September 7th 2026
Hiring has always been competitive.
But the technology talent market has changed significantly in recent years, and the pressure isn’t necessarily where organisations might expect it to be.
There isn’t a shortage of every technology professional. Instead, demand has become concentrated around specific skills and areas of expertise, creating intense competition for the people who can genuinely make a difference.
Cybersecurity. Cloud infrastructure. Data engineering. AI. Software engineering. Technology risk. Regulatory and compliance-related technology roles.
These are the areas where organisations can find themselves competing for the same relatively small pool of experienced professionals.
And increasingly, they’re not just competing with organisations in their own sector.
The competition for talent has widened
For financial services organisations, the traditional talent pool has changed.
A technology professional who might once have considered banks, insurers or established financial institutions as their obvious options can now choose from fintechs, consultancies, technology vendors, scale-ups and organisations outside financial services altogether.
That matters because the competition isn’t necessarily offering the same thing.
Some organisations can move through a hiring process in days rather than weeks. Others can offer greater flexibility, different working environments or more aggressive salary and rate packages.
The result is that having a strong employer brand and an attractive role is no longer enough on its own.
Organisations need to understand what the candidate is comparing them against.
That means looking beyond the job description and asking more fundamental questions.
Is the salary competitive?
Is the rate realistic?
Is the location going to restrict the available talent pool?
Is the hiring process fast enough?
Are the required skills genuinely available in the region?
And, perhaps most importantly, are the expectations for the role aligned with what the market can actually provide?
Salary and rate expectations are moving faster than many organisations
One of the biggest challenges we see is the gap between internal benchmarking and the live market.
Organisations often work within structured salary bands, annual review cycles and established procurement processes. Those structures are important, but the technology talent market doesn’t necessarily move according to the same timetable.
A skill can become significantly more valuable within a relatively short period because demand has increased, supply has tightened or a new technology or regulatory requirement has created additional competition.
This is particularly relevant for specialist roles.
If an organisation starts recruiting based on an outdated benchmark, it may still attract candidates, but not necessarily the candidates it actually wants.
The strongest people may already be earning more.
Contractors may be operating at higher market rates.
Candidates may expect greater flexibility than the organisation has historically offered.
And by the time this becomes obvious, the organisation may already have spent weeks trying to fill the position.
Benchmarking therefore needs to be part of the conversation before recruitment begins.
The geography of talent is changing
Where organisations can find technology talent is changing too.
Some skills remain heavily concentrated in established technology hubs. Others have become increasingly accessible through hybrid and remote working models.
This creates both opportunities and challenges.
A role that is difficult to fill within one city may have a much larger potential talent pool if the search is widened geographically.
Equally, organisations recruiting internationally need to understand the differences between markets.
Salary expectations vary.
Availability varies.
Candidate motivations vary.
Notice periods, employment structures and contracting arrangements can vary considerably between countries.
A hiring strategy that works in London may not work in Brussels, Amsterdam or Zurich.
This is one reason an international approach to technology recruitment has become increasingly valuable.
Understanding a market isn’t simply knowing where the candidates are. It’s understanding how that market operates.
The skills gap isn’t disappearing. It’s becoming more specific.
The important distinction is between a general “IT skills shortage” and a shortage of particular combinations of experience.
For example, an organisation may be able to find people with cloud experience relatively easily.
Finding someone with the right cloud platform experience, financial services background, security knowledge, regulatory understanding and leadership capability is a very different proposition.
The more specific the requirement becomes, the smaller the available talent pool is likely to be.
This is where organisations can sometimes make recruitment unnecessarily difficult.
A job description can gradually accumulate requirements until it describes an ideal candidate who may barely exist in the market.
The answer isn’t always to compromise on the quality of the hire.
Sometimes it’s to understand which requirements are genuinely essential and which can be developed once someone is in the role.
That requires a realistic understanding of the available talent.
What does this mean for employers?
The organisations navigating the market successfully aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest recruitment budgets.
They’re the ones making better-informed decisions earlier.
They understand the market before opening a vacancy.
They benchmark salaries and rates against current conditions.
They know where the relevant talent is concentrated.
They understand how their competitors are approaching the same skills.
And they recognise when a recruitment strategy needs to change.
Sometimes that means widening the geographical search.
Sometimes it means considering contract talent.
Sometimes it means adjusting the specification.
And sometimes it means moving faster.
The key is knowing which response makes sense for the market you’re actually hiring in.
This is where market knowledge matters
At Church International, we work with organisations across financial services, banking, insurance, fintech and technology, supporting specialist IT recruitment across the UK and international markets.
That means our role isn’t simply to introduce candidates to vacancies.
It’s to understand the market behind the vacancy.
Where the relevant skills are available.
What candidates are looking for.
How competitive salary and contract rates are.
Which markets are experiencing greater pressure.
And where organisations may need to adjust their approach to attract the people they need.
Because recruitment becomes considerably harder when the market is understood only after a vacancy has been open for several weeks.
The technology talent landscape is changing constantly.
The organisations that stay closest to it are better placed to make informed hiring decisions, respond quickly when the right people become available and compete effectively for specialist skills.
That’s the difference between simply recruiting for a role and understanding the talent market you’re recruiting into.
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