November
2025 Jobs Report
November
2025 Jobs Report
How are tech jobs faring in the hiring market?
The tech hiring landscape showed modest growth momentum in October, though at a more measured pace than the previous month. Tech job postings grew 1.3% month-over-month, representing a significant deceleration from September's strong performance. However, the year-over-year picture remains challenging, with tech job postings declining 13.8% compared to October 2024.
This month-over-month growth, while positive, suggests companies are taking a more cautious approach to tech hiring as economic uncertainties persist and the industry continues to navigate AI-driven workforce transformations.
AI skills demand reaches new heights. Fifty-one percent of U.S. tech job postings now require AI skills in October, edging up from 50% in September. This represents a substantial 65% increase from October 2024, demonstrating that AI capabilities have become a fundamental requirement rather than a competitive advantage across the technology sector.
Where are tech job postings concentrated?
Industry patterns reveal a stark shift in tech hiring priorities. Telecommunications dominated growth with an exceptional 84% month-over-month increase, signaling massive investment in network infrastructure and 5G expansion. Other industries showed more modest but still positive growth: Finance/Banking grew 6%, while Software, Consulting, and Technology sectors each posted 2-3% increases.
Year-over-year trends tell a compelling story of sectoral transformation. Insurance led with 80% growth, followed by Manufacturing at 66%, and Telecommunications at 49%. Finance/Banking showed healthy 20% growth, with Software posting 19% gains. Automotive and Aerospace/Defense rounded out the growth leaders with 17% and 12%, respectively.
These patterns suggest companies are prioritizing operational resilience and infrastructure modernization over experimental technology initiatives.
Regional hiring patterns shift
At the state level, geographic realignments continue to reshape the tech landscape. Illinois maintained its growth trajectory with 13% year-over-year growth, while New Jersey managed modest 1% gains. However, the majority of traditional tech centers experienced significant contraction.
Virginia led declines with a sharp 26% drop, reflecting the ongoing impact of federal spending cuts and government contractor layoffs that have particularly affected the Washington D.C. metro area. Florida dropped 14%, while North Carolina and Georgia both declined 11% year-over-year.
Metro-level data reveals similar patterns of concentration and contraction. Chicago posted 12% year-over-year growth, while San Francisco and San Jose showed resilient 7% and 5% gains respectively, indicating West Coast markets may be stabilizing.
However, several major tech hubs continued struggling: Washington D.C. plummeted 32%, again reflecting the direct impact of federal budget cuts and government contractor reductions. Seattle fell 21%, potentially driven by layoffs at Amazon and Microsoft. Atlanta dropped 12%, while Dallas and Boston both declined 7%.
Who are companies hiring right now?
October's hiring patterns reveal a focus on specialized technical roles and operational leadership. ServiceNow Administrators, Lead Solution Architects, and Marketing Data Scientists all saw month-over-month growth exceeding 150%, indicating companies are prioritizing enterprise software optimization and data-driven marketing capabilities.
iOS Software Engineers and Lead Data Scientists also posted strong growth above 150%, suggesting continued investment in mobile platforms and advanced analytics. Operations Engineers, Managers/Software Development Engineers, and Lead Network Engineers showed robust growth around 140%, reflecting the industry's emphasis on operational excellence and infrastructure reliability.
The skills landscape tells a fascinating story about enterprise maturation and integration priorities. The top month-over-month growth skills paint a clear picture: Google BigQuery led with 81% growth, indicating massive enterprise migration to cloud-based analytics platforms.
The skill “Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure” showed 47% growth, reflecting the operational reality of AI implementation rather than experimental deployment. MuleSoft and API Design both posted 43% growth, highlighting the critical importance of system integration and data connectivity as companies consolidate their technology stacks.
Year-over-year growth patterns reinforce a narrative of organizational maturity and stakeholder management sophistication. Stakeholder Engagement topped the list with 337% growth, followed by Project Stakeholders at 287% and Stakeholder Management at 275%. This constellation of skills suggests companies are moving beyond pure technical implementation to focus on cross-functional collaboration and business alignment.
Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure's 295% year-over-year growth and System Monitoring's 207% growth indicate that AI has moved from proof-of-concept to production-scale implementation, requiring robust monitoring and infrastructure capabilities.
This skills evolution points to an industry that has matured beyond the "move fast and break things" mentality to embrace structured, sustainable, and stakeholder-aligned technology development. Companies are investing in the human and technical infrastructure needed for long-term operational success.
"Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure's 295% year-over-year growth and System Monitoring's 207% growth indicate that AI has moved from proof-of-concept to production-scale implementation, requiring robust monitoring and infrastructure capabilities."
Check out these additional resources for more tips and strategies for winning tech talent:
Methodology
To present the insights in this report, Dice used job posting data provided by Dice's partner, Lightcast, which has a database of more than 3 billion current and historical job postings worldwide. Dice pulled data on November 6, 2025 and analyzed over 7 million tech job postings in the U.S. to gather our specific dataset, which we then filtered for "Information Technology" jobs that fall under "Full Time," "Part Time" and "Flexible Hours." We gathered the list of top employers in the "Industry Analysis" section by using the above criteria, with an additional filter for job postings that only derive from employer sites. This report is based entirely on real-time job posting data and is independent of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment reports. This Dice report provides timely labor market insights derived directly from employer hiring activity rather than survey-based employment statistics. The information in this report is a snapshot of tech job posting data as of November 6, 2025, and backward revisions to prior month's data may occur from the sources used in this report.
About Dice
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