September 2026 labor market report
Communication skills had the largest relative gain in September 2026, doubling to 1,327 mentions, while Customer Service rose 79% to 5,410, and Security Engineer postings climbed 43% to 2,110.
September 2026 labor market report
The 60,000 global job postings tyomarkkinadata tracked this month, distilled for international talent in Finland.
The short version
- Communication jumped 100% MoM to 1,327 mentions, the largest relative gain of any skill in the top 30, signalling that employers are explicitly naming soft skills alongside technical ones.
- Customer Service surged 79% to 5,410 mentions, making it the fastest-growing high-volume skill this month and pulling Account Executive roles up 46% to 8,139 postings.
- Security Engineer postings rose 43% to 2,110, a consistent upward trend worth watching for tech professionals who can layer cybersecurity onto their existing engineering background.
- The HN "Who is hiring?" thread fell to 232 job listings in September, down from 265 in August and 311 in July, continuing a clear six-month slide that suggests early-stage hiring is cooling even as global posting volumes grow.
What changed this month
Biggest movers - rising skills
The two clearest accelerations belong to Communication (+100% MoM, 1,327 mentions) and Customer Service (+79%, 5,410 mentions). Both outpaced every technical skill in relative terms. Sales grew 60% to 7,080 mentions, and Customer Engagement climbed 54% to 1,755 mentions. These numbers together point to a broad commercial-capability wave running alongside the AI build-out.
On the technical side, AI grew a more measured 37% to 11,755 mentions. That is still the highest raw count in the dataset by a wide margin, but the rate has normalised sharply from August's 637% spike. Machine Learning (+35%, 3,528), AWS (+32%, 3,542), and Automation (+39%, 2,453) all moved in the same direction.
Cybersecurity (+42%, 1,648) and Risk Management (+41%, 1,439) both accelerated, consistent with companies hardening infrastructure after a period of rapid AI-driven build-out.
Biggest movers - rising professions
Account Executive jumped 46% to 8,139 postings, overtaking Product Manager (3,521, +31%) as the second-largest profession in the dataset behind Software Engineer (17,892, +30%). Security Engineer grew 43% to 2,110. Project Manager and Sales Manager both rose 41%, to 1,685 and 2,022 respectively. Recruiter postings climbed 39% to 1,707.
No professions declined in absolute terms. The dataset recorded no declining skills or professions this month.
Skills in demand
AI and ML tooling
| Skill | Mentions (Sep) | MoM change |
|---|---|---|
| AI | 11,755 | +37% |
| Machine Learning | 3,528 | +35% |
| Automation | 2,453 | +39% |
| Data Analysis | 4,692 | +36% |
Cloud and infrastructure
| Skill | Mentions (Sep) | MoM change |
|---|---|---|
| AWS | 3,542 | +32% |
| Cloud | 2,518 | +33% |
| Infrastructure | 1,936 | +30% |
| Kubernetes | 1,607 | +33% |
Commercial and soft skills
| Skill | Mentions (Sep) | MoM change |
|---|---|---|
| Sales | 7,080 | +60% |
| Customer Service | 5,410 | +79% |
| Customer Engagement | 1,755 | +54% |
| Communication | 1,327 | +100% |
| Project Management | 2,896 | +43% |
Engineering and data languages
| Skill | Mentions (Sep) | MoM change |
|---|---|---|
| Python | 4,526 | +29% |
| Salesforce | 3,531 | +34% |
| SQL | 2,187 | +34% |
Skill co-occurrence data shows the tightest cluster remains AWS + Python + Kubernetes + CI/CD + Docker (4,713 co-occurrences). The AI cluster of AI + Machine Learning + Automation + Infrastructure + Data Analysis follows at 5,121 co-occurrences, suggesting employers want the whole stack, not isolated point skills.
Professions in demand
| Profession | Postings (Sep) | MoM change |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 17,892 | +30% |
| Account Executive | 8,139 | +46% |
| Product Manager | 3,521 | +31% |
| DevOps Engineer | 2,725 | +34% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 2,676 | +30% |
| Operations | 2,492 | +38% |
| Security Engineer | 2,110 | +43% |
| Sales Manager | 2,022 | +41% |
| Marketing Manager | 2,152 | +27% |
| Recruiter | 1,707 | +39% |
| Project Manager | 1,685 | +41% |
| Customer Success Manager | 1,739 | +28% |
| Data Engineer | 1,338 | +39% |
| Financial Analyst | 1,143 | +34% |
One data artefact worth noting: "Sjuksköterska" (Swedish for nurse) appears at 1,177 postings with a nominal 100% MoM change. This is most likely a classification artefact from Nordic-sourced postings rather than a genuine skill-demand signal for this audience.
Industry and seniority
Industry concentration
Technology dominates at 76,361 postings, up from 56,115 in August - a 36% increase in absolute volume. Healthcare is second at 11,274 (up from 6,186 in August, a 82% rise), driven in part by the Patient Care and clinical skill mentions also appearing in the top-30 skills list. Retail sits third at 7,951, Government fourth at 5,646, and Finance fifth at 5,187.
The gap between Technology and every other industry remains extreme. Healthcare's growth rate is the more notable story this month: it is expanding faster than Technology in percentage terms and is pulling level with Retail in absolute count.
Seniority split
| Level | Postings (Sep) |
|---|---|
| Mid | 90,074 |
| Senior | 33,800 |
| Junior | 3,906 |
| Intern | 3,643 |
Mid-level roles account for the overwhelming majority of demand. The junior-to-mid ratio (roughly 1:23) is stark. For international candidates still building Finnish-market experience, this distribution means the path runs through demonstrating mid-level competence fast, not waiting for an entry-level pipeline that is structurally thin.
What this means for international talent in Finland
The most operationally useful signal this month is the commercial-skills surge. Sales (7,080 mentions, +60%), Customer Service (5,410 mentions, +79%), and Account Executive openings (8,139, +46%) are not just tech-adjacent roles. They are volume roles at companies - including B2B SaaS firms - where international candidates with multilingual ability and cross-cultural client experience hold a genuine structural advantage over monolingual domestic candidates. Finland's B2B export sector runs on English-language sales motions, and the skill-bundle data confirms that Salesforce (3,531 mentions, +34%) is the CRM of record inside that motion. Candidates who can combine verified Salesforce experience with a second or third European language are competing in a smaller, higher-signal pool.
The Technology industry's growth to 76,361 postings is a global figure, but its composition matters locally. The co-occurrence cluster of AWS + Python + Kubernetes + CI/CD + Docker (4,713 co-occurrences) maps almost exactly onto the infrastructure stack that Finnish scale-ups and multinational R&D centres in Helsinki and Tampere are building. Global trends in cloud infrastructure tooling typically show up in Finnish job descriptions within a quarter or two, and the Security Engineer acceleration (+43%, 2,110 postings) is consistent with NIS2 compliance pressure that Finnish companies are already navigating domestically. Engineers who can speak to both cloud-native architecture and regulatory security posture are well positioned for that overlap.
The HN "Who is hiring?" decline - from 379 postings in April down to 232 in September - deserves a direct read: early-stage startup hiring, which skews remote-first and internationally accessible, is contracting. The growth visible in the broader dataset is concentrated in scale-ups and established technology companies. For international talent in Finland, this means the visible, English-friendly job market is narrowing at the small-company end even as mid-to-large company demand rises. That reinforces the case for engaging the hidden job market through professional communities, LinkedIn outreach, and referral networks rather than relying on public postings alone.
Methodology
tyomarkkinadata samples approximately 60,000 global job postings per month across Stripe, NVIDIA, Salesforce, and 200+ other companies. Numbers in this report come from their four listed sources - a16zJobs (18,597 postings), nordicJobs (2,000), remoteJobs (61,056), and internationalJobEnrichments (131,475 enrichments) - for the period ending September 2026. Skill and profession mentions are extracted from posting text; the same role can appear under multiple skills. Month-on-month percentage changes are calculated against the August 2026 sample. Industry and seniority totals exceed the headline posting count because enrichments tag roles across multiple dimensions.