2026 TCD Ireland’s Project Economy Report

@Recruit IT has participated in the Ireland Project Economy research every year since its inception in 2021, the report for 2026 has just been published and as ever there are some very interesting findings, both across the contracting sector as a whole and also within the more narrow IT Contracting vertical.

Ireland’s Project Economy is an annual research programme which takes the pulse of the contracting market across a number of key sectors like IT/Technology, Pharma, Finance, Engineering and Medical run by Trinity College Professors Andrew Burke and Na Fu and supported by Contracting Plus. It’s a year-on-year snapshot of how the independent Contracting marketplace operates and reacts across multiple sectors. As its ages it’s giving a very interesting longitudinal view of how the contract market is changing and developing. Its findings are of huge interest to both IT Contractors and companies engaging IT Contractors to fill current skills gaps.

The 2026 report was launched recently and as ever there were some very interesting statistics throw up. One particular area was around the Gender Pay gap, its existence in permanent employment is the reason legislation was implemented in the first place. Given Contracting is a purely task-based engagement the authors did not expect there to be a significant gender divergence in terms of day rate, however they found that there was a 7.6% pay gap averaged out across all sectors. The current gender split in IT is 75% Males, 25% females and has been around these levels for a few years now.

There were also some very interesting findings in relation to the age and experience profile of contractors. Generally contracting had been assumed to be a mid-career option with an assumption that people tended to return to permanent employment as they started to hit their 40’s. However, the mean age of an IT contractor in Ireland is now 49 years of age. Another interesting finding was that 24% of IT contractors are 60+ years of age, up from 18% in the first year of the survey in 2021, indicating that more people are remaining as contractors for the duration of their careers. Contractors also reported hight levels of satisfaction with working as a contractor, including 20% who stated they would not work in any other fashion.

That being said Contracting is known to be somewhat more stressful than permanent employment. Contractors are expected to come into new environments, pick up things very quickly and contribute positively with a very short space of time. They would not typically be allowed the ramp up time a new permanent hire would be given.  Ultimately this greater pressure coupled with the less secure employment nature of Contracting makes it a more stressful occupation. The report also examined the impact of stress and the consequential reporting of burn out rates. Again, there was quite an interesting finding, while 71% of the 40–49-year-old contracting cohort reported feelings of burn out, only 12% of those aged 60 or over reported feelings of burnout.

From a pure IT/Technology perspective it was not all positive news unfortunately with the report nothing a reduction in overall employment in the IT/Technology sector of 16,400 in 2025, reflecting ongoing uncertainty and the growing impact of AI and Automation

We’d encourage all Clients and Contractors to have a look at the full report, it is a free resource with the data sets available online for those interested

https://www.irelandsprojecteconomy.ie/