posted 3rd March 2026
It seems safe to say we are long past the days when Artificial Intelligence was little more than a future trend threatening to disrupt the global workforce. The rapid advancement and adoption of AI in recent years have established it as an active force reshaping how we work, for better and for worse.
In tech hiring across western markets, demand for advanced AI and data skills remains robust, with companies prioritising senior hires and specialists. Entry-level and junior opportunities, however, are increasingly scarce, as organisations turn to AI to handle tasks once assigned to junior employees.
Data published by McKinsey & Company in 2025 shows that online job postings in the UK for tech positions considered “highly exposed” to AI, such as software developers, have declined by nearly 38% – almost double the overall fall in postings across all roles and sectors. The drop is particularly stark for entry-level roles: internships, apprenticeships and junior positions not requiring degrees have fallen by nearly one-third since late 2022, coinciding with the rise of generative AI tools.
The 2025 Nash Squared Digital Leadership Report found AI-specialist roles were chief among the most in-demand tech jobs in the UK, and “AI” emerged as the scarcest technology skill. Inevitably, this has driven up salaries and expectations. According to TotalJobs, more than half of UK businesses plan to expand tech teams in early 2026, and one in four recruiters now rank AI as the most valuable skill in pay and hiring decisions.
Across Europe, the picture is even more concerning. Ravio’s 2025 Tech Job Market Report found a 73% decrease in entry-level hiring rates in European tech over the past year, while overall hiring fell by just 7%. The SignalFire State of Talent Report states that new graduates make up just 6% of startup hires in Europe, a 30% reduction from pre-pandemic levels. The number of new graduates starting roles at major tech companies across the continent has dropped by more than 50% since 2022.
New graduates make up just 6% of startup hires in Europe - a 30% reduction from pre-pandemic levels.
In Ireland, one of Europe’s most tech-exposed economies, early data shows employment in technology firms fell 20% among 15–29 year-olds between 2023 and 2025, while rising 12% among workers aged 30–59, according to the country’s Department of Finance. The age skew implies companies are prioritising experience as workflows are reorganised around AI. Even the definition of “entry-level” is shifting, with firms increasingly advertising junior roles that demand three to five years of experience.
The widening divide signals a structural shift: high-skill, AI-adjacent roles are in demand, but traditional entry points into tech are narrowing.
On the surface, these decisions make sense. AI comes at a fraction of the cost of a human and offers scalable productivity. It excels at mass data processing, coding and testing — tasks historically delegated to junior team members. One AI tool can replace multiple junior hires, allowing senior engineers to handle work that once required a broader team.
There is, however, a significant hidden cost.
Entry-level hires are not simply low-cost labour. They form the pipeline through which companies develop future senior talent. As Matt Garman, CEO of AWS, put it: “[Skipping entry-level hiring is] one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. How’s that going to work, when ten years in the future you have no one who has learned anything?”
Even for juniors who do secure roles, opportunities for foundational learning are shrinking. AI may code efficiently, but when it absorbs development work entirely, junior talent risks losing the chance to develop deep technical judgment through experience. They may be pushed towards architectural thinking without first building the foundations that underpin senior expertise today.
Deprioritising junior hiring exposes markets to long-term risk. Germany, for instance, is projected to face a shortage of seven million skilled workers by 2035, according to research published by Jobbatical.
Beyond broader skills shortages, there is the erosion of company-specific human knowledge – the deep understanding of internal systems, customers, processes and culture that cannot be easily codified or replicated. When firms scale back junior hiring or prioritise external specialists at the expense of long-term employee growth, they risk weakening that foundation. External perspectives are vital for innovation, but they are most powerful when grounded in an appreciation of how a company truly operates.
Supporting junior talent early in their careers is critical to the long-term health of the workforce. The answer, however, is not to remove AI from workflows, but to redesign how junior roles function.
IBM recently announced plans to triple entry-level hiring in 2026, even as it continues to automate many traditionally junior tasks. Rather than eliminating those roles, IBM is reshaping them.
Their junior software developers now spend less time on routine coding, increasingly handled by AI, and more time in customer-facing work: gathering requirements, testing AI-generated outputs against real-world use cases, and translating system behaviour for less tech-literate clients. They are also tasked with overseeing AI tools such as chatbots — intervening when systems fail, correcting outputs and escalating complex issues. AI delivers speed and productivity, but it is not infallible and performs best when deployed with the assumption that it will make mistakes.
Research suggests productivity gains are strongest when AI operates under structured human oversight. A report from Harvard Business Review states that AI “Agentic” tools deployed as support staff allow companies to thrive only when accompanied by AI supervisors. As AI becomes more regulated, governance frameworks increasingly emphasise traceability, supervision and transparency — all areas that create new value for junior talent.
Enlisting junior employees as AI supervisors requires not just technical skill but commercial awareness and communication capabilities essential for future leadership. According to Robert Half’s 2026 Tech Hiring Trends report, only 7% of technology leaders believe they possess all the skills required for their top initiatives, and 65% report training gaps. Communication, governance and cross-functional coordination are increasingly prized.
Internships, graduate programmes and entry-level openings do not need to disappear with the rise of AI – doing so would be catastrophic for the workforce. They need to be reconsidered. Treating entry-level hiring as R&D investment rather than financial obligation will build teams that are more resilient and more diversely skilled. The opposite, prioritising short-term savings, risks long-term fragility.
"How’s that going to work, when ten years in the future you have no one who has learned anything?”
Left without human oversight, AI tools cannot operate at their most effective or trustworthy. AI does not eliminate the need for human capability and expertise.
It reshapes it.
AI is most powerful when paired with human capability. The organisations that thrive will view junior hiring not as expendable overhead, but as the foundation of future expertise. Efficiency today must not come at the expense of expertise tomorrow.
