Tech hiring statistics for 2026 show a partial recovery that favors experienced and AI-skilled engineers. US software development job postings on Indeed were 22% below their February 2020 level on October 9, 2026, but about 21% higher than a year earlier. Layoffs have not stopped: layoffs.fyi counts 133,217 tech employees laid off at 323 companies in 2026 so far.
Every number below links to the publisher's own page, with its date and, where the source gives it, its sample. Job-posting indexes, payroll data and surveys measure different things, so compare figures within a source rather than across sources. We checked every source in October 2026.
- Indeed's US software development postings index was 78.1 on October 9, 2026 (February 2020 = 100), up from 64.3 a year earlier (Indeed Hiring Lab via FRED, October 2026).
- 133,217 tech employees were laid off at 323 companies in 2026 through October 15, already more than the 122,606 counted for all of 2025 (layoffs.fyi, October 2026).
- 73% of developers who use AI coding assistants or agents use them daily (Stack Overflow Developer Survey, October 2026).
- Entry-level roles made up 4.5% of software development postings in Q1 2026, while senior roles made up 69.3% (Indeed Hiring Lab, July 2026).
- Technical roles take a median of 40 days to hire, against 30 days for business roles (Ashby, April 2026).
Software job openings and tech layoffs in 2026
Job postings
Indeed's software development index is the most-watched daily measure of US software job openings. It is set to 100 on February 1, 2020 and seasonally adjusted.
| Date | Indeed software development postings index | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| February 1, 2020 | 100.0 | Pre-pandemic baseline |
| February 28, 2022 | 233.8 | Peak of the 2021–2022 hiring boom |
| May 17, 2025 | 61.1 | Lowest point in the series |
| October 9, 2025 | 64.3 | One year before the latest reading |
| October 9, 2026 | 78.1 | Latest reading: about 22% below baseline, about 21% above a year earlier |
- The index readings above come from Indeed's series published on FRED, retrieved October 15, 2026. The latest value is about 67% below the February 2022 peak (Indeed Hiring Lab via FRED, October 2026).
- Since late February 2025, US software developer postings on Indeed rose almost 15% while overall postings fell 7%. Senior roles accounted for 71% of the increase between May 2025 and May 2026, and jobs with AI in the title for 37% (the two groups overlap). In the chart through June 2026, postings were still about 27.5% below their pre-pandemic level (Indeed Hiring Lab, July 2026).
- Software development postings were up 14% year over year as of April 30, 2026, and over 47% of postings in the sector mentioned AI, compared with just over 5% of all US postings (Indeed Hiring Lab, May 2026).
- Employers posted 272,040 new openings for IT occupations in September 2026, and active tech postings reached 625,633, the highest total in more than three years. New postings were up 16% and active postings 22.4% from September 2025. Software developers and engineers were the most-posted tech role, with 47,598 new openings (CompTIA, October 2026).
- The tech unemployment rate edged up to 3.3% in September 2026, below the national rate of 4.2%. Tech occupation employment across all industries fell by roughly 6,000 positions that month, and tech sector employment by an estimated 10,350 (CompTIA analysis of BLS data, October 2026).
- Net tech employment decreased 0.3% in 2025, about 33,624 fewer jobs; CompTIA projects 1.9% growth in 2026, or 185,499 new jobs (CompTIA State of the Tech Workforce 2026, March 2026).
- Software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers held 1,905,400 US jobs in 2025. Employment is projected to grow 10% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than average, with about 106,100 openings a year (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, August 2026).
Tech layoffs
Layoffs.fyi is a tracker run by startup founder Roger Lee since 2020. It counts tech and startup layoffs from public reports, so it is a widely cited tally rather than an official statistic.
| Year | Tech employees laid off | Tech companies with layoffs |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 (through October 15) | 133,217 | 323 |
| 2025 | 122,606 | 278 |
| 2024 | 152,922 | 551 |
| 2023 | 265,660 | 1,194 |
| 2022 | 165,269 | 1,064 |
- Through October 15, 2026, the tracker counted 133,217 tech employees laid off at 323 companies, already above the full-year 2025 total of 122,606 at 278 companies, but about half the 2023 peak of 265,660 at 1,194 companies (layoffs.fyi, as of October 15, 2026). By our calculation, that is about 412 people per affected company in 2026, against about 223 in 2023: fewer companies are cutting, but the cuts are larger.
How developers use AI tools in 2026
- Stack Overflow's 2026 Developer Survey drew 30,903 valid responses from 169 countries, collected from June 23 to August 5, 2026 (Stack Overflow survey methodology, 2026).
- 62% of all respondents view AI at least somewhat positively, and 73% of respondents who use AI coding assistants or agents use them daily. Claude Code (66%) and GitHub Copilot (59%) were the most-used coding agents, and 93% say source attribution is needed to trust what AI produces (Stack Overflow, October 2026).
- Only 18% of developers go into an office every day, and the share working in an organization of one rose from 4% to 10% (Stack Overflow, October 2026).
- In the 2025 survey (49,009 responses, fielded May to June 2025), 84% of respondents were using or planning to use AI tools, yet more distrusted the accuracy of AI output (46%) than trusted it (33%). The top frustration, named by 66%, was "AI solutions that are almost right, but not quite" (Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 2025).
- More than 180 million developers now build on GitHub, including more than 36 million who joined in the past year. In August 2025, TypeScript overtook Python and JavaScript as the most-used language on GitHub by contributors, and nearly 80% of new developers use Copilot within their first week (GitHub Octoverse, October 2025).
CoPilot Interview is not affiliated with GitHub Copilot or Microsoft; the names are similar, the products are not related.
Skills, roles and pay in demand
Roles and skills
- AI engineer was the fastest-growing job title in the US, based on LinkedIn member job starts from January 2023 to July 2025. Its median prior experience is 3.7 years, and its most common skills are LangChain, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and PyTorch. AI consultants and strategists ranked second, data annotators fourth and AI/ML researchers fifth (LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise, January 2026).
- Since the start of 2025, 51.6% of engineering and 53% of data job postings referenced AI, against 27% for customer support, in an analysis of more than 200,000 job postings (Ashby, July 2026).
- Active job postings requiring AI-related skills totaled 349,821 in September 2026, an increase of 32,327 from August (CompTIA, October 2026).
- JavaScript is the most-used language among developers at 62%, followed by SQL, HTML/CSS and Python at 58% each (Stack Overflow, October 2026).
Pay
- The median annual wage was $135,980 for software developers and $104,300 for software quality assurance analysts and testers in May 2025; the combined group's median was $134,040 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2026).
- Computer and information technology occupations had a median annual wage of $109,470 in May 2025, against $50,980 for all occupations, and are projected to have about 280,000 openings a year from 2025 to 2035 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook).
- Since 2021, advertised pay in the most AI-exposed occupations, a group that includes software development, has climbed about 46%, against 25% in the least-exposed occupations (Indeed Hiring Lab, September 2026).
For negotiation scripts built on these numbers, see our software engineer salary negotiation guide.
Entry-level and new-grad tech hiring
The weakest part of the tech job market is the first job. Several independent sources point the same way.
- Senior-level positions made up 69.3% of software development postings on Indeed in Q1 2026, the highest share of any sector, while entry-level positions made up 4.5%, the lowest. Indeed classifies postings by responsibilities: entry-level roles typically need 0 to 1 year of experience, senior roles 5 or more (Indeed Hiring Lab, July 2026).
- Among recent college graduates aged 22 to 27, unemployment was 7.8% for computer engineering majors, 7.0% for computer science and 6.0% for information systems, against 4.2% for all recent graduates. The same majors had low underemployment (15.8% for computer engineering and 19.1% for computer science, against 39.4% overall) and early-career median wages of $90,000 and $87,000. The figures use 2024 American Community Survey data, published February 4, 2026; across all majors, recent-graduate unemployment was about 5.6% in the second quarter of 2026 (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2026).
- Employment of workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations stands 19% below where it would be had it kept pace with less-exposed peers, with no comparable gap for experienced workers, based on ADP payroll data through June 2026. The authors describe these as early, descriptive indicators rather than causal estimates (Stanford Digital Economy Lab, revised August 2026).
- 37% of hiring professionals say AI may be reducing the need for entry-level hires, rising to 65% in tech; 56% have adopted AI somewhere in their hiring process, led by tech at 87%. The survey covered 1,027 US hiring professionals (Criteria 2026–2027 Hiring Benchmark Report, October 2026).
If you are breaking in, our guides on getting a software engineering job with no experience and new grad software engineer interview questions turn this into a plan.
Time to hire and interview loops for engineers
| Measure | Technical or engineering roles | Comparison group | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median time to hire (Q2–Q3 2025) | 40 days | 30 days (business roles) | Ashby |
| Interviews per hire | 17.6 | 11.7 (business roles) | Ashby |
| Interviews per hire | 35–36 | 22–24 (non-technical roles) | Gem |
| Application-to-hire rate | 0.2% | 0.5% (all functions) | Gem |
- Technical roles have a median of 40 days to hire, with 75% filled within 57 days, against 30 days for business roles. Technical roles average 17.6 interviews per hire, up 52% since 2021, against 11.7 for business roles. The dataset covers more than 109 million applications and 247,000 jobs from January 2021 to March 2026 (Ashby Talent Trends Report, April 2026).
- Engineering hires average 35 to 36 interviews, against 22 to 24 for non-technical roles; the engineering application-to-hire rate is 0.2%, half the 0.5% across all functions; and the offer acceptance rate is 82%, the highest since 2021. The data covers 165 million applicants and 1.2 million hires across four years (Gem Talent Intelligence Report, 2026).
The two datasets count interviews differently, which is why their per-hire numbers differ. Both show the same pattern: an engineering hire takes more interviews and more time than a hire in most other functions. If you are preparing for a loop, read what a technical interview is and what a system design interview tests, and see our video interview statistics for how early rounds are run.
What these numbers mean for your job search
- Openings are back, but not evenly. Postings are recovering fastest for senior roles and roles that mention AI. If you have AI or machine learning experience, put it in your résumé's first lines; our AI engineer interview questions show what those loops ask.
- Entry-level candidates face the toughest odds. With entry-level roles near 5% of software postings, referrals, projects and strong interview performance carry more weight.
- Plan for long loops. A median of 40 days and well over a dozen interviews per hire means stamina matters. Practice coding, system design and behavioral answers out loud, well before the loop starts.
CoPilot Interview's Mock Interview mode lets you rehearse that mix: it builds questions from your résumé and the job description, lets you choose the blend of behavioral, technical, system design and coding questions, reads each one aloud, and scores each spoken answer out of 10 with what to fix and a model answer. The free plan includes 15 minutes every day. Pair it with the coding interview cheat sheet and the Big-O complexity visualizer. For broader context, see our job interview statistics for 2026 and AI in hiring statistics.
Methodology and how we chose sources
This page compiles figures that other organizations have published. We did not run our own survey, and we do not publish CoPilot Interview usage data. Our inclusion rules:
- Primary sources only. We opened each figure on the publisher's own page, dataset or report and link that exact page. For Indeed's posting index we used the series Indeed publishes on FRED, and for layoffs.fyi the tally shown on the tracker on October 15, 2026. Figures we could not open at the source were left out.
- Recent first. Every figure is from 2025 or 2026 unless its year is stated. The New York Fed's outcomes-by-major table uses 2024 data, the latest available.
- Named samples. We give sample sizes where the source states them. Ashby, Gem and Criteria sell hiring software, and their reports draw on their own customer data or surveys rather than the whole market.
- Different measures. Posting indexes, payroll data, government projections and surveys measure different things with different definitions, so they will not always agree. Our own calculations (the change in Indeed's index and layoffs per company) are labeled as ours.
- Date checked: October 2026. Live series such as Indeed's index and layoffs.fyi change daily.
Practice for a longer, tougher tech interview loop
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Is tech hiring recovering in 2026?
Partly. Indeed's US software development postings index was 78.1 on October 9, 2026, about 22% below February 2020 but roughly 21% above a year earlier. CompTIA reported 625,633 active tech job postings in September 2026, the highest in more than three years. The gains are concentrated in senior and AI-related roles.
How many tech layoffs have there been in 2026?
As of October 15, 2026, layoffs.fyi counted 133,217 tech employees laid off at 323 companies in 2026, already more than its full-year 2025 total of 122,606 at 278 companies. It is a tracker built from public reports, not an official government statistic.
What percentage of developers use AI tools?
In Stack Overflow's 2025 Developer Survey, 84% of respondents were using or planning to use AI tools. In the 2026 survey of 30,903 respondents, 73% of those who use AI coding assistants or agents use them daily, and 62% of all respondents view AI at least somewhat positively.
How long does it take to hire a software engineer?
Ashby's data puts the median time to hire for technical roles at 40 days, against 30 days for business roles (Q2 to Q3 2025), with 17.6 interviews per technical hire. Gem counts 35 to 36 interviews per engineering hire. The datasets define interviews differently, so expect a range.
Is it harder for new grads to get software jobs in 2026?
The data points that way. Entry-level roles were 4.5% of software development postings on Indeed in Q1 2026, and recent computer engineering and computer science graduates had unemployment rates of 7.8% and 7.0% in the New York Fed's 2024 data, against 4.2% for all recent graduates.
What tech skills are most in demand in 2026?
AI skills lead. AI engineer topped LinkedIn's 2026 Jobs on the Rise list, about half of engineering postings in Ashby's data mention AI, and over 47% of Indeed's software development postings mentioned AI in April 2026. Among languages, JavaScript (62%) leads Stack Overflow's 2026 survey, followed by SQL, HTML/CSS and Python at 58% each.