Israel’s high‑tech sector is entering 2026 with renewed confidence, steady hiring, and a widening salary gap favoring artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, according to new data released by GotFriends, the country’s largest high‑tech recruitment firm.
Despite global uncertainty and ongoing market turbulence, the firm’s analysis shows that the local tech market has managed to maintain stability while continuing to grow.
The report, based on interviews with more than 15,000 candidates and analysis of roughly 1,500 placements in 2025, found that the average tech salary climbed to ₪39,810, a 7.4% increase over the previous year that stood at ₪37,071.
The most striking trend that the report found is the emergence of a clear “AI premium,” with professionals specializing in LLMs, Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), and NLP earning an average of ₪43,212, about nine percent more than other technological roles.
Shiri Vax, CEO of GotFriends, said the market is rewarding candidates who bring deep, specialized expertise. “We are seeing a market that is searching for real added value,” she said. “Those with deep expertise in AI or offensive cyber security not only find jobs faster but also enjoy an average salary of ₪39,810, along with the return of benefits such as signing bonuses and inflated, contractually guaranteed bonuses- a phenomenon we haven’t seen since 2021.”
Management pay surges as startups multiply
While salaries rose across the board, the sharpest increases were recorded at the management level.
Development group managers, development managers, and team leaders saw their average salary jump by 21 percent, reaching ₪56,646. GotFriends attributes this surge to a wave of new startups founded in 2025, many of which sought experienced, founder‑level leaders, as well as the rapid adoption of AI tools in larger companies, which created demand for managers capable of integrating advanced technologies into their operations.
Graduates of elite IDF technological units also experienced a particularly dynamic year.
Following extended wartime service in 2025, many veterans entered the civilian market with hands-on development experience. The average starting salary for those entering the market with six years of development experience rose to ₪40,400, a 15 percent increase in 2025. Companies, the report notes, are increasingly willing to hire these candidates even without prior civilian experience, provided they demonstrate exceptional achievements during their service.
Skills, gender gaps, and hybrid work
According to the report released by GotFriends, certain technical skills stood out as major salary boosters. For example, expertise in RAG and generative AI pushed salaries into the ₪45,000–₪46,000 range, while data engineers proficient in Airflow reached an average of ₪44,500. Demand for these roles reached record levels, reflecting the broader shift toward AI‑driven development and data‑intensive architectures.
The report also found that the gender pay gap continued to narrow in 2025, falling from 11 percent to 7.4 percent with men earning an average of ₪40,657 compared to ₪37,647 for women.
However, representation remains uneven across roles. Women make up the majority of data analysts (54 percent with an average salary of ₪28,241) and a significant share of product managers (40 percent with an average salary of ₪37,575) and automation engineers (37 percent with an average salary of ₪34,465), but remain a small minority of only 6 percent in cybersecurity, information security, Python development, and AI‑related positions, even as demand for these roles continues to grow.
Hybrid work also remains the dominant model, with 56 percent of roles offering two work‑from‑home days per week, a figure nearly unchanged from 2024. Meanwhile, the traditional Tel Aviv salary premium continues to shrink. The city’s average salary of ₪40,256 is only 3.3 percent higher than salaries outside Tel Aviv, despite significantly higher living costs.
Security sector leads hiring as top contracts hit six figures
The security sector once again led hiring volumes, driven by a surge in state‑level cyberattacks and the growing complexity of AI‑enabled threats.
Among the highest contracts signed through GotFriends in 2025 were a vulnerability researcher earning approximately ₪120,000 and a development manager with a compensation package of ₪100,000. The report found that the overall hiring volumes remained similar to previous years, but companies showed a clear preference for senior candidates with at least five years of experience, particularly those with deep mastery of AI tools.
GotFriends, which maintains close relationships with leading tech companies and startups across Israel, supports thousands of candidates each year in advancing their careers. The firm says the trends of 2025 point toward a market that is both stabilizing and evolving, with AI expertise increasingly defining the upper tiers of compensation and opportunity.
