ManpowerGroup has run their Talent Shortage Survey every year since 2006. The 2024 edition surveyed over 40,000 employers in 42 countries. 74% said they cannot find the talent they need. That is the highest number in the survey's 17-year history.
For technology roles specifically, the numbers are worse. Gartner's 2025 CIO and Technology Executive Survey found that 63% of CTOs consider talent acquisition a "significant challenge." Korn Ferry's broader forecast projects an 85-million-person global talent shortage by 2030, with technology being the most affected sector.
I run an engineering studio with 35-50 senior engineers. We exist because of these numbers. When a company cannot hire fast enough, they call someone like us.
The Numbers
ManpowerGroup (2024, n=40,000+): 74% of employers globally report difficulty filling roles. IT and data roles are among the top 3 hardest to fill across every region surveyed.
Gartner (2025): 63% of CTOs cite talent acquisition as a significant challenge. 58% say the skills gap is the #1 barrier to adopting emerging technologies.
Indeed (2025 Hiring Data): Software engineer job postings remain 28% above pre-pandemic levels. Time-to-fill for senior roles has increased to 95 days on average.
Stack Overflow Developer Survey (2025): The global developer population is estimated at 28.7 million. Open positions requiring software skills are estimated at 4-5 million in the US alone.
Why the Shortage Persists
AI was supposed to fix this. Every tech publication in 2024 predicted that AI coding tools would close the talent gap by making developers more productive. What actually happened?
Developers adopted AI tools (84% use them according to Stack Overflow). But they did not become dramatically more productive. METR's rigorous study found that AI tools made experienced developers 19% slower on unfamiliar codebases. GitHub's own research showed 55% faster task completion on isolated coding exercises — not on production systems with complex dependencies, code review requirements, and deployment pipelines.
The productivity gains from AI tools are real but modest. They help with boilerplate and documentation. They do not replace the judgment, architecture knowledge, and domain expertise that takes years to develop. The shortage is for experienced engineers, not for people who can write code.
What the Shortage Costs
The cost is not abstract. It is measurable in delayed projects, missed market windows, and opportunity cost.
Time-to-hire: 95 days for senior engineers. That is 3 months where the role is open and the work is not getting done. For a startup with 18 months of runway, losing 3 months to hiring is 17% of the runway spent waiting.
Offer rejection: Indeed data shows offer-acceptance rates for senior engineers have declined from 73% to 51% over the past 3 years. Half the candidates who receive offers reject them. So the 95-day clock often resets.
Replacement cost: SHRM estimates the cost of replacing a senior engineer at $150,000-$250,000 when you factor in recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, ramp-up, and the productivity gap during the transition. 24% of developers report being unhappy at work, and 92% plan to look for a new job within a year.
Delayed delivery: Every unfilled engineering position is a feature not shipped, a bug not fixed, a customer not served. McKinsey found that companies with talent shortages experience 45% average cost overruns on IT projects — partly because they staff projects with whoever is available, not who is best suited.
The Retained Team Alternative
The shortage is real. It is not going away. The question is how you work around it.
Full-time hiring takes 95 days and works half the time. Contract marketplaces give you bodies, not engineers. Offshore factories give you low rates and low quality.
The model that works for our clients is retained engineering teams. Not freelancers. Not an outsourcing shop. A team of senior engineers who join your organization, use your tools, attend your standups, and stay for years.
Snapwire embedded 10 of our engineers into their 30-person team for 2.5 years. They were one-third of the engineering organization. Same sprints, same codebase, same code review process.
HeyTutor relied on our team for 9 years. Our co-founder served as de facto CTO. The team scaled up and down with the business but the core stayed constant.
Greek House came to us after their previous team stalled. We started shipping same-day releases within weeks of joining. Four years later: Inc. 5000 recognition and an acquisition.
These engagements work because the team is stable. The engineers learn the domain, the codebase, and the business. They do not rotate out after 6 months. They stay because the work is interesting and the relationship is long-term.
Our rates are $50-99/hour. That is below US market rates ($150-$250/hour) but above commodity offshore rates ($25-$40/hour). The rate reflects senior engineers in Ukraine with European timezone overlap and 5+ hours of US business day coverage.
The 74% shortage is not going to fix itself. If you need engineers now, the choice is: wait 95 days and hope, or start working in 2-3 weeks with a retained team.
Last updated February 15, 2026
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