After a rough 2025 for many of our members, we have seen a nice bounce in placement activity in 2026. The latest recruitment trends indicate some of the areas where we’ve seen increased activity year-over-year:
- Cross-Industry Functions Practice Group – C-level, sales, marketing, business development (roles where skills can successfully “cross” into multiple industries)
- Legal
- Apparel/Textile/Retail
A few areas that have typically been very strong for NPAworldwide members are still running 15-25% lower than historical numbers, although this tracks with volatility in the oil markets, some supply chains, and the automotive sector as trade and tariff policies continue to be disruptive. We expect these recruitment trends to continue as long as the overall volatility remains.
- Technology
- Engineering / Operations / Manufacturing
- Accounting / Finance
- Agribusiness / Foods / Chemicals
When it comes to salaries, we are seeing growth in the number of contract placements as well as an increase in salaries in the US $60K – $70K range. Other salary ranges are flat or shrinking somewhat, which we expect to see when there are fewer jobs. We have also seen a significant uptick in split placements between our members in Asia, where the salaries are often considerably lower than in North America, Europe, or Australia/New Zealand. This is likely skewing the overall salary averages somewhat lower.
Some of the popular job titles we are seeing this year include:
- VP of Sales and Marketing
- AI Architect
- EHS Manager
- Project Engineer
- Product Engineer
- Software Engineer
- General Counsel
- Materials Manager
- HR Director
- Plant Controller
- VP of Finance
Importantly, newly reported acceptances continue to track at or above our projections, which is a good sign of hiring stability heading into the third quarter. I’ve been having regular conversations with members who are wondering what the overall market looks like compared to their own niche/sector. It’s great to be able to share data with them from other similar sized recruitment firms in a broad segment of industries, niches, salary levels and more – data that may not be readily available for recruitment firms that don’t belong to a larger community.