Across Europe, hiring conditions have shifted. In the DACH region, they have become a direct reflection of technical strategy.

Germany recorded a hiring rate of around thirty percent over the last year, the only major European market to show clear growth. At the same time, nearly forty percent of open software engineering roles sit at mid-to-senior level. Demand has not been driven by volume expansion. It has concentrated around experience and ownership.

That concentration is even more visible when viewed alongside salary movement and time to hire. Switzerland now carries the highest average IT salary in Europe at more than CHF 106,000, with AI and machine learning roles moving significantly beyond that level. Yet the average time to hire for technical positions has stretched toward three months. More than 135,000 open technology roles remain active in the Swiss market, representing over a third of all vacancies. These numbers describe an environment where access to capability, rather than budget, has become the primary constraint.

Across the wider DACH region, specialist salaries have continued to rise by more than eight percent. That growth is not a response to aggressive scaling. It reflects sustained competition for a limited number of engineers who can operate at system level.

For senior technology leaders, these are not recruitment metrics. They are architectural signals.

A longer time to hire changes how roadmaps are planned. When senior engineers take months to secure, delivery timelines must account for the absence of that capability. The concentration of demand in a small number of hubs increases the importance of location strategy and remote design. Salary inflation at the senior end shifts the focus toward impact per hire rather than team size.

The most effective CTOs in the region are already adjusting their approach. They are defining roles in terms of leverage rather than coverage, identifying where a single experienced engineer can unlock progress across multiple teams. They are investing more time in internal alignment before entering the market, because every external search carries a higher opportunity cost. They are also revisiting how their organisations present technical ownership and decision-making, knowing that experienced candidates evaluate those factors as closely as compensation.

This environment also places greater emphasis on internal capability. With external hiring timelines extending, the ability to move engineers between teams, expand scope and develop leadership internally becomes a strategic advantage. Hiring shifts from being the primary growth mechanism to one part of a broader system for increasing delivery capacity.

What is emerging in DACH is a mature hiring market where speed is less important than precision. Companies that approach hiring as a continuation of technical strategy are securing stronger outcomes. Those that treat it as a parallel operational process are experiencing longer cycles and lower conversion.

For candidates, this has created a market where senior engineers hold sustained influence. They are engaging selectively, prioritising environments with clear ownership, stable direction and visible leadership alignment. For organisations, it means that attracting experienced talent requires more than competitive compensation. It requires a coherent technical story.

At Tides, these patterns define the conversations we are having with CTOs across the region. The question is rarely how to hire faster. It is how to ensure that each hire increases the capability of the system as a whole.

DACH has become one of the most strategic technology hiring markets because it forces that question to be answered with clarity.