Happy New Year Everyone. Yes! Yes! I know it is already the 7^th of January, and the year is no longer as new as it was last week. But I know there is still a lot of time to make some new year resolutions.  What are your resolutions for the year? Get more remote jobs? Get into tech as a Newbie? Use AI to learn new skills? Whatever your resolutions are as a techie, I am sure they are nice and I hope you are working towards achieving them?

However beyond just having resolutions, you must have the right plan on how to achieve your goals. Firstly, it is important for you to know that  2026 is going to be a different year in the tech space. The global tech job market is tightening because  AI  has come to stay, all the entry level tech roles that can now be performed by AI are vanishing, venture capitalists are now more cautious, and tech startups are  prioritizing efficiency over numbers . Those years when every newbie (or techie in a career rut) was simply told “learn to code and get a remote job” are long gone.

The  question you should be asking therefore  is WHERE ARE THE TECH JOBS? or to put it in another way WHERE ARE THE TECH JOBS GOING TO BE IN 2026?

As a Nigerian tech professional who wants to stay competitive and future-proof your career in 2026, You should  be far more intentional about what role you want to pursue, the skills you have and the value you can offer, and how to best to position for those roles.

The simple truth is this: It is not just about being good at tech stuff. It is about ensuring that your skills are aligned  with what the global tech space requires.

So as a tech professional, where should you be looking at to grow your career?

AI-Adjacent Roles,

Yes, AI is the rave right now, yes companies and startups alike now have AI in everything, that means being a machine learning engineer is where the big bucks are at right? Not necessarily. The biggest misconception in tech  right now is that everyone needs to become a machine learning engineer. You don’t.

In reality, what most Nigerian companies need today cutting-edge AI researchers. What they need are professionals who can apply AI tools responsibly, efficiently, and help them improve their  profits. So, if you are interested in AI roles this year,  it will help you to learn how to become an  AI knowledgeable professional that also has market and cultural intelligence. In other words, you need to be familiar with markets for tech products and how to use AI to build not just product market fit, but also communities. By 2026, high-demand roles will include AI product managers, AI operations specialists, prompt engineers, AI integration engineers, and AI ethics analysts.

Cybersecurity and Digital Trust Professionals

 Africa’s digital economy is growing, and as it grows, so does its exposure to risk. Cybersecurity is now one of the core roles that you can focus on in 2026. Roles in cloud security, data protection, identity management, and compliance will be in consistent demand, offering stability and long-term career relevance. Beyond the software/hardware engineering angle of cybersecurity is the wider field of digital trust. An example that immediately comes to mind is the increasing role that tech is playing in the creative and entertainment industry. As issues continue to rise in the entertainment industry around compensation and algorithms, the tech space is not only going to require legal experts that understand the intersection between law, entertainment and tech, it will also require people who can build and manage digitally trustworthy platforms.

Product and Growth Roles with Technical Depth

 Again, with AI being able to handle a wide range of tech tools and functions, Companies are no longer just looking for tech experts, they now  want professionals who understand both technology and  business outcomes. In other words, a tech person that also has some experience in growing a business.

 As a result,  there will be a rise in demand  for roles such as technical product managers, growth engineers, product analysts, and revenue operations specialists. So, if you are looking at a product management tech career in 2026, having some knowledge of sales and marketing will only further enhance your career stability, also having an understanding of technical aspects of product design will not hurt you either.

Cloud, Infrastructure, and DevOps Specialists

 We are back to our ubiquitous tech feature again, AI. More specifically now we are talking about its ability  to help companies build leaner teams and scale their MVPs faster. However, a side effect of this is that tech infrastructure reliability becomes mission-critical, and the people managing the infrastructure are held to a higher standard.

 There for expect a rising demand for Cloud architects, DevOps engineers, and site reliability engineers. If you show yourself as passionate and competent at any of these roles, you will remain essential and well-compensated in the tech space.

Data Analytics and Data Management Roles That Drive Decisions

 We are back at cultural and market intelligence again. If  you are a data analyst or you are looking to get into the data analysis space. It will greatly help your career progress if you can demonstrate an ability to translate insights into  data driven decisions. In other words, you not only know how to look at data to bring out useful information, you are also culturally intelligent enough to translate that information into useful insights that can increase your company’s profits. In this case Analytics engineers, applied data analysts, and data product specialists who understand business context will be most in demand.

Technical Creators and Developer Educators

Finally, regardless of what AI can do or what AI will be doing, technical writers, developer advocates, and educators who can simplify complex information will play an increasing role in tech ecosystems. If there is one attribute every single human being who has become a legend or renown in any human endeavor, whether in religion, science, philosophy, government, literature or technology, it is the ability to help to break complex concepts into information (and products) that laypeople can understand and use. Think about it the likes of Jesus Christ, Aristotle, Socrates, Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, and even modern tech trailblazers like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos etc. Being a competent educator and technical creator is a skill that has been relevant since writing became a thing and it will still be relevant till the heat death of the universe.

Tech Community Managers   

In this piece I wrote about how creatives can thrive in the age of AI, I wrote about how creatives must move beyond just creating products, and look towards building a community around their work. Again, with Artificial Intelligence being able to create  tech products in a twinkle of an eye, there are a great many tech solutions on the market and the problem brands and startups face now is how to market those products. Thus, there is an increase in demand for community managers who can bring people together around a product.

Therefore, if you have affinity for building tech products into marketable brands, and you have your finger on the pulse of the tech ecosystem, you might want to look at a career in community management. Brands and startups are ready to pay big money for people who can build a pipeline of interest in their products, and you can build a long-term tech career that way.

The Bigger Picture

In  2026, skills  having a tech skill alone will not be enough to have a future proof tech career. You should be able to demonstrate proof of impact, business understanding, market and cultural intelligence, an understanding of AI tools and features, and the ability to break down complex data into useful insights. However, the biggest attribute you need to have is adaptability.

2026 will reward focus, not noise. Nigerian techies who position strategically will not just find jobs; they will shape the future of global tech.