IT jobs report: Demand for AI fluency rises

AI fluency is now required for 75% of US technology job openings, a 178% year-over-year increase, according to the Dice July 2026 Jobs Report. Demand for enterprise integration skills surged 638% from June 2025 to 2026, driven by companies connecting AI systems to existing infrastructure. The New York, Washington, Dallas, Chicago, and San Francisco metro areas lead in tech job postings.

AI skills continue to drive IT job postings, with 75% of US technology openings requiring AI fluency in June, up 178% year-over-year, according to the Dice July 2026 Jobs Report https://www.dice.com/hiring/recruitment/reports/dice-tech-job-report . Roles in the software industry continue to rise https://www.cio.com/article/4195780/it-hiring-sees-a-boost-as-software-development-jobs-slowly-bounce-back.html , ranking second behind consulting as the industry seeking the most IT help right now. Aerospace/defense, finance/banking, and manufacturing round out the top five. Most sought after in the market right now are software engineers, data engineers, systems engineers, electrical engineers, business analysts, data scientists, network engineers, systems administrators, data analysts, and AI engineers, according to Dice. While these roles remain in high demand, the biggest shift can be seen in the skills that hiring managers are seeking — a list now dominated by AI or AI-adjacent skills https://www.cio.com/article/4134254/state-of-it-jobs-ai-sparks-rapidly-changing-market-for-skills.html as companies rush to adopt enterprise AI tools and services. Demand for enterprise integration skills grew 638% from June 2025 to 2026, the biggest rise year over year, according to Dice, noting that this aligns with other indicators that “connecting agentic systems to existing infrastructure is growing faster than the agentic systems themselves.” Following in terms of highest growth in demand over the past year are skills involving: Month over month, the list of fastest growing skills in Dice’s July jobs report includes: Again, the rise in demand for API, data exchange, and integration skills highlights the recent push to “connect AI systems to enterprise data and workflows,” according to Dice. Some metro areas are seeing faster increases in tech job postings, with a focus around the New York, Washington, Dallas, Chicago, and San Francisco metro areas. These areas have seen greater growth than the rest of the country, making these metro areas the best to live in if you’re a job seeker with AI fluency skills: Metro area | IT job postings June | | New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 20,858 | | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 19,906 | | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 11,932 | | Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 9,346 | | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 8,699 | Credit: Dice July 2026 Jobs Report New Jersey 64% , Maryland 47% , and Illinois 41% are the states that have seen the highest year-over-year increase in hiring. Companies are looking for enterprise systems and consulting managers, including Appian developers, Oracle Cloud financial consultants, ServiceNow managers, principal consultants, and technology consultants. Additionally, they are seeking out IT software engineers, C++ software developers, configuration analysts, support engineers, network infrastructure engineers, AI analysts, and cyber threat intelligence analysts. Businesses inside and outside the tech industry will continue to seek tech workers to help realize AI visions, requiring a wide range of AI fluency and skills. It seems this trend will continue for the foreseeable future, as the job market slowly recovers from several tumultuous years https://www.cio.com/article/2100525/state-of-it-jobs-mixed-signals-changes-ahead.html .