Randstad: banks pay software engineers 13% more than tech firms

Banks are paying software engineers about 13% more than technology companies do, and healthcare and life sciences firms are paying up to 17% more, according to a tech talent report released on Thursday, 29 October 2026, by the global staffing company Randstad. The report, titled "Tech talent in transition: building the AI-ready workforce", says employers outside the tech industry are now among the most aggressive buyers of engineering talent as artificial intelligence (AI) changes what companies need.

For most of the past two decades, the best-paid route for a software engineer ran through a technology company. Randstad's findings suggest that route is changing. As banks, insurers, hospital groups and drug makers build their own AI systems, they need engineers who can design and run them, and they are willing to pay more than the tech sector to get them. This is happening at the same time as large tech firms trim staff, which means engineers who lose jobs in tech are finding demand elsewhere rather than leaving the field.

The report also points to a change in the type of skills in demand. Michael Morris of Randstad Digital, the company's technology staffing arm, said the hard part for US employers is finding people who can turn AI spending into business results, especially in system architecture and AI orchestration. System architecture means designing how the parts of a large software system fit together. AI orchestration means connecting AI models, data sources and business software so that they work as one process, for example a loan check that pulls documents, runs a model and sends the answer to a human reviewer.

Two cautions apply. First, the 13% figure compares overall pay for software engineers at banks with pay at tech firms; it is not a measure of a special bonus for AI skills. Second, Randstad sells recruitment services, so it has a commercial interest in describing a tight market for talent. Its figures are the company's own findings and have not been independently checked.

For Indian readers, the shift is relevant because many global banks, insurers and healthcare companies run large technology centres in India, known as global capability centres (GCCs). If these employers are competing harder for engineers at home, demand for the same skills in their Indian centres is likely to be watched closely by job seekers. The report itself does not give India-specific numbers.

Short-term: Software engineers weighing job offers may find that banks and healthcare companies match or beat offers from tech firms, particularly for roles that involve building or running AI systems. Recruiters in these sectors are likely to keep targeting people affected by tech layoffs.

Long-term: If the trend holds, the centre of gravity for engineering careers could move further toward traditional industries that are now spending heavily on AI. Skills such as system design, data engineering and connecting AI tools to business processes may count for more than experience at a well-known tech brand.

Who is affected: Software engineers and students planning tech careers; tech companies that now compete with banks and hospitals for staff; human-resources teams setting pay; and engineers in India working for global banks, insurers and healthcare firms.

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