The Prosperity Recruitment 2026 employment and salary survey for Ireland’s digital sector

This year’s survey marks a clear turning point for Ireland’s digital employment market. After a year of hesitation and adjustment in 2025, organisations are moving decisively from questioning AI to operationalising it. AI is no longer a novelty or productivity hack—it has become core infrastructure, reshaping hiring priorities, salary dynamics, team structures, and long-term capability planning across the sector.

Based on proprietary salary data, third-party research, and insights from Prosperity’s database of over 100,000 Irish professionals, the 2026 survey highlights a market in transition. Entry-level roles are compressing, teams are becoming smaller but more senior, and demand is rising sharply for talent that can translate AI into measurable commercial outcomes. The professionals who thrive are those who treat AI not as a shortcut, but as a capability multiplier.

Gary Mullan, Managing Director, Prosperity Digital Recruitment

Key Insights:

• AI has moved from experimentation to infrastructure, fundamentally altering how companies hire, structure teams, and reward talent.
• Salary pressure is strongest for roles that apply AI to strategy or throughput, including AI Creative Strategist, GenAI Content Lead, AI Marketing Automation Manager, Personalisation & Experimentation Lead, Applied ML Engineer, GenAI Product Manager, and MLOps / AI Ops Engineer.
• Teams are shifting towards smaller, more senior-heavy structures, with formal ownership of AI workflows, governance, and evaluation frameworks.
• Junior hiring is flattening, with entry-level roles now requiring multidisciplinary skills and baseline AI literacy.
• Roles rising in value include Strategy Planners, Performance Marketers, UX Researchers, Product Designers, CRO Specialists, and Data Analysts with strong storytelling capability.
• AI is accelerating output across marketing, ecommerce, media, design, product, and data roles—often reducing task time by 30–70% when applied effectively.
• Governance, audit, and compliance hiring is set to accelerate as the EU AI Act comes into force.