Burtch Works Hiring Trends for 2025: What Data & Analytics Leaders Need to Know
Burtch Works Hiring Trends for 2025: What Data & Analytics Leaders Need to Know
As we move into 2025, hiring demand across the data & analytics industry continues to increase. At Burtch Works, we conduct an annual 1H demand survey of industry leaders across multiple domains, including Data Science, Analytics, AI, Product, Market Research, and Engineering, to understand hiring plans, skill demands, and workforce challenges. Our findings provide key insights into how organizations are navigating the hiring landscape and where they plan on investing in their talent strategies.
Key Hiring Insights for 2025
1. Hiring is Stabilizing, but Growth Remains Selective
Our survey revealed that 54% of companies are maintaining current headcount, hiring only to backfill roles. Meanwhile, 41% are actively hiring, but on a selective basis, with most planning to hire between 1-5 new employees in 2025. This reflects a “cautiously optimistic”hiring approach, where organizations are expanding strategically rather than aggressively scaling up.
What This Means for Employers: The job market remains competitive, but employers are hiring and looking for well-rounded experience with domain expertise, industry knowledge, and strong interpersonal skills. Companies looking to grow should focus on targeted recruitment strategies and partner with industry experts to secure top talent in these key areas.
2. Demand for Data & Analytics Talent Remains High
Unsurprisingly, Data & Analytics roles continue to dominate hiring trends, making up 74% of hiring activity. However, other domain areas such as Product Management (11%), Market Research (8%), and Engineering (7%) are also seeing hiring demand.
What This Means for Employers: Companies looking to build a comprehensive Data Team are focused on hiring Data Science, AI Professionals, and Data Leadership roles while increasing the importance of adding DataProduct Management, Market Research and Insights, and Data Engineering professionals as well. Employers should anticipate a highly competitive talent market for these skill categories in the first half of 2025. Employers who can offer a strong “Employee Value Proposition," which includes career trajectory, a strong workplace culture, and flexibility will have an edge in attracting and retaining top talent.
3. Full-Time Hiring is Preferred, but Flexibility is Key
Our findings show that 72% of organizations prefer full-time permanent hires, while contract or flexible hiring models remain less common. However, given the ever-changing workforce landscape, companies should consider offering hybrid or project-based opportunities to attract a broader pool of candidates.
What This Means for Employers: A focus on long-term talent investment is evident, but companies that offer a mix of full-time and contract opportunities have greater agility in responding to business needs while building a best-in-class team.
A few successful tactics we find are to move FTE’s to project based work and backfill their responsibilities temporarily with skilled contract labor. This allows the FTE team to upskill and work on exciting projects while keeping the environment operationally efficient through experienced contract labor. This helps with retention and skill development across the organization.
Another successful tactic is creating a Contract-to-Hire Program, where you can onboard highly technical and experienced contract labor with an option to convert full time. This approach creates a proven pipeline of talent that can quickly fill FTE openings once budgets are approved.
4. Backfilling Roles Due to Turnover is a Major Hiring Driver
While some hiring is happening due to business growth, 44.0%of hiring activity is driven by backfilling roles, signaling ongoing turnover challenges. Retention strategies are just as important as recruitment efforts.
What This Means for Employers: Companies should focus on employee engagement, professional development, and workplace culture to reduce turnover and avoid frequent backfilling. Also creating a Contract-To-Hire bench helps with unexpected attrition.
5. Technical Skills & Problem-Solving Are the Top Priorities
When asked about the most valued skills in hiring, technical expertise ranked highest (1.74 on a priority scale), followed by problem-solving& critical thinking. Interestingly, industry-specific experience and culture fit ranked lower, indicating that companies are willing to train on industry knowledge but need employees with strong interpersonal skills.
What This Means for Employers: Candidates with strong technical abilities and problem-solving skills will continue to be in high demand. Companies should dedicate as much effort screening for “soft skills”as they do for “technical skills”. Being flexible to train in industry-specific knowledge will help widen their talent pool.