Welcome to the Tech Talent Explorer, the decision‑making platform designed to guide your next move.
Built on global data and input from tech professionals and workforce experts, our insights cut through the noise to provide clarity. Explore the interactive charts and videos to dive deeper into the world of tech and IT contracting, as well as permanent employment.
Rates & salaries
Talent availability data is provided by global labor market intelligence company Horsefly Analytics. This reflects the supply count of professionals as of November 2025, not the number of professionals with whom Hays works.
Pay data is provided by Horsefly Analytics and analyzed against internal data to validate its accuracy. All currency conversions are correct as of December 30th 2025. While every care has been taken to ensure the most accurate pay data is presented, the rates included are indicative only.
Skills, trends & career motivators
The data presented comes from a 2025 Hays survey of 9,870 tech professionals across the world. This survey was conducted online and elicited the conditions, opinions, preferences and plans of a wide variety of IT/tech specialists.
The word ‘contractors’ is used to refer to any professionals surveyed, working on a freelance or contracted project basis, rather than those in permanent employment.
AI Impact
AI Impact scores are calculated through Horsefly Analytics’ graph database. Each role’s associated skills are categorized into three metrics:
- AI Promoters: Skills likely to be greatly enhanced or replaced by AI.
- AI Neutral: Skills that may see some AI influence but not a total change.
- AI Detractors: Skills largely unaffected by AI.
The proportion of these within each role will define its AI Impact score. For example, if 70% of skills are Promotors, 20% are Passives and 10% are Detractors, the score would be calculated as 70 – 10 = 60.
A higher score indicates that more tasks within a role could be automated or fundamentally changed.
