Last month, we published an article called The End of Salesforce Careers (As We Know It), addressing an uncomfortable truth – a lot of ecosystem careers have declined since the COVID boom days.
The next few years could see an unprecedented shift in how most professionals worldwide deal with work. AI is the obvious elephant in the room here, but there are other factors contributing to this. But it’s not a death knell for the Salesforce ecosystem. There is reason for optimism. The Salesforce job market is not dying – it’s simply evolving. Here’s what the future might have in store for Salesforce professionals.
Less Creation, More Reviewing
The 10K Salesforce Talent Ecosystem Report from late last year revealed that global demand for Salesforce talent returned to positive territory after two years of steep decline – up 8% globally.
While it’s true that supply is outpacing it for now – with the Admin role seeing a startling supply increase of 47% globally – demand growth tells us that Salesforce professionals are still very much needed. While it may be the end of Salesforce careers as we know them, it is certainly not the end of Salesforce careers.
Keir Bowden, Salesforce CTA and MVP Hall of Famer, believes that, in the short- to medium-term, a lot of the Salesforce world is going to be less hands-on, with more curating and reviewing work that machines have done.
He told SF Ben: “I think we’ll be doing less of building things from the ground up and more describing the things we want built, which you still need to be able to do, right? It’s no good just going in with something vague because you’ll get a very vague output. You still need to know your stuff.”
The work of developers will be less about writing code and more about understanding what good code looks like, being able to review the work generated by an AI coding assistant, and deciding whether that’s suitable or not.
In terms of what hiring managers are going to be looking for in the future, Keir said that many companies might not have actually thought about this kind of coming change.
It will be much harder to judge a candidate’s capabilities because instead of getting them to create something themselves, they might have a range of work to review instead, comparing and contrasting them and explaining why one is better than another.
Showing applied knowledge, but in a different way, will still be crucial. There may well be fewer coding challenges or tasks to build a process or a particular Flow, but assessing a range of things and explaining which one will work best.
But Keir gives a message of hope for Salesforce professionals, even amid the doom and gloom.
“People should hold their nerve,” he said. “I’ve been in this industry a long time, and I’ve seen significant downturns. So after the dotcom boom there was a significant downturn because those organizations had nothing other than their e-commerce sites, et cetera.
“If you look at where all the investments are coming from at the moment, it’s coming from the Googles, the Metas, the Microsofts; they’ve got pots of money. So this feeling, this period of everything being compressed in Salesforce and it being difficult to find a job, will pass. It’s just a matter of holding it up.”
The Partner Ecosystem
The Salesforce partner ecosystem has hit a new high, with the number of consulting partners surpassing 3,700 in 2025. This represents a growth rate of 25% year over year (Y/Y) – the fastest rate since 2020.
10K predicts that the Salesforce consulting partner ecosystem will carry on expanding, but at a “more sustainable pace”. Matt Gvazdinskas, Chief Strategy Officer at 10K, said about 2026: “I expect 15–20% growth, reaching roughly 4,200–4,500 partners globally as the market matures and specialization deepens.”
But, looking ahead, expansion will likely be less driven by broad new market entry and more by specialization in AI, data, and industry-focused solutions, Matt said. This will take place as firms double down on domain depth to meet customer demand for measurable outcomes, he added.
“Emerging markets will remain a key source of new partners, while mature markets will see more consolidation and managed services. The ecosystem’s growth story isn’t over, but its rapid acceleration phase is beginning to level out as the market stabilizes,” said Matt.
Are Business Analysts the New Admins?
It’s a bold prediction, but Kristin Langlois, Chief People Officer at 10K, said that, as AI automates routine Salesforce tasks, the roles that connect a business’s strategy, data, and automation will see a rise in value
Kristin said: “Business Analysts (BAs) will become the new backbone of the Salesforce ecosystem. The admin role as we know it today will evolve into hybrid positions that blend analysis, automation, and data strategy.”
Demand for Business Analysts rebounded 9% in 2025 and accounted for 14% of the overall job listings. All the while, Admins had the fewest job postings for the third year in a row.
“The past two years, I encouraged Admins to deepen their technical expertise or explore complementary skills like business analysis. That shift is now underway,” said Kristin.
Business Analysts are becoming the bridge between human decision-making and intelligent systems.
Those who boost their AI literacy, data fluency, and knowledge of Salesforce automation will have a bright future in the coming years.
“The future of Salesforce talent will belong to professionals who connect business goals and technology, defining how human judgment and AI work together to create impact,” said Kristin.
Technology Will Always Evolve
Will Turner, Salesforce Application Manager & Agentforce lead at Arjo UK, says that if people allow their skills to become stale, then there is a risk of having technology replace a large proportion of work that they do.
“Technology will always evolve, and so we humans just need to evolve along with it,” said Will, who runs the London Salesforce Admin User Group. “If we stay evolving, then there will always be something for us to move into. Even if we don’t see those roles, if we don’t see them right now, they will appear.
“The human brain has a much faster capacity to learn than any technology. And therefore, opportunities will come out of technology development. That’s always been the case in the past, and I always see that being the case in the future.”
Will also cautioned people not to be swayed by doom and gloom, and to talk to people in the Salesforce community to get a fuller idea about the ecosystem, before making any drastic career decisions.
The wisdom of Business Analysts, referenced in the above section, speaks to Will’s point. Roles are changing, and AI is certainly shifting the landscape of the Salesforce job market, but new opportunities are still emerging – for now.
Designing Smarter Matters More
Demand for Technical Architects (TAs) and Solution Architects (SAs) is outpacing all other roles. Global demand was up 27% for TAs and 21% for SAs year over year.
Jared Miller, Chief Operations Officer at 10K, says that AI will narrow the gap in execution but widen the gap in design. As AI takes over for repeatable build work like configuration tweaks and routine administration tasks, designing smarter becomes more important than working faster.
“Execution is getting faster, but the hardest problems like governance, data boundaries, integration patterns, and risk/cost control remain firmly in the hands of architects,” Jared said. “When architects are in the driver’s seat, the dynamics shift.”
What this means is, AI is changing how work in the Salesforce ecosystem gets done, but architecture is what determines how well it gets done.
Final Thoughts
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), 39% of workers’ core skills are anticipated to change by 2030 as AI moves from experimentation into workflows. This includes agentic AI. Employers will still want technical capabilities, but also human-centric skills like collaboration, judgment, and problem-solving abilities.
These findings echo what several of those people quoted in the above article have been saying: AI is changing things, but not ending them. The job market is already adapting to these changes, and there are negative implications for large parts of the job market, but positive impacts elsewhere. Demand for Salesforce roles grew in 2025. The work still needs to be done. As long as there is Salesforce, there will be people needed to operate it.
