Israel’s high‑tech job market opened twice as many artificial‑intelligence (AI) positions in the first half of 2025 as it did during all of 2024, according to a half‑year report released on Sunday by GotFriends, the country’s largest tech‑recruitment firm.
The company stated that demand is “unprecedented,” driven by the rapid adoption of generative AI across product development and marketing, a wave of startups focused on agentic AI and large-language-model (LLM) infrastructure, and incumbent firms “putting AI at the heart of the product.” Venture‑capital funding for AI plays has further “sent demand for top talent soaring,” the report noted.
GotFriends listed six titles leading the current talent race: AI researcher/scientist, LLM specialist, AI security researcher, generative AI developer, AI-focused data engineer, and AI product manager. The average monthly pay at companies specializing in AI is now ₪43,085 (approximately $11,500), the highest of any tech sector in Israel.Engineers with hands-on expertise in models such as GPT or LLaMA—fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation, or product integration—command a premium over developers with only general AI exposure, the firm said.
Winners and losers on the salary ladder
Across the wider tech scene, compensation for C++, Python, product management, and algorithms roles climbed 4‑6 percent in the January–June period. By contrast, quality‑assurance, mobile, and frontend roles—hit by automation and an ample talent pool—saw salaries drop 3‑10 percent.
Mid‑career professionals continued to pull ahead: employees with three or more years’ experience earned an average of ₪39,247 ($10,500) a month, up from ₪37,071 in 2024. Junior pay, however, remained flat at roughly ₪17,500 ($4,700), underscoring what the report calls “a market preference for proven, specialized talent.”
The gender pay gap in high‑tech stands at ₪2,600 per month, according to GotFriends.
To close candidates quickly, several employers have reinstated signing bonuses worth one to six months’ salary for “mission‑critical” posts, the recruiter said.
“The hi‑tech market isn’t contracting; it’s transforming around AI,” GotFriends CEO Shiri Vax said in the release. “Anyone being laid off today? It’s not only juniors; even seasoned core staff are affected. My advice: understand where the world is headed and connect your experience to what’s hot now—and what will be hot tomorrow.”