Tech hiring is carrying national job growth, according to a June 5 CompTIA Tech Jobs Report.
Employers listed nearly 587,000 active job postings for technology occupations in May, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a provider of IT training and certifications.
Tech employment grew by 69,000 workers in May and by about 6,700 jobs that month, CompTIA reported.
On June 5, the National Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs report showing total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 172,000 in May.
The entire business market relies on technology, which was a bit flat in 2025, according to Seth Robinson, vice president of industry research at CompTIA. Now companies are ramping up their investment in digital transformation with AI powering those efforts.
“We've seen really strong growth in the job postings, which we think is an indicator that companies are renewing those investments in digital transformation, which kind of underlines the narrative that we've had for several years now that technology is a really strong career to get into,” Robinson said. “You can see that with the low unemployment in tech jobs and the relatively high salaries, so we continue to believe that it's a strong path for growth.”
Software Developers, System Engineers, Cybersecurity Engineers Lead in Demand
The software developer/engineer space led the number of tech job postings in May with 15,219 postings, an increase from 1,346 in April.
Top hiring categories in May also included cloud infrastructure, data processing and hosting as well as IT and custom software services and systems design. Meanwhile, jobs in web development, search engine optimization specialists and telecommunication engineering specialists turned in the largest month-over-month increases as far as percentage.
Robinson is seeing growth in traditional tech jobs like tech support, systems administration or software development.
Although Robinson is seeing a dramatic increase in companies adding AI skills to job postings, he’s observing less of a dramatic increase in brand-new AI roles.
Expect to see AI requirements for primary IT roles such as tech support and system administrators, Robinson predicted.
“There is a greater expectation that there's at a minimum some AI fluency there, if not some slightly more advanced AI skills that would sit on top of the core skills that are needed for that job,” he said, referring to a tech support specialist or systems administrator role.
Further, with tech professionals going for certificate and continuing ed programs, not all tech professionals are getting a four-year degree, and that showed in the CompTIA report. It revealed that 89% of network support specialist roles did not require a four-year degree and 72% of tech-support specialists did not require a four-year degree.
Unemployment Drops, Las Vegas Shows Tech Job Growth
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for tech occupations dropped to 3.1% from 3.5% in April. Robinson said that’s a sign of demand outpacing supply. That leads to tech professionals finding jobs quickly when they experience layoffs, Robinson said.
At the same time, the national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3%.
As for geography, the top tech job postings were in New York and totaled 4,052, an increase of 484 from April, CompTIA reported. Washington, D.C., had the second-most tech job postings with 3,345, an increase of 260 from April. Dallas was third with 2,292 tech job postings, an increase of 260 from April.
Growth of tech jobs in certain cities often depends on state- or city-led incentives to draw technology hiring into a city, according to Robinson.
“We continue to see a really broad-based strength in technology hiring outside of places that were traditional tech hubs, and a lot of that is because these technology occupations appear in every industry,” Robinson said.
Robinson also sees growth in tech jobs in Las Vegas, where the hospitality and gaming industries are exploring how technology can assist them, he said.
“It can be a different combination of factors from city to city, but because tech is so integrated in so many different industries, you can have a different combination of factors that all lead to technology growth, and then that adds up across the country.”
The Road Ahead in Tech Hiring
Robinson says he is seeing some overinvestment in tech, and job growth could taper off in the second half of 2026. He also warns that job postings do not always lead to hiring.
“We don't expect to see the same growth that we've seen for the first few months extend through the second half of the year,” Robinson said. “There will always be ups and downs and market cycles. It definitely provides a proof point that whatever we were seeing last year isn't necessarily structural, it wasn't necessarily the beginning of a new trend, and you know time will tell you exactly what the trajectory is.”
However, Robinson warns not to expect a downturn in tech.
“I wouldn't expect this to all be completely reversed, but I would expect to see hopefully still some growth through the rest of the year, probably tapering off toward the end of the year as it typically does, and then that should set the stage well for next year,” Robinson said.