A study released exclusively to g1 by Inteli, a technology institute, with the consultancy WKS, put numbers on Brazil's shortage of technology workers. Between 2019 and 2024 demand reached 665,000 professionals while the supply of new workers came to about 464,000 — a shortfall of 30.2 percent.
To find which careers pay most, Inteli examined 72,700 job advertisements posted between April and June 2025, narrowing to 19,655 technology vacancies after filtering.
Artificial intelligence dominates the conversation and not the hiring. Among professionals surveyed, 79 percent named it the most relevant area of the market. The open vacancies said otherwise:
- Software development — 35.7 percent - Infrastructure and support — 23.2 percent - Data and artificial intelligence — 17.7 percent - Projects and management — 12.9 percent - Testing and quality control — 5.7 percent - Information security — 2.5 percent - Process and systems automation — 2.3 percent
Almost six in ten openings in the country are in software development and infrastructure.
Lucas Niemeyer, research coordinator at Inteli, put the gap down to where Brazilian companies actually are. "It is very common for the area that is rising fastest, or that people are most interested in, to be the most technologically advanced one, the new thing," he said. "But the great truth is that Brazil still has very low technological maturity in its companies." He said about 80 percent of small and medium firms have low technological maturity, which keeps demand concentrated in traditional functions such as infrastructure and support.
The best-paid roles are in leadership, security and AI. The monthly ranking:
- Chief Technology Officer — up to R$53,600 - Chief Security Officer — R$52,500 - Chief Information Officer — up to R$49,500 - Data manager — up to R$37,900 - Information security manager — up to R$37,200 - Generalist IT manager — up to R$35,000 - AI and machine-learning specialist — up to R$32,500 - BI manager — up to R$29,400 - Infrastructure manager — up to R$27,900 - Artificial intelligence engineer — up to R$27,100
Niemeyer said technical careers can also reach high pay without passing through traditional management, as flatter structures leave more room for specialists. Among vacancies that published a salary band, those mentioning AI appeared more often in the higher bands.
Openings are heavily concentrated in the southeast, and in São Paulo in particular — "overwhelming," in Niemeyer's word. Technology now accounts for 6.5 percent of Brazil's GDP, and banks, retailers, hospitals, industry and agribusiness compete for the same people.
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Sourced from g1, reporting a study by Inteli and WKS.