IT infrastructure, support and cybersecurity

ISCO-08 3511, 3512, 2522, 2529

IT support technician, Service desk analyst, Systems administrator, Network engineer, Cloud engineer, SOC analyst

AI exposure49%

Headcount need, in FTE

Exposure range

Your current headcount

FTE

Need in 203088 FTE-12 FTE (-12%)

Need in 203576 FTE-24 FTE (-24%)

How AI is used on these tasks today

Automation 69%Augmentation 31%

In AI conversations about this job's tasks: the AI does the task itself (automation) or helps the person do it (augmentation).Anthropic Economic Index, April and May 2026. Occupations: Computer User Support Specialists, Network and Computer Systems Administrators, Information Security Analysts. AEI

1. Exposure 49%Average automation potential of the job's tasks. Range for this family: 28 to 66%.ILO occupations used: Information and Communications Technology Operations Technicians (43%), Information and Communications Technology User Support Technicians (47%), Systems Aministrators (57%), Database and Network Professionals Not Elsewhere Classified (49%). ILO data

2. Strategic ceiling 100%Your call: how much of this potential do you want to capture? Nobody can set it for you.

3. Adoption speed midpoint 2030

Inherits your company stance, adjustable for this family.

4. Conversion to headcount sensitive 50%Default 50%: Ticket volumes follow the installed base and user numbers; level 1 gains turn into fewer agents, while security needs keep growing.

Target AI skills

level 1 to 4

Foundation

Use AI assistants every day

Frame and phrase a request

Check and challenge AI outputs

Protect data and respect the rules

Applied

Rethink one's process with AI

Analyse data with AI

Delegate to and supervise AI agents

Expert

Build and integrate AI solutions

Evaluate and make AI solutions reliable

AI governance and risk management

Job skills

Growing in value

Cloud architecture and infrastructure as code
Incident response and threat analysis
Securing AI tools and data flows
Designing and supervising support automations
Identity and access management

Losing value

Level 1 tickets and password resets
Writing procedures and knowledge articles
Manual log review
Routine scripting and configuration
First-level alert triage

How the job will change

Virtual agents already resolve a large part of level 1 requests: password resets, access requests, software installation, standard incidents. On the operations side, assistants write scripts and configuration files, summarise logs and propose a diagnosis. In security operations centres, AI sorts and enriches alerts so that analysts look first at the events that matter. Hands-on work in data centres and on workstations shrinks more slowly.

The job moves towards architecture, automation and security. Fewer technicians answer the same questions every day; more engineers design the automations, maintain the knowledge base agents rely on and handle the incidents agents escalate. Security work grows, since AI tools open new attack surfaces and attackers use AI too. Tomorrow's good profile understands systems end to end and knows where automation must stop.

2026-2027: Virtual agents on level 1 support; AI-assisted alert triage in security teams.
2028-2030: Common incidents fixed automatically; support teams merge and shrink.
2031+: Small engineering teams run automated operations; security headcount holds or grows.

Watch out

Level 1 support, the usual entry into IT careers, is shrinking fastest. Meanwhile cybersecurity profiles remain hard to recruit, so internal conversion paths from support to security deserve planning now. See the seniority outlook below.

What if you hired fewer juniors?

Your 2036 seniors are the juniors you hire today.

Seniors available in 2036-10%2 FTE short

Gap above 5% from2031

Your seniority mix today

Juniors (0 to 2 yrs in the profession)35%Seniors (6+ yrs)20%

Mid-level (2 to 6 yrs in the profession, the remainder)45%

Cut in junior hiring -40%

For

Advanced settings

Juniors promoted each year33%Juniors leaving each year15%Senior gap filled by external hiring0%If every company makes the same bet, senior profiles will be scarce and expensive.

Seniority mix, % of today's headcount

Juniors35%Mid-level42%Seniors18%

2026 2036

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How the numbers are built

Every headcount figure combines four assumptions. Three come pre-filled from public research and job family defaults. The strategic ceiling is yours to set.

Public researchExposureAverage automation potential of the job's tasks, from the ILO's 2025 task-level scores.

Your decisionStrategic ceilingHow much of that potential you choose to capture. Your decision, not ours.

Your companyAdoption speedHow fast your company moves, set once for the whole company.

Job family defaultConversion to headcountHow much of the productivity gain becomes fewer people rather than more output.

Headcount effect

Seniority outlook

A flow model with three levels of experience in the profession. Promotion and exit rates are set so that today's mix stays stable when hiring does not change: any gap you see comes from the junior hiring cut alone.