New research from the recruitment giant shows non-tech employers paying premiums of up to 17% as AI demand rises and tech layoffs climb
For years, the best software engineers had an obvious career path: join a tech company, collect the stock grants, enjoy the free snacks. That path now has serious competition from employers who used to lose these bidding wars.
Banks, healthcare companies and other non-tech employers are now paying software engineers more than tech firms do, according to new research from recruitment giant Randstad. The driver is a surge in demand for AI skills, landing at the same moment layoffs are flooding the market with experienced engineers.
The premium is real, and it is sizable
Randstad’s report, titled “Tech talent in transition: building the AI-ready workforce,” puts numbers on the shift. Banks are offering software engineers a 13% salary premium over tech companies.
Healthcare and life sciences firms go further, paying up to 17% more. The sectors once seen as slow-moving and conservative are suddenly the ones writing the bigger checks.
The research surveyed 1,100 business and technology decision-makers across 11 countries, including France, Germany and Japan. Randstad paired that survey with analysis of 20 million job postings and roughly 100 million candidate profiles.
The appetite for AI talent explains much of it. Job postings requiring AI capabilities grew more than fivefold over the past year, according to the report.
Randstad CEO Sander van ‘t Noordende framed the trend as companies finally finding practical uses for the technology. He spoke to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.
“These businesses see massive potential in AI, realizing business cases that they were not able to realize before,” van ‘t Noordende said.
Tech layoffs are feeding the pipeline
The other half of the story is supply. US tech companies cut 165,925 jobs in the first nine months of 2026, a 54% increase from the prior year.
Non-tech employers have noticed. According to Randstad, 55% of non-tech organizations are actively hiring workers displaced by tech layoffs.
Demand is not shrinking overall, either. The report found 86% of organizations are expanding their tech workforces, a figure that rises to 93% in the US.
The skills employers want are also changing. Alongside technical AI expertise, companies are increasingly looking for governance, orchestration, critical thinking and communication abilities.
What this means for employers, workers and investors
For tech companies, the findings signal a loss of pricing power in the talent market. The assumption that top engineers will always choose a tech brand over a bank no longer holds when the bank pays 13% more.
For banks and healthcare firms, the premiums are an investment bet. They are paying up now because they expect AI to unlock business cases that were previously out of reach, as van ‘t Noordende described.
For workers, the picture is mixed but leans favorable for the right profile. Engineers with AI skills and the softer abilities Randstad highlights, such as governance and communication, appear to hold the strongest hand.
Those displaced by tech layoffs also have more options than a headline job-cut number might suggest. With 55% of non-tech organizations recruiting from that pool, a layoff may be a detour rather than a dead end.
