The IT desk
Divergent / 2026-Q3
The largest specialist market in Dutch agency recruitment, and the fastest. Candidates run several processes at once, two delivery models exist side by side, and the scarcity differs per specialism and per city.
What makes this desk different
Cycle times, fee norms, and where the candidates actually are. The generalities of recruitment hold everywhere; these are the parts that do not.
Speed decides the process
A good IT candidate is in more than one process, so the desk that moves in days beats the desk that moves in weeks. The follow-up call within 24 hours of a CV Send is the minimum, interview slots are confirmed on the phone rather than by mail, and a client who cannot decide inside two weeks needs to hear that cost in the intake.
Two fee models side by side
Permanent placement runs on the standard Dutch contingency band, roughly 22% to 32% of gross annual salary. Next to it sits detachering, an hourly margin on professionals employed by the agency, and the brokered ZZP contract. Many clients buy both, so an IT consultant sells a placement one week and capacity the next, with different conversations attached.
Scarcity is uneven, not gone
The market has cooled since 2022, but it cooled from the tightest level on record, and the easing is uneven: it differs per specialism and per region, which is what the figures below measure. Working one niche deeply beats covering all of IT thinly, because knowing where the candidates actually are is the desk's edge.
What the data says
IPMERC Futures currently reads ICT, all roles in the Netherlands as: divergent. The evidence points both ways and is not averaged. Both readings are below, with their weights.
708,800 ICT specialists, 7.2% of employment, against 5.0% in the EU.
Structure signal, Eurostat, period up to 2025
36,000 more people in IT occupations year on year, the strongest of any occupation group.
Demand signal, CBS, period up to 2026-Q2
Sector K vacancy rate 8.2% to 5.1%, against 4.1% across the economy.
Demand signal, Eurostat, period up to 2026-Q2
71.0% buy paid cloud services, 29.7% employ an ICT specialist.
Structure signal, Eurostat, period up to 2024
IT workers on unemployment benefit up 22% in 2024, about 6,200 in February 2026.
Supply signal, UWV, period up to 2026-02
Computed for 2026-Q3, newest signal this quarter. Every figure traces to a published signal; the weights are public.
What to practice on this desk
The IT desk trains speed and argumentation. Three skills pay for themselves first:
FAB, from technology to business impact. "8 years of Java" moves nobody; the release that holds in March does.
The Pre-close against the counter-offer. IT employers fight for leaving staff, so the scenario is named and tested before the offer exists.
The exclusivity ask on hard roles. On a scarce profile a race between three agencies serves nobody, and saying so is a trainable conversation.
Page text reviewed 30 August 2026. Market figures are computed for 2026-Q3 and update when the evidence changes; they are read from the same signals as /futures, never typed by hand.