Cloud and Infrastructure Skills Lead U.S. Tech Job Postings, Oxylabs Analysis Finds

Analysis of nearly 850,000 U.S. tech job listings shows AWS, Azure, Git and other foundational tools remain widely requested by employers.

The U.S. labor market has recently posted its worst monthly numbers in over a year. Against this backdrop, an analysis by web intelligence company Oxylabs examined roughly 850,000 U.S. tech job postings published between January 2025 and March 2026 to identify the technology tools most frequently requested by employers.

The analysis found that cloud platforms and foundational infrastructure technologies accounted for a significant share of the skills listed in job descriptions. Amazon Web Services (AWS) appeared in 30% of postings, followed by Microsoft Azure (24%), Git (21%), Excel (15%), Google Cloud Platform or GCP (14%), Kubernetes (14%), Docker (13%), Power BI (9%), Terraform (8%), and Tableau (7%).

Nearly 42% of all analyzed postings required knowledge of at least one major cloud platform. AWS and Azure were also the most frequently co-mentioned pair, appearing together in 15% of job descriptions.

The report categorized the technology requirements into five broad groups. Data Storage and Infrastructure tools, primarily AWS, Azure, and GCP, accounted for 47% of all tool mentions. DevOps and Developer Experience tools, including Git, Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform, represented 30%.

Business Intelligence and Analytics tools, including Power BI, Tableau, and Looker, made up 18% of mentions. Data Ingestion and Transformation tools such as dbt, Fivetran, Kafka, and Airbyte accounted for 4%, while Orchestration and Observability tools such as Airflow represented 1%.

“The picture we saw after analyzing close to a million job postings largely confirms what experienced developers would guess – cloud, infrastructure, and data skills are in high demand. Where it gets more interesting is in the proportions: cloud platforms and DevOps tooling dominate job ads even more heavily than survey-based rankings suggest, while some high-visibility skills (the ones trending on X or headlining conference talks) appear less often than you might think,” said Andrius Kūkšta, Tech Lead at Oxylabs.

Data Infrastructure Leads Tool Requirements

Despite ongoing tech layoffs, hiring activity increased sharply earlier this year. The first quarter of 2026 accounted for 39% of all listings in the dataset, representing 3.7 times more activity than the same period a year earlier.

Software engineering positions made up the largest share of posting volume at 38%. They were followed by Data Science and AI/ML at 14%, Tech and Engineering Management at 14%, and DevOps and Cloud roles at 12%.

The distribution of technology requirements across these functions showed a strong concentration around infrastructure and deployment. More specialized data and analytics tools appeared within narrower segments of the technology workforce.

The five broad tool categories analyzed by Oxylabs further showed the concentration of employer requirements. Data Storage and Infrastructure tools accounted for 47% of all tool mentions, while DevOps and Developer Experience tools represented 30%. Business Intelligence and Analytics accounted for 18%, Data Ingestion and Transformation for 4%, and Orchestration and Observability for 1%.

“Chasing the most ‘advanced’ or talked-about tools without building cloud fundamentals first is a risky strategy. The data suggests professionals should first identify their target role category, then master the toolset specific to that path,” said Kūkšta.

Regional and Industry-Level Demand

California accounted for the largest share of total U.S. tech job postings at 13%, followed by Texas at 8% and New York at 5%.

Virginia recorded nearly three times as many tech jobs per capita as the national average. The report linked this concentration to the state's large number of data centers serving major cloud providers.

AWS was the most frequently requested cloud platform across the majority of states. Azure, however, led in a specific group of Upper Midwest and Southern states, including Minnesota, Indiana, and Tennessee. The report noted that this pattern reflected regional enterprise ties in manufacturing and healthcare.

The core technology sector generated 45% of all listings in the dataset. Professional services accounted for 17%, while finance and manufacturing each represented 8% of hiring demand.

Media and entertainment also featured among the sectors recruiting cloud-native talent, with employers relying heavily on AWS and Git for digital production pipelines.