The scale of the U.S. tech market is difficult to ignore. The U.S. tech workforce is roughly 9.6 million people, against just over 2.1 million in the UK – a genuinely comparable gap. On spending, the scale is just as stark: US enterprise and government technology spending is forecast to hit $2.9 trillion in 2026 alone, an 8.3% jump on the year before. While the UK’s entire tech sector was worth $1.6 trillion in 2026. 

That’s the scale UK agencies are looking at. But a bigger market isn’t automatically an easier one to work – it’s differently shaped, differently skilled, and differently structured, and each of those matters for where a UK agency actually finds traction. 

Where the demand actually sits 

Tech employment isn’t evenly spread across the U.S., and it’s not concentrated exactly where you’d expect either. California remains the largest state for raw tech employment, but by concentration – tech as a share of the total workforce – Washington state leads at 9.3%, followed by DC, Virginia, Colorado, and Massachusetts. At the metro level, San Jose is the extreme case: tech accounts for an estimated 27% of all employment in the region. 

The more useful shift for a UK agency to know about is geographic spread beyond the obvious hubs. Silicon Valley and New York still matter, but significant tech employment now exists in places like Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando, Raleigh, and Phoenix – a legacy of remote work loosening the old assumption that tech talent and tech jobs both had to sit in the same handful of coastal cities. That matters practically, candidates and roles don’t need to be co-located the way they once did, which widens where a UK agency can realistically source and place from. 

What’s actually in demand right now 

AI is dominating hiring activity specifically, not just as a buzzword – over 275,000 active U.S. job postings referenced AI skills in a single month at the start of 2026, spanning dedicated AI roles and general positions that now expect AI fluency as a baseline. Beyond that, CompTIA’s ten-year projections point to a few roles growing dramatically faster than the tech workforce overall: data scientists and analysts, cybersecurity analysts and engineers, and software developers and engineers, with tech occupations broadly growing at roughly twice the rate of the overall U.S. workforce. 

For a UK agency, this is the part worth tracking closely, because it shapes which candidates are actually placeable at volume. A strong generalist software engineer is a safer bet across both markets; deep AI, cybersecurity, and data specialisms are where US demand is currently outpacing supply the most, and where rates reflect that. 

Pay is a different conversation entirely 

U.S tech salaries sit well above the all-occupation median – the median tech salary is more than double the median wage across all U.S. occupations. This is one of the areas where UK agencies can misjudge the U.S. market early on. A rate that looks competitive through a UK lens may be completely out of step with what an experienced U.S. tech candidate expects. Getting rate expectations right early avoids a placement stalling out over a number that looked reasonable through a UK lens and unreasonable through a U.S. one. 

How U.S tech talent is actually engaged 

U.S. tech contractors are generally engaged one of three ways – W-2 (payrolled employment), 1099 (individual independent contractor), or corp-to-corp, but it’s corp-to-corp that’s disproportionately common in tech and IT specifically, and it’s the one that catches UK agencies out. 

Corp-to-corp (C2C) is a setup where the contractor operates through their own incorporated business, usually an LLC or S-Corp, and whoever engages them contracts with that business rather than the person directly. It’s a B2B relationship, not an employment one, and it’s especially popular among experienced IT and engineering contractors in the U.S., many of whom set up their own corporation specifically to work this way. For it to work, both sides of the contract need to be registered businesses – the contractor’s corporation on one side, and a legitimate U.S. business entity on the other. A UK limited company doesn’t meet that bar on its own, which matters given how common C2C is among the exact calibre of experienced tech contractors a UK agency is often trying to place. 

Whichever way a candidate is set up to work, engaging them through an Employer of Record is what makes the placement possible without a UK agency needing its own US entity – the EOR becomes the compliant vehicle for the engagement, while the agency continues to source and manage the relationship. 

The bigger picture 

A market nearly 4.5 times the size of the UK’s by workforce, and worth more in a single city than the UK’s entire sector, is a real opportunity, but only to the extent an agency can actually reach it. That means tracking where the roles and the money genuinely are, understanding which skills are commanding the premium right now, setting pay expectations that hold up on both sides of the conversation, and having the right structure in place once a candidate is ready to start. 

Ready to start placing candidates in the U.S.?  Get in touch, and we’ll walk you through what it takes to get your first U.S. tech placement compliant and ready to go. 

Andrew Pate is Client Engagement Manager at Lead & Gain, bringing nearly a decade of experience in the U.S. tech recruitment market. His background spans recruitment, business development and client engagement, giving him first-hand insight into the market and the challenges agencies face when operating in it.