Data Science and Tech Job Market 2026: Reports, Trends and Hiring Data

As of November 2026, U.S. tech hiring is recovering from its 2023 to 2025 low but is still below pre-pandemic levels, and the interviews themselves are harder than ever. Indeed's software development job postings index stood at 81.6 on October 30, 2026 (February 2020 = 100), up from 65.9 a year earlier, and CompTIA counted 629,000+ active IT job postings in October. At the same time, Interview Query's data shows offer rates at a twelve-year low of 38.6% in 2026, and AI now comes up in 7.2% of technical interview reports, so getting hired depends more on how well you interview than on how many jobs are open.

This page is our running summary of the job market for data scientists, analysts, data engineers and ML engineers. It links every report and news analysis we have published, grouped by theme and in date order. We refresh it every quarter.

The Indeed indexes are seasonally adjusted, with February 1, 2020 set to 100. A reading of 61.8 for data and analytics means postings are about 38% below their pre-pandemic level; software development is about 18% below. CompTIA says data scientists were among the occupations with double-digit posting gains in October 2026.

What the numbers say together: postings are rising from a low base, layoffs continue at a steady pace, and each opening draws more applicants and more interview rounds than it did a few years ago.

These are the reports built from our own interview and job data. Newest first; every figure carries the date it describes.

AI in technical interviews (October 2026). Our 2026 analysis of 59,000+ technical interview reports found AI, LLM or generative AI mentions rose from 1.6% in Q1 2025 to 7.2% in Q3 2026, while LeetCode-style questions held at about 30%. In first-hand 2026 reports, AI came up in 47% of ML and AI engineer interviews, 15% of data scientist interviews and 6% of analyst interviews.

Offer rates (July 2026). Our study of offer rates at a twelve-year low found that about half of reported interview processes ended in an offer in 2015, compared with 38.6% in 2026, measured on a fixed panel of 594 companies. Intern offer rates fell from 64% in 2015 to 39% in 2024.

January 2026 job market report. Our January 2026 data science job market report described a stabilization phase rather than a rebound, with low single-digit monthly growth for data analyst openings and non-FAANG employers making up an estimated 85% to 88% of visible data job openings.

State of Interviewing 2025 (November 2025). Our State of Interviewing 2025 report found in-person rounds rose from 24% of interviews in 2022 to 38% in 2025, as companies responded to AI-assisted cheating.

Monthly reports, 2023 to 2025. These capture the market at each point in time and should be read as history, not current data:

• February 2025: data analyst openings rose 25% and data engineer openings 42% month over month in January 2025.
• November 2024: data job openings jumped 77.8% month over month in October 2024.
• October 2024: openings fell 16% month over month and 35% year over year in September 2024.
• September 2024 and August 2024: data science postings in July 2024 were up 130% year over year from the July 2023 bottom.
• December 2023: total data listings were down 37% year over year in November 2023.
• October 2023: listings held steady while FAANG's share of postings kept rising.
• September 2023: month-over-month hiring stabilized, with data scientist openings up 25%.
• March 2023, February 2023 and January 2023: openings for data roles rose 13% in January 2023 even as layoffs spiked, then dipped and recovered by March.

Annual and earlier reports. Our 2024 data science report on the rise of AI jobs (June 2024) looked at layoffs and interview changes after the 2022 slowdown. Our report on the shrinking "data scientist" title found data scientist openings fell 26% from October 2021 to October 2022 while analyst and engineer openings rose. The 2021 data science interview report, built on 10,000+ interview experiences, shows how COVID changed interviews in 2020.

Fall 2025. Workers stayed put. We covered job hugging, where workers cling to roles out of fear (September 2025), and the Great Stay, as tech workers stopped job-hopping (October 2025). Bank of America's view that AI was lifting GDP without cutting jobs yet came out the same month.

November 2025. Signals pointed both ways. CompTIA's October data showed a quiet uptick in tech hiring, Microsoft resumed hiring with an AI-first headcount plan, and we explained why tech looked like it was shrinking and growing at once. Indeed's 2026 outlook then showed tech postings more than 30% below pre-pandemic levels.

December 2025 to February 2026. CompTIA reported AI hiring rising even as overall tech job growth slowed. In January we covered rising productivity alongside frozen hiring, LinkedIn data showing applications doubled since 2022, and Indeed data showing data scientists held up better than most tech roles. By February, Toptal data suggested U.S. tech jobs could grow in Q1 2026.

March to June 2026. The rebound became visible. CompTIA showed where tech hiring was actually growing, then forecast 185,000+ net new tech jobs for 2026. Glassdoor found the sharpest drop in worker confidence in tech. Dice found tech hiring rising fastest in insurance and banking, and by June CompTIA reported tech postings at a three-year high while interviews stayed tough. CompTIA's October 2026 numbers in the snapshot above show that momentum continued.

September to October 2025. xAI cut 500+ data annotators by email, Salesforce's CEO said AI replaced 4,000 support roles, and we looked at the gap between the Bay Area AI boom and local layoffs and how "AI" became the stated reason behind many tech layoffs. Google Cloud's CEO pushed back on AI as a job killer.

March to April 2026. Q1 2026 was tech's worst quarter for cuts since 2023. Musk said xAI had not hired the right people and reset its hiring. We analyzed what Block's 40% cut means for data scientists, why CFOs planned more AI layoffs while productivity gains lagged, and Challenger's finding that AI was the top stated reason for March cuts, alongside MIT's view that workers still have time to adapt.

As of November 11, 2026, Layoffs.fyi counts 142,000+ tech employees laid off at 350 companies this year.

August to October 2025. A Stanford study found entry-level workers in AI-exposed jobs saw a 13% employment drop since late 2022. We covered why "get a degree, get a job" stopped working, Goldman Sachs and Gen Z's competing views of the market, and a survey where 96% of Morgan Stanley interns said they use AI.

November to December 2025. Big Tech froze entry-level hiring at the cost of its future talent pipeline. Students shifted from CS to AI majors, and we asked whether chasing AI degrees is the right bet and covered why Geoffrey Hinton says a CS degree still matters.

2026. IBM planned to triple U.S. entry-level hiring (February), and NACE reported new-grad hiring expectations up 5.6% for the Class of 2026, with interviews still competitive (April). Our offer-rate data adds a key detail: once in the room, interns and entry-level candidates convert at about the same rate as mid-level candidates. The squeeze is in getting the interview.

If you are weighing grad school, our guide to whether a data science master's is worth it covers outcomes by program type.

Fall 2025. Skillsoft found HR leaders worried that employee skills lag AI, and IBM said its consultants now need to code. OpenAI claimed GPT-5.2 matched professionals on about 70% of benchmarked tasks (December), which we put in context.

January to April 2026. 53% of tech postings asked for AI skills, leaving generalists behind. Hands-on certifications started replacing multiple-choice exams, Anthropic's research showed which professions have the most AI exposure, and a posting analysis showed the data scientist skill bar moving toward SQL and full-stack ownership, with SQL in 79% of 2026 postings. Stanford's AI Index found agentic AI hiring surging while data interviews still test the basics, PwC's study showed why business judgment matters more in data interviews, and American Banker found bank AI literacy rising while interviews stay focused on core skills.

May to June 2026. Robert Half said AI fluency is now baseline in interviews, and AI-written applications are slowing hiring. Dice reported AI skills in 73% of tech postings, while fundamentals still win interviews.

Visas and global hiring. The $100,000 H-1B fee and Big Tech's reaction (September 2025), Finland fast-tracking tech visas for AI talent (January 2026), and our guide to visa sponsorship for data science jobs cover options for international candidates.

2024 to 2025. A member's story shows how interviews became more complex as they moved online (October 2024). By late 2025, Drexel research showed AI deciding who gets hired and Dice found tech workers gaming AI hiring tools just to get interviews.

February to April 2026. McKinsey and BCG began using AI chatbots in case interviews. We argued data science interviews feel broken because no one agrees what a data scientist is. CoderPad found U.S. technical hiring up 90% with a changed interview format. Karat surveyed 400 hiring leaders and found 71% say AI makes technical skills harder to assess, and we followed with an analysis of why technical interviews now simulate real work. CodeSignal launched agentic assessments built around AI coding tools.

May 2026 to now. Greenhouse found 63% of job seekers have faced an AI interview, often without clear disclosure. Ashby's data showed data roles now average 24.9 interview hours per hire, the most of any technical role. Our own offer-rate and AI-in-interviews reports (above) bring the story to October 2026: more rounds, an AI screen on top of the coding screen, and fewer offers per interview.

To practice for the newer formats, our AI mock interview lets you rehearse a product case, statistics, SQL, Python, ML or behavioral round out loud and get a scored report; your first session is free with an account.

The BLS puts median data scientist pay at $120,230 for 2025 and projects 35% job growth from 2025 to 2035. For employer-level detail, see our lists of top companies for data analysts and data science companies worth targeting, our guide to data scientist roles at hedge funds, and the job boards that work best for data roles. These lists were last updated for 2025, so check current openings.

For role and company salary numbers, our salary pages show compensation by company and role, and each company interview guide lays out the process, rounds and recently reported questions before you apply.

September 2025. MIT found most companies get little return from AI pilots, the Economic Innovation Group found no sign yet of an AI job apocalypse, and a survey showed many leaders admit their AI claims are exaggerated. Ramp's data showed San Francisco tech workers losing their weekends.

October to December 2025. We wrote that AI-written code still needs a human babysitter, covered Nvidia's CEO on the skilled-trade jobs the AI build-out needs, and Google's CEO on vibe coding opening development to more people. Wharton found 74% of companies measuring GenAI ROI see positive returns, BCG and MIT found 76% of leaders see agentic AI as a coworker, and the people building AI often still prefer manual work. In December, Anthropic reported AI eroding some engineers' skills, JUST Capital found the public far less optimistic about AI than executives, and Gallup found 45% of U.S. workers use AI at work.

January to February 2026. Amazon started tracking low office attendance and tech firms watched productivity even though few workers would quit over RTO. Microsoft's AI chief called vibe coding the future and predicted most white-collar work could be automated by 2027. Berkeley research found AI leading to workload creep, and reporting showed AI startup employees working 12-hour days.

1. Expect a longer loop. Data roles have the most interview hours per hire, so plan for SQL, statistics, a product or ML case, a take-home and behavioral rounds. Our learning paths cover each round in order, and are included in Premium.
2. Keep the fundamentals sharp. AI was added on top of coding and SQL screens, not instead of them. The question bank has 980 interview questions you can filter by company, topic and difficulty; question prompts are free to read.
3. Prepare one strong AI story. Be ready to explain a project where you used or evaluated an LLM, what you measured and what failed.
4. Practice for the AI screen. It is often the first filter, so answer in full, structured sentences.
5. Stay ready between searches. With fewer offers per interview, the candidates who keep practicing convert more. Premium includes full company guides, 10 AI interviews a month and 10+ courses.

Is the data science job market getting better in 2026?

Yes, from a low base. Indeed's data and analytics postings index was 61.8 on October 30, 2026, up from 59.4 a year earlier but still about 38% below February 2020. CompTIA reported active IT postings up 18.5% year over year in October 2026.

Are tech layoffs still happening in 2026?

Yes. Layoffs.fyi counts 142,000+ tech employees laid off at 350 companies in 2026 as of November 11.

Is it harder to get a tech job offer now?

Yes. In Interview Query's data, 38.6% of reported interview processes ended in an offer in 2026, compared with about half in 2015.

Is entry-level data science hiring recovering?

Partly. NACE reported employers expecting 5.6% more new-grad hires for the Class of 2026, and IBM announced plans to triple U.S. entry-level hiring. Getting the interview remains the hardest step.

Do data science interviews now include AI questions?

More often. In first-hand 2026 reports to Interview Query, 15% of data scientist interviews and 47% of ML and AI engineer interviews mentioned AI, LLMs or generative AI.

What do data scientists earn?

The BLS reports a median of $120,230 for data scientists in 2025. Pay varies widely by company, level and location.

How often is this page updated?

Every quarter. The next refresh is due in February 2027.

Written by Jay Feng, founder and CEO of Interview Query. External figures in the snapshot were checked on November 11, 2026, against the primary source: Indeed Hiring Lab's public Job Postings Index data, CompTIA's October 2026 tech employment release, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook and Layoffs.fyi. Interview Query figures come from our published reports, which describe their own methods. Older monthly reports are linked as history and their figures describe the month stated, not today. Third-party survey numbers in the theme sections are as reported in the linked articles at the time of writing.

Last updated: November 11, 2026