SignalHire, a B2B contact intelligence platform, analyzed tens of thousands of recruiter searches between January and April 2025 and the same period in 2026, revealing dramatic shifts in talent sourcing priorities. The findings highlight an urgent physical therapy shortage and a fundamental change in how companies search for technical talent.
Physical therapy searches surged, with US searches for Physical Therapist growing 1,473% year over year and Physical Therapist Assistant growing 5,717%. According to SignalHire, official forecasts describe the physical therapy shortage as a future problem, but recruiter behavior treats it as a current one. Hiring managers are not waiting for projections to materialize; they are sourcing ahead because the candidates they need take time to find, approach, and convert. The competition for PT talent in 2026 is significantly more intense than any published forecast currently reflects. By the time official data confirms the shortage, recruiters who started sourcing early will have already filled their pipelines.
In contrast, searches for Software Engineer fell 68% globally year over year, with a 75% decline in the UK. However, this does not mean companies are hiring fewer technical people. Instead, the broad title has become less useful as a search term. Specific roles are rising: Java Developer searches increased 3,257% in the UK, and QA and Software Test Engineer searches rose 567%. Hiring managers are searching for specific technical expertise, not general coding capacity. The shift reflects the reality that AI tools have absorbed many of the tasks that a generalist "software engineer" title previously covered.
The structural point beneath these trends is that for talent acquisition teams operating in any of these segments, the window between now and when these trends become widely visible in public data is the window that matters. The market is sorting, and the data shows where it is going. The question is whether sourcing operations are positioned to move with it.
SignalHire is a B2B contact intelligence platform providing access to over 850 million verified professional profiles with real-time email and phone verification. The platform serves sales, recruiting, and marketing teams globally through its database, browser extension, API, and Data Enrichment workflows. For more insights, visit SignalHire.
