In this year’s data professional salary survey, I added a new response type for folks who are unemployed and looking for data work. The survey is still in progress, but you can view the data as it’s coming in, and I wanted to take a few minutes to read through the responses of folks who are unemployed.

First, how many unemployed folks have taken the survey:

It’s only 32 responses out of 575 altogether – about 5% – so I’m hesitant to read too much into their individual responses. However, let’s filter the data for just the unemployed folks, and then look at their job titles to see if a particular job type stands out:

Okay, deep calming breath: the number 8 does stand out head and shoulders above the rest, but remember, we’re only talking about 32 survey responses overall from people looking for jobs. Plus, remember that my audience is DBAs – here’s the percentages of job titles across the EMPLOYED audience:

See, the numbers line up – 25% of the unemployed responses are from general DBAs, but also 27% of the employed responses – so they’re right in line with the audience overall. It’s not like a higher percentage of DBAs are unemployed than the other job roles – but then again, keep in mind that it wouldn’t take much of a response turnout to skew these numbers.

Let’s ask a different question: amongst the unemployed responses (for all job titles), how many years of experience do they have?

A good chunk of the unemployed responses have 10-15 years of experience, and they’re making six figures. It’s not just junior folks who are looking for work. When these senior folks email me for job hunting advice, I say the same thing over and over: get back in touch with everyone you’ve ever worked with before, via their personal emails and phone numbers, and catch up. Tell them you’re in the market. You shouldn’t be ashamed – a lot of their companies may be hiring, and they’re faced with a deluge of unqualified applicants using AI garbage to get past interview screening. By offering yourself as a candidate, you’re doing them a favor! They know you and trust your work.

Moving on, let’s switch over to the employed folks and look at what their job plans are for 2026:

A whopping 20% (7 + 13) plan to change employers! That’s a huge number because it affects the 5% of the audience that’s already looking for work – they’re all competing for the same jobs at new companies. That’s going to be a tough market.

One other note while I’ve got the survey data open – where are companies hosting their data these days?

Most companies are using a hybrid approach of cloud, rented data center space, and cloud. It’s a wide mix though, and hopefully someone from the community takes this raw data and visualizes it in a better way, heh.

Speaking of which – help contribute to the raw data! Fill in the annual Data Professional Salary Survey now.