After a two-year slowdown, Poland’s IT sector is beginning to recover — but the market now operates on different rules than it did a few years ago. The rising importance of artificial intelligence is reshaping how teams work and how companies recruit, with specialised skills playing an increasingly decisive role. The coming quarters could prove favourable for senior professionals and engineers who specialise in narrow domains.
“The IT industry is slowly starting to wake up. It’s not an eldorado yet, but we can see a slight increase in its potential. Our market predictions, supported by Gartner’s analyses, show that the transformation of the market will continue to accelerate toward artificial intelligence,” Paweł Łopatka, Managing Director of Experis Poland (part of ManpowerGroup), told Newseria.
Gartner forecasts that global IT spending will reach $6.15 trillion in 2026, representing a 10.8% increase compared to 2025. Analysts point to continued expansion of AI infrastructure — including generative systems, data platforms and cloud solutions — as one of the key engines behind this growth.
As investment shifts toward AI-powered technologies, demand is rising for specific, high-value competencies. Companies are concentrating on deploying and integrating advanced solutions, which increases the need for experienced specialists while reducing the role of repetitive, routine positions.
“Engineers will have to reskill significantly and become experts in generative AI. The biggest potential in IT will be with seniors, senior+, architects — people who can orchestrate AI. These will be the areas where the strongest growth and potential will be visible,” Łopatka said.
Data from the IT job board Just Join IT shows that 110,996 job offers were posted in 2025 — an 8.4% increase year-on-year versus 2024. It was the first uptick after two years of declines, but the overall number of postings remains well below the record-high levels of 2022. More than half of all adverts targeted senior roles, while junior openings were marginal. Junior postings accounted for 4.79% of all offers — the lowest level in years. Most vacancies required experience and independence: mid-level roles made up 43.73% of offers, while senior roles represented 51.48%.
“Everything is moving toward an AI orchestrator — an experienced senior, an architect who understands generative systems and language models, and who will be able to coordinate AI bots to do the work,” the expert said.
The rapid development of AI tools is automating tasks that were previously carried out manually, flattening team structures in the process. In practical terms, this means greater emphasis on coordination and oversight of systems, and fewer people assigned to repetitive programming work. Gartner’s analyses suggest that a growing share of IT work is being delivered in AI-assisted models, influencing both demand for skills and employer expectations across the technology workforce.
Companies increasingly expect engineers to be fluent with AI-based tools and capable of adapting to fast-moving technological change. A lack of AI-related competencies is more and more often becoming a bottleneck for project delivery.
“Reskilling and upskilling engineers in this direction will be natural. But the experience they have today is crucial — because what happens if AI goes down for even two days? We still have to be able to write code and move a project forward, so the market will definitely transform,” Łopatka said.
At the same time, according to Experis analyses, Poland’s IT market continues to face a talent deficit — most acutely in cybersecurity, cloud, data, AI and expert-level roles. In the AI era, the profile of a programmer is changing: integration skills, the ability to work with platforms and cloud environments, and systems thinking are becoming increasingly valuable. IT is no longer seen merely as technical back-office support; instead, it plays a central role in building companies’ competitive advantage.
“Companies will focus on a highly specialised part of the industry, and on quality as well — so high-value services will be extremely important. We’re talking about data, JavaScript, data analytics, cybersecurity, and all the big-tech ecosystems like SAP, ServiceNow and Salesforce. There will definitely be strong demand for that,” said the Managing Director of Experis Poland.
Recruitment indicators for the first quarter of 2026 suggest that companies planning to hire are concentrating on narrow, specialised competence profiles, particularly in areas tied to new technologies. This recruitment strategy is closely linked to cost pressure across the sector.
“Budgets in IT won’t grow significantly either, so there will be a strong push to implement AI tools and infrastructure, while offsetting implementation costs by optimising other expenses,” Łopatka projected.
