Malt Tech Trends 2026
Deep-dive Cloud & Infra
Cloud and infrastructure have transitioned from a support function to a strategic requirement. As companies move from experimental AI to production scale, infrastructure has become the primary execution bottleneck.
This shift is reflected in the data: Cloud Engineer demand grew +29% in 2025, making it one of the fastest-growing categories on the platform.
The Big Three —AWS, Azure, GCP— still dominate the Cloud solutions landscape
+72% in FinOps projects to face the GPU tax
The “Big Three” still dominate the Cloud quadrant, in the exact same order as past years: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). But different dynamics are at hand with AWS remaining the most searched Cloud provider but its demand decreased significantly in 2025.
The surge in AI workloads has transformed FinOps from a peripheral exercise into a core engineering mandate. With GPU instances costing 10 to 20 times more than standard compute and LLM API calls scaling exponentially, FinOps projects on Malt have increased by 72%.The complexity of these environments has catalyzed the emergence of specialized roles, with high demand for dedicated FinOps Architects.
+83% sovereignty-related briefs reveal rising concerns within a torn environment
When it comes to cloud and infrastructure, sovereignty crystallizes a growing concern from companies confronted with the reality of an ecosystem dominated by US-based leaders (AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud).
There is a significant tension between corporate rhetoric and technical reality. While the keyword "sovereignty" in project briefs rose +83%, the dominance of US-based hyperscalers remains absolute. In practice, sovereignty for European companies translates to data residency and GDPR compliance within the European regions of US providers rather than an abandonment of their ecosystems.
The Cloud engineer
Experience levels of cloud experts
Top growing skills in supply
Explore cloud experts on Malt
What market experts say
As companies move from experimental AI to production scale, infrastructure has become the primary execution bottleneck. The data clearly reflects this shift is reflected in the data: Cloud Engineer demand grew +29% in 2025, making it one of the fastest-growing categories on the platform.
High AI costs are rarely driven by GPU pricing alone, but by poorly optimized utilization, inefficient inference patterns, and unnecessary data movement. The top priority is therefore platform and workload design: separate training from inference, right-size models, and manage GPU resources efficiently.
To avoid the 'GPU Tax,' companies must move away from a big model approach and implement a multi system that matches complexity for the most efficient part. Scaling in 2026 means treating AI as a tiered utility, using Small Language Models for the main work and reserving high-cost Models for high-value task.
The 2026 tech trends deep-dives
Key insights
How Europe’s top independent talents are shaping the tech landscape.
Key insights
How Europe’s top independent talents are shaping the tech landscape.
Our research is based on 2,5 million searches on the Malt platform across our community of 1 million freelancers, including 250,000 tech freelancers, and +90,000 companies.
Data platform
The data landscape is moving from analytics usage to operational focus.
Data platform
Balancing between consolidation and innovation
The 'best-of-breed' era in Business Intelligence is ending. Organizations are stopping the multi-tool headache and consolidating around ecosystems like never before. Power BI now commands over one-third of all demand— 3.5 times its nearest competitor. Meanwhile, Tableau demand has decreased by 46%. It’s a massive shift toward Microsoft's integrated stack
Cybersecurity
With AI penetration, security is at the core of any tech project.
Cybersecurity
A convergence crisis, driven by AI, is reshaping the GRC landscape
The significant growth in GRC demand — +31% ISO-27001, +229% ISO 7816, coupled with slower growth in the number of freelancers, has led to strong market tension and a scarcity of talent in the cybersecurity domain.
Adding to this, the rise of AI is forcing a rapid evolution of both the discipline and the required profiles.
Low-Code
Automation and low-code tools now empowering senior tech experts.
Low-Code
Low-code tools are now empowering tech experts, while software programming landscape is transforming.
AI
Agentic maturity is the most significant signal in our 2026 data.
AI
The rise of agentic systems marks the shift from "AI that answers questions" to "AI that completes tasks." Autonomous systems now reason through workflows, use tools, and execute actions independently across multiple steps.