Despite the annual summer lull, July unexpectedly saw a rise in the percentage of companies with open job listings—even for roles like Manual QA.

Daily, the AI agents of Mentorpiece Vacy scan thousands of sources directly—company websites, applicant tracking systems, and job boards—for tech job openings. They filter out the noise, determine the true “freshness” of each posting, identify its exact tech role, and weed out fraudulent listings.
Millions of records on job opening and closing dates for every tech role across a fixed cohort of thousands of companies enable the automatic calculation of the
Mentorpiece Vacy Index. This is a monthly Tech Hiring Activity Index that provides an unvarnished analytical view of the tech industry’s health and the rise or fall in demand for specific tech roles.

The decline in Manual QA hiring had persisted throughout the year, making July the first month to show growth that is above the margin of error.

For Automation QA / Senior QA roles, hiring continues to fluctuate—down in the red one month, and up in the green the next.

Hiring for AI QA / ML Evaluation roles isn’t particularly strong yet. For AI QA / ML Evaluation to capture a significant market share, monthly growth would need to hit double digits. Right now, it’s nowhere near that.

There is no clear, stable trend for any role yet. The pronounced decline has ended (which is already a plus!), but we aren’t seeing sustained growth either. It will be interesting to watch the dynamics over the next few months.

More details

• A preview of job openings added daily by AI agents to the database used to calculate the index is available on Telegram: Manual QA, Automation/Senior QA, and AI QA/ML Evaluation.

What does the future hold for tech hiring?

The next ⚡️Mentorpiece Vacy Index report will be released next month:
• In the Orange QA Journal
• On social media platforms (including Telegram)

Mentorpiece Vacy Index July 2026: Surprisingly, all the hiring this month is in the green zone