Citation: This article is summarized from the original report published by Dice.
How are tech jobs faring in the hiring market?
Tech job postings increased 9% month-over-month in March 2026, building on the recovery that began earlier in the year. March's growth extends a multi-month upward trend and reflects organizations moving from planning and budget-setting into broader talent acquisition. The market also posted a 15% gain on a year-over-year basis compared to March 2025, marking the second consecutive month of positive year-over-year performance and a meaningful indicator that the broader market is on stable footing.
AI skills requirements continued their upward trajectory in March, reaching 67% of U.S. tech job postings — up from 61% in February. Year-over-year, AI skill requirements have increased 167% from March 2025, reflecting how deeply AI capabilities have become embedded in role expectations across the technology sector. The data suggests that employers across industries increasingly treat AI fluency as a baseline expectation rather than a differentiating credential, as organizations move production-scale AI deployments from early experimentation into ongoing, operationalized systems.
Where are tech job postings concentrated?
March hiring growth showed notable strength across several key industries:
Regional hiring patterns show continued recovery
At the state level, Illinois, California, North Carolina, and New Jersey posted month-over-month gains in March. At the metro level, San Francisco led March month-over-month growth, followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston, Washington D.C., and Dallas — indicating a broad recovery across markets rather than strength concentrated in any single region.
Who are companies hiring right now?
March hiring patterns reflected strong demand for roles spanning insurance technology, AI engineering, software quality, and operations. Job title growth above 150% month-over-month included Guidewire Consultants, Distinguished Engineers, Software Product Engineers, Software Quality Assurance Consultants, Modeling Engineers, Directors of AI Engineering, Lead DevOps Engineers, Data Operations Analysts, IT Applications Analysts, and Directors of Cyber Security.
The Skills Landscape
The skills landscape tells a coherent story across two interconnected themes: AI production infrastructure and enterprise workforce transformation. The fastest-growing skills in March included Vector Database, Prompt Engineering, RAG, and LangChain, which form the core technical stack for deploying LLM-based applications in production.
Skills posting 300% or greater year-over-year growth highlight a shift in employer expectations. The concentration of Agentic AI, AI Agents, RAG, Vector Database, and Prompt Engineering reflects the move from assistive AI tools toward agentic systems capable of completing multi-step tasks autonomously. Concurrently, skills like Responsible AI and Cybersecurity Compliance are growing rapidly to provide the governance infrastructure required for these autonomous systems.