Has the Jobs Space stalled again? Quarter Update 2026

Has the Jobs Space stalled again?

Welcome to our end-of-Q1 update and a review of how the fast start seems to have stalled. We hope you’re keeping well as we move through Autumn. Easter seems to have been a catalyst for many ‘last of the good weather’ holidays and school holiday breaks, which we hope you’ve all enjoyed.

We hope this is useful as an update to our TechShapers report which we published in March. It is still surprising to us just how quickly the landscape changes.

We encourage you to contact us if you’re looking for any specific market intelligence. We’re in a great position to comment on the market and are always happy to share these insights.

Skip to: * Hot Jobs * What’s happening at Sourced * Skills in demand right now * Overview *

General Comments

It’s been an interesting first quarter, which many thought—and we had hoped—might see a return to a slightly ‘normal’ hiring market after two and a half years of recessionary conditions.

While this year was always going to be challenged by the election, global conditions (war and conflict) have reintroduced caution into what was starting to emerge as a promising 2026 start, leaving us to wonder what’s next.

At this point we really don’t have the answers, but we can comment on a few market specifics:

1 – Permanent vs Contracting

As we entered Q1, we saw a very strong swing away from contracting and back to permanent hiring, something we’d not seen at all through 2025, where short term hires led. There seemed to be enough confidence in work supply and business stability to consider hiring and growing again, and companies were eyeing growth, albeit in small numbers.

Enter Trump stage left, and this has promptly stalled again through late March and into April, and suddenly we’re back to 2025.

As we write this, the small balloon of activity has paused, contracts are continuing to trickle through but in smaller numbers, and we’re back to ‘wait and hope’.

2 – Salaries

We’re not seeing any movement, upward or downward in salaries, with the majority of offer negotiations being around working conditions (work from home still holding strong favour), professional development, and team connection.

3 – Candidates can be found in…

Resourcing remains a challenge, however, we have seen a quiet shift in candidates, currently in permanent roles, starting to dip their toes. Perhaps reflecting the confidence seen in employer intentions, and now 3 years past the post-COVID hiring bubble, employees are getting restless; they just need a catalyst to make a move. Unfortunately, as we write this, we see a slight bubble of restructuring and downsizing due to global conditions, and in noting this, net migration of talent in and out remains low.

Overall, the market shows signs of life but also a strong sense of caution amid current events. Who knows the knock-on effect of the oil crisis, but it’s fair to say we don’t expect the news to be great. Do we expect a better year than 2025? Probably no.
Do we expect a worse year than 2025? Maybe.

Are we really sure? Not at all!!

In general, of what we’ve seen to date, demand has clearly favoured the permanent employees and Fixed Term contractors. There has been a wide spread of roles across professional services, development, infrastructure and data.

As always BA, PM, and Programme Coordination roles have continued to flow into the market, but also new and less commonly recruited roles – Modern Workplace, Leadership, Technical Writing, and Test. These requirements have been a response to new or ongoing project work, driven by pockets of growth and innovation happening, as well as the desire to improve business processes and systems and modernise existing technology investments.

If any bold employee moves were to be made, this was possibly the time to do it. We’re now holding the popcorn waiting to see what the remainder of 2026 has in store for us.

Hot Jobs

Junior Level

Intermediate Level

We are working with Trimble New Zealand, recruiting C++ Developers, Intermediate and Senior on 12-month Fixed Term contracts. If you enjoy working on large enterprise code base, with a strength in firmware level C++ we’d love to hear from you.

Senior Level

Within Sourced Walls

It’s been a quiet or eventless quarter within Sourced walls, which is great! Sometimes no news is a good thing 🙂 We all had a great summer break and came into the new year raring to go with a large client recruitment project to focus on.

Successfully appointing 9 hires in 8 weeks was a great highlight. Definitely one for the team to be exceptionally proud of. Now if only more NZ companies were bucking the trend and growing on the global stage!

With winter coming, 60% of the Sourced office have overseas trips booked in already for warmer climates, and one wedding to plan for. Otherwise, we’ve been delighted to have two new puppies on the floor, who have been keeping our Archie on his toes.

Who is in Demand?

As above, this quarter has offered a wide variety of roles with no one clear winner in terms of share.

From our perspective and typical focus, we have been heavier in the Software Development space than usual, with a client appointing a large number of roles in short order. Otherwise we have seen all role types reasonably well represented across both permanent and contract.

Contract roles have continued to trickle in and have been highly contested. This reflects both a higher than usual number of contractors in the market and a lack of longevity in many of the contracts offered. Specifically for PMs and BAs, there has been a string of contracts offering much shorter commitment periods (3 months typically), with notice periods also shortening (1-2 weeks). Programme Coordinators, conversely, have had a better time, back in demand to support the needs of larger teams and being offered longer commitments of 6-12 months.

Development and Test, as noted above, have kept us very busy but were client specific. Attractive salaries, remote working options, and an exceptional team culture generated unprecedented interest and success in appointments. This was the exception and not the norm in the market.

A quiet nod to Infrastructure and Leadership roles. These were well behind the pack in 2025 but have increased in volume in the first part of this year. A strong nod too to the employers who looked favourably on hiring emerging leaders vs seasoned leaders. This offers candidates a step up into roles that have been notoriously difficult to secure, and in turn offers promotion opportunities for those coming up below them.

Final Thoughts for the quarter

It’s such a tricky time to be writing this report. Had the oil crisis not stalled us, we’d be talking about a return to buoyancy. A little bravery and some real quality hiring was on the cards. But for now, we wait.

Contractors are still in demand and roles are highly contested. Permanent employees would love to move but are reluctant to do so, and it remains a fickle market.

As the financial year ends, we are interested to see how sentiment shapes up for the next 12 months. From here, we see no strong indicators of growth, confidence or innovation. At best, we’re in for a business-as-usual year, interrupted by an election and rising oil prices. It is worth noting that we had wished for a BAU year at the end of 2025. Let’s keep the fingers and toes crossed.