Canadian technology hiring is uneven. Employers are asking for different skills, yet the available employment and vacancy figures do not show an industry-wide shortage. Reading the data requires care because sector headcounts, vacancies and skills mentioned in advertisements measure different things.
ICT employment
802,913Employees in Canada's ICT sector in 2024, down 1.2% year over year.Vacancies
46,045Broader digital economy vacancies in Q2 2026.AI skills
26.5%Digital economy postings mentioning AI in Q2 2026.Executive summary
Canada's ICT sector employed 802,913 people in 2024, down 1.2% from 2023 but 19.8% above 2019. A broader measure counted 2.76 million digital economy workers in Q2 2026. The populations differ and cannot be combined.
Digital economy vacancies reached 46,045 in Q2 2026, compared with 44,465 in Q1. The vacancy rate was 1.64%, while 22.2% of vacancies had been open at least 90 days. The data does not establish a universal shortage of technology talent.
Demand by occupation
ICTC recorded 3,545 vacancies for software developers and programmers, 2,910 for information systems specialists, 2,625 for software engineers and designers, and 2,365 for user support technicians in Q2 2026. Employers should distinguish persistent specialist gaps from broad hiring conditions.
What AI mentions in job advertisements measure
AI was mentioned in 26.5% of digital economy job advertisements in Q2 2026, compared with 24.9% for cloud computing. These are skill mentions, not unique vacancies, hires or new AI jobs. Multiple skills may appear in one advertisement.
What executive hiring teams should look for
Before opening a senior search, employers should decide which work needs to change, whether current staff can take it on and which expertise is genuinely missing. CIO, CTO and CISO selection increasingly calls for evidence of operational judgement, cybersecurity governance, data stewardship and measurable transformation delivery. These are strategic implications drawn from the research, not measured executive vacancy counts.
Implications for government and economic development
Employment, vacancy and skill-advertising data should be evaluated separately when designing workforce programmes. A national technology skills strategy must account for seniority, geography, training pipelines and the difference between immediate vacancies and long-term occupational openings.
Canada's 2026 to 2035 occupational outlook projects 67,600 software developer and programmer openings against 64,700 job seekers, and 15,800 cybersecurity specialist openings against 15,200 job seekers. Both occupations are assessed as broadly balanced nationally. These are ten-year estimates including replacement demand, not current vacancies.
Outlook through 2027
Employers are likely to keep changing role descriptions, particularly around cybersecurity, cloud, data governance and applied AI. It should not be presented as a confirmed forecast of job creation or vacancies in 2027.
Full Canada research whitepaper
Access the underlying research, including the original figures, methodology and occupational analysis. PDF delivery is being prepared.
Download the whitepaper →ISED, ICT Sector Profile 2024; ICTC, Digital Economy Pulse Q2 2026; ESDC occupational projections.
Employment populations, vacancies, advertised skills and ten-year openings are not directly interchangeable. The 2027 outlook is analytical.
Ricardo Casanova & Kristine Koed · IT Executive Partners