May 2025

Building future-forward tech teams 

If you’re doing business in 2025 and beyond, you need tech expertise on your side. But 87% of tech leaders agree that finding skilled professionals to support business priorities is harder than ever. Our latest report, Building Future-Forward Tech Teams, offers a deep dive into the tech skills gap challenge and lays out real-world ways to build a team ready to tackle critical tech initiatives. We’re here with the TL;DR to get you started:  

Takeaway 1: Digital transformation requires reimagining how we work. 

A smart tech strategy isn’t just about buying more stuff. A successful roadmap in 2025 calls for:    

💭 Customer-first thinking  

⏩ Constantly planning for future skill needs  

📈 Enhanced focus on collaboration and innovation  

Takeaway 2: Upskilling is key 

The thing about technology: It’s always improving. That means your team should, too. A few steps can help create a culture of professional development to support employees and the business:    

📚 Promote continuous learning: Offer courses, encourage curiosity and formalize mentorship programs. 

👥 Foster creative thinking: Allow your team to take risks, fail and learn from mistakes. 

🔀 Adopt a flexible talent model: Get comfortable with scaling teams to meet upcoming needs. Contract talent can fill critical skills gaps and even help your current employees level up.  

Takeaway 3: Pay off tech debt 

Do you ever feel like your company’s tech ecosystem is held together with duct tape and luck? That’s the feeling of tech debt, the accrued cost of taking shortcuts in development, repeatedly delaying updates and struggling with legacy systems. This can lead to resource drain, employee burnout, increased risk and challenges delivering products and services to market.

How can you fix it?   

🧑💼 Recruit skilled tech professionals 

💡 Set realistic project scopes (and stick to them)  

🤝 Gain leadership buy-in to work on backlogs  

We at Robert Half know tech talent and are here to help build a staffing solution that makes sense for your business. Let us help: https://the.roberthalf.com/uimAk 

Job market by the numbers  

- U.S. payrolls increased by 177,000 in April, surpassing economists' predictions of 130,000.  

- The number of job openings decreased 288,000 to 7.2 million, still above historical averages but reflecting a more measured demand. 

- 89% of employers anticipate maintaining or increasing hiring levels for the graduating class of 2025.  

- While fully on-site jobs remain the most common work arrangement in the U.S., hybrid arrangements have increased significantly over the past two years. A recent Robert Half analysis found that 24% of job postings in Q1 of 2025 were for hybrid positions, compared to just 9% in Q1 of 2023. On-site roles accounted for 63% of postings in Q1 of this year, while fully remote jobs were listed 13% of the time.   

Market insights: 

- Despite continued uncertainty, companies of all sizes are hiring for critical roles and bringing in contract talent to bridge skills gaps on their team.  

- Projects are being delayed, not canceled. Businesses are being very cost-conscious, pausing non-business critical initiatives rather than scrapping them altogether. As business confidence improves, growth initiatives are often reprioritized and hiring urgency returns. 

- Wage growth has moderated, with some exceptions. A less active market and budget constraints have contributed to slower wage growth. But some employers are still willing to pay a salary premium for professionals with highly specialized skills who can support business priorities and revenue-generating activities.  

Visit our labor market overview to see the latest updates on the market. 

Calendar check 

🧠 May is Mental Health Awareness Month 

🖖 National Techie Day is May 18. Might we suggest celebrating by reading our tech report? 

🛜 Our LinkedIn Live series Robert Half Real Talk is back on June 4 as we talk (you guessed it) TECH! RSVP today!