Morgan McKinley’s report explores how the Irish talent market in 2025 might impact trends and patterns in 2026.
Irish-owned global professional services company Morgan McKinley has published the findings of the 2026 Morgan McKinley Irish Salary Guide, which it says is Ireland’s most comprehensive analysis of pay across a wide range of professional disciplines.
It found that while the labour market remains active, it is far more disciplined. Irish employers continue to hire but are doing so with tighter controls regarding headcount and are reserving salary premiums only for skills that are believed to be critical to delivery or risk management.
The report stated: “Hiring has become more selective. Employers are sharpening expectations around both technical capability and soft skills, and many have increased on-site requirements. This shift has particularly affected talent outside the Dublin commuter belt.”
Take, for example, hiring in the life sciences and engineering sectors, which the report found to be stable throughout 2025, despite some organisations adopting a cautious approach to permanent headcount due to internal restructures. Notably, activity remained strong, particularly in sectors where skills shortages were persistent.
Candidates with biopharmaceutical experience were in short supply, resulting in intense competition for talent, lengthy recruitment processes and a high incidence of counter-offers. Research also found that as a result of extended hiring processes in this space, candidates often exited due to competing offers, thereby reinforcing the ongoing talent shortage.
The contract market in life sciences and engineering was found by Morgan McKinley to have remained robust, supported by large-scale capital investment projects across biopharma and medtech. The report explained that organisations rely heavily on contractors to deliver specialist, project-based expertise and maintain flexibility.
Similar to the more permanent positions in this space, contract roles have become more skills- and project-focused, also resulting in longer interview processes as employers take more time to ensure that the candidates meet the specific and technical criteria.
In the technology ecosystem, the most in-demand roles were found to be positions in data engineering, cybersecurity analytics and risk specialisation, machine learning engineering and data science, AI auditing and AI ethics, automation and dev-ops.
Hiring continues to evolve rapidly and while the overall demand has stabilised following global restructuring conducted by several large tech firms, acute shortages persist in AI, machine learning, data engineering and cybersecurity.
New roles for AI auditors and ethicists have emerged as a response to regulatory frameworks, while candidates increasingly value flexibility and autonomy over headline salary growth.
Commenting on the results of the report, Trayc Keevans, global FDI director at Morgan McKinley, said: “Employers are not in hiring retreat, but they are being far more intentional. Demand remains strong where skills directly enable transformation, regulatory compliance or operational continuity, but organisations are no longer responding by expanding teams or lifting salaries across the board.
“Instead, we are seeing entirely new, more narrowly defined roles enter the market, including AI auditors, ESG data governance leads, cyber and operational resilience specialists, and regulatory transformation programme managers, as employers target very specific capability gaps that did not exist at scale even two years ago.”
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