

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

9. Data Analyst

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 16,605 Data Analyst (-5.8%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Two months of drops in a row for Data Analysts, with -4.7% in February followed by -5.8% in March.

To be clear, though, it's still a huge pool of open roles and 16,000+ openings is nothing to sniff at, but two consecutive declines are worth keeping an eye on.

So what's going on?

Well, this is probably the role on this list that's feeling the impact of AI tools most directly right now. Simply because a lot of the work that entry and mid-level analysts do, things like pulling reports, building dashboards, and summarising data, is exactly what AI-powered analytics tools are getting genuinely good at.

Companies are starting to think they can do more with less here, but it's not quite the case, and they are coming to understand that. You can't just hand this off entirely and walk away. We've seen what happens when companies try, and it isn't pretty.

The reality is that just like with UX or AI development, you still need someone with actual strategic understanding in the loop, someone who knows when something looks wrong, what the numbers actually mean for the business, and how to turn that into a decision rather than just a chart.

So what's the future of this?

Well, if you're heading into this field, definitely focus on the business judgment side of things as much as the technical side. It's also worth picking up some solid prompting skills along the way, because knowing how to get the best out of AI tools, and more importantly, how to sense check what they give you back, is quickly becoming part of the job, whether it's in the title or not.

You can bet your ass if you spot a mistake that saves the company money, they're going to keep you around!

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

10. Blockchain Developer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 1,184 Blockchain Developer (+183.9%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Before you get too excited about that number, let's put it in context. Blockchain was down 71% in January, bounced back +70.9% in February, and now jumps again in March. This is just what this role does, and when the total pool of jobs is small, a few dozen listings appearing or disappearing in a given month can move the percentage wildly in either direction.

That said, 1,184 openings is the highest we've seen this role hit across our three months of tracking, so it's not all noise.

There are a couple of things driving genuine interest here. The first is the growing conversation around AI agents using stablecoins and crypto infrastructure to transact with each other autonomously, which, if it takes off, would be a significant new source of demand for people who can build in this space. The second is that periods of global instability tend to push more financial activity toward decentralised systems, which historically has been good for crypto adoption generally.

For now, watch this space with curiosity. The volatility alone tells you this market hasn't found its footing yet, but the underlying tailwinds are definitely more interesting than they've been in a while.

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

11. Business Intelligence Analyst

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 1,716 Business Intelligence Analyst (+33%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Two months of strong, consistent growth for BI Analysts, with +23.9% in February followed by +33.0% in March. That's one of the clearest upward trends in the whole dataset right now.

The reason makes a lot of sense when you think about what's happening in the world. When times are uncertain and budgets are tight, the last thing a leadership team wants is to be flying blind. They want to know exactly what's working, what isn't, and where every dollar is going. That's precisely what a BI Analyst does, and it explains why this role tends to hold up well, and sometimes even accelerates, in tougher economic conditions.

It's a similar story to Data Scientists in that sense. When companies can't afford to make bad decisions, the people who help them make better ones become more valuable, not less. Could be worth looking into as a new career perhaps?...

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

12. Game Developer

LinkedIn/Job Data (US) - March 2026:

• 1,074 Game Developer (+131%/monthly)

Google Keywords Trend graph:

Same story as Blockchain here in that 131% jump looks wild until you remember that 465 openings last month were a pretty low starting point. (More than doubling from a small base is a lot easier than it sounds).

That said, 1,074 is the highest we've seen this role reach in our three months of tracking, and given what the gaming industry has been through lately, that's genuinely encouraging. There have been some pretty significant studio layoffs over the past couple of years, so any sustained movement upward is a good sign for anyone looking to break into this space.

One month doesn't make a trend, but it's the right direction. Worth keeping an eye on over the next couple of months to see if it holds.

Want to get started in this role? Check out the career path below:

What's next?

So that's March 2026. Not the easiest month to read, but an interesting one.

The world threw a lot at the job market this month, and it showed:

• Generalist software roles felt the squeeze, which makes sense

• But the specialized stuff, AI engineers, ML engineers, Data Scientists, DevOps, UI/UX, BI analysts, kept growing. Companies are protecting those investments even when pausing everything else, and that tells you something important.

What does this mean for you?

Well, obviously, take my advice with a pinch of salt and do your own research. However, I would say that if you're already in a tech job right now, this probably isn't the moment to make a big move. Sit tight, keep building skills, and watch how the next couple of months play out.

If you're just getting started or upskilling, the data has pointed in the same direction for three months running. AI, data, and security are where companies are still hiring and still investing when budgets get tight. That's a pretty clear signal.

We'll be back next month with the April numbers. Subscribe below so you don't miss it.