High-skilled Job Report for October 2025

This is an overview of major findings. Download the full report for more insights.

Key Highlights

High-skilled Job Report for October 2025

Each month, Toptal analyzes job market data relevant to Toptal, the world’s largest fully remote workforce, and the Toptal Talent Network, which includes more than 20,000 highly vetted professionals in technology, design, finance, marketing, strategic consulting, and more. In addition to monitoring broader global data for month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter, and year-over-year trends, Toptal has designed a unique scoring system, the Toptal Market Strength Score, which represents specific demand for experienced remote and hybrid technology professional services personnel. The scores are based on new job postings, advertised compensation, and actual hiring. Our October report, High-skilled Job Report for October 2025, follows the release of the Q3 report and includes the following key findings:

• Demand for remote or hybrid technology and professional services talent with five or more years of experience—as measured by new job postings, advertised compensation, and actual hiring—increased by 12.1% year over year, for a Toptal Market Strength Score of Moderate.
• Software development and data science were the areas of expertise that experienced the most growth: Year-over-year demand surged 24% and 23%, respectively, for Toptal Market Strength scores of Strong.
• Demand for finance consultants, marketers, and product managers also scored Strong, with year-over-year growth of 22%, 18%, and 21%, respectively.
• Demand for designers and information security experts, however, was Poor, declining 24% and 23% year over year, respectively.
• Global technology layoffs increased 120% month over month, after a quarter-over-quarter decline of 28% in Q3 2025. Tech layoffs have increased 375% year over year.
• Despite the volatile and somewhat gloomy broader picture, hiring for experienced remote and hybrid workers in Toptal’s areas of expertise increased by an average of 14% year over year, according to Lightcast data.
• Volatility in the broader technology job market is likely due, in part, to the rapid adoption of AI that is causing companies to reevaluate their strategies and seek to fill highly specific roles. AI is negatively affecting junior positions far more than mid- and senior-level ones.
• The US and most other large global economies experienced a year-over-year decrease in new job postings for all professions and levels of experience combined, according to Indeed Hiring Lab data. While demand for experienced remote and hybrid technology and professional services talent has started to rebound from the market low in Q4 2023, the broader market has yet to begin its recovery.

“The current market cannot be viewed simply in terms of being ‘up’ or ‘down,’” says Erik Stettler, Toptal’s Chief Economist and the author of Toptal’s High-skilled Job Report for October 2025. “Rather, it must be viewed through the lens of transition; a transition that entails a reshuffling of the skills that are most in demand as well as market friction between supply and demand. The magnitude of the strain and difficulty this transition brings for many organizations and professionals is significant. But organizations that systematically foster optionality through rapid experimentation will be rewarded, as will individuals who pursue continuous learning, especially if they focus on the ability to place their specific skills in the context of larger business strategy.”

Remote Work Trends

Demand for Experienced Remote and Hybrid Professionals Is Growing

Despite large companies like JPMorgan Chase, Dell, and AT&T announcing full-time return-to-office mandates, the demand for experienced remote and hybrid technology and professional services personnel is on the rise. As of October 2025, demand—as measured by new job postings, median advertised compensation, and actual hiring activity—grew 12.1% year over year, for a Toptal Market Strength Score of Moderate

Impact of AI

Demand for Data Science Professionals Surges

Data science provides the building blocks of AI through the collection, cleaning, analysis, and modeling of data. As organizations increasingly build AI into their internal operations and external products and services, the demand for data engineers and machine learning experts continues to soar.

Demand for data science experts was one of the strongest of any area of expertise in this report, increasing 23% year over year, for a score of Strong.

This strong performance follows similar trends in Q3, Q2, and Q1 of 2025, when year-over-year data science expert demand was up 40%, 28%, and 32%, respectively. In particular, demand is shifting toward data professionals who can connect technical fluency with business strategy and product insight, according to Toptal leaders.

“Companies are realizing that data is the foundation for the majority of their innovation, but are having difficulty identifying the best ways to use it,” says Brad DeFrank, Director of Delivery and AI Strategy at Toptal. “Given the ongoing strategy gap in AI, demand will likely favor adaptive professionals who can connect the dots between technical fluency, commercial savvy, and product thinking. Analytics in this landscape isn’t about dashboards, it’s about decisions.”

Demand Overview

Toptal Market Strength Scores for 10 Key Areas of Expertise

Toptal Market Strength Scores are based on job listings, compensation, and hiring for remote and hybrid roles in technology and professional services, as reported by Lightcast. A negative change of more than -15% equals a score of Poor, a change between -15% and +15% equals a score of Moderate, and a positive change greater than +15% equals a score of Strong.

Detailed insights for each area of expertise are available in the full report.

Technology Layoffs

Tech Layoffs Remain Elevated

Tech layoff trends are important to track since the technology sector generally adopts AI and other new technologies first, meaning what is happening in this sector may point to the future direction of other categories. Toptal calculated tech layoff trends based on data reported by Layoffs.fyi, and found that layoffs increased 120% month over month, thanks to Amazon’s layoff of 14,000 workers. Technology layoffs remain significantly elevated compared to five years ago. Excluding the Q2 2020 spike in layoffs prompted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two-year period from Q1 of 2020 to Q1 of 2022 saw approximately 5,800 layoffs per quarter—just 32% of the total layoffs in the single month of October 2025.

International Job Market

Global Job Growth Is Sluggish, With One Exception

New job postings for all positions and all levels of experience fell in the US and most other large economies with comparable available data, both month over month and year over year.

The country with the strongest job growth by far, as measured by new openings posted, was Canada, with a 4.1% year-over-year increase in the number of open roles across all industries and seniority levels. Canada also performed best month over month with an increase of 1.1%. France experienced the biggest declines in new jobs posted both month over month and year over year, with decreases of 2.8% and 16.5%, respectively. These job posting numbers include roles in all professional areas and at all seniority levels, as well as across all work models (remote, hybrid, and in-person).

Methodology

Toptal’s Analysis of the Data

Toptal calculates month-over-month and year-over-year market strength scores based on the change in new job postings, median advertised compensation, and actual hiring activity for technology and professional services personnel with at least five years of experience, as reported by Lightcast. Other trends are calculated based on data from Hacker News and Indeed, as noted throughout the report.

Given that Toptal itself is a fully distributed company, and the Toptal Talent Network is a remote workforce, we filter job posts, compensation, and hiring data for remote or hybrid positions whenever possible, and Toptal Market Strength Scores are specifically applicable to this flexible work market.

Please note: Some of the source data changes in real time and may shift slightly between early November 2025, when the calculations were done, and the time of publication. This is common with indices of this kind and typically does not materially affect the trends and major findings.

Some parts of the report have been redacted for public release. If you are interested in the unredacted version please reach out to insights@toptal.com.