How Is the Salesforce Job Market Evolving? Trends, Turbulence, and What’s Next in 2025

The Salesforce job market is experiencing continued turbulence, and recruiting agencies, journalists, and analysts alike are struggling to fully grasp its complexities. Is it bouncing back? Is it still saturated? Should I switch industries and try my luck somewhere else? Many professionals have these questions, and the answers to those questions change almost every day. 

Numerous trends have influenced its evolution, and in this post, we’ll be exploring these trends and focusing on the ones that are having the most significant impact in 2025.

The Job Market: 2015-2020

If we rewind the clock to 2015, the Salesforce job market looks very different from what it does today. For one, it was experiencing a boom, bolstered by a high demand for talent, lucrative salaries due to a talent gap, and rapid global expansion. In fact, according to a report by Burning Glass, over 300,000 job postings in the year leading up to June 2016 required Salesforce skills – a 260% increase from 2012.

A year prior, Trailhead – Salesforce’s gamified learning platform – had been released, and it had become easier than ever to skill up in Salesforce and land a role. It’s something that Stephanie Herrera, the founder of Salesforce Saturdays and the co-founder of PepUp Tech, looks back on as almost absurd due to how far away it feels.

“Before, it felt like if you could spell ‘Salesforce’, you could get a job in the market,” she said. “There were so many opportunities for people transitioning into tech at an entry-level.”

At the time, this aligned perfectly with the goals of organizations, too. A Bluewolf survey from 2015 found that 64% of Salesforce customers planned to increase their Salesforce budgets in the coming year, with 11% intending to boost spending by more than 50%. Both the budgets and the interest were there. 

Between 2016 and 2018, the Salesforce job market continued on its robust growth journey, driven by increased adoption of Salesforce’s cloud solutions and a broader digital transformation across industries.

2017 was a particularly memorable year, as new research from Salesforce indicated that the Salesforce economy would create 3.3M new jobs and $859B in new business revenues worldwide by 2022. 

Increased expansion, investment, and diversification of roles all resulted in accelerated growth for the job market, all the way forward until 2020, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Pandemic Tech Boom 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it an onslaught of socioeconomic and financial implications, and both the Salesforce ecosystem and job market were heavily affected. 

Predominantly, the impacts on Salesforce were actually positive, as the cloud giant and its ecosystem were able to capitalize on the surge of remote work and digital transformation. In fact, their 2020 State of Sales report showed that 77% of sales operations professionals said digital transformation had accelerated since 2019.

This period of success and innovation continued throughout 2021 and 2022, and by Q4 2022, Salesforce had announced a record quarter, signing off a monumental couple of years.

However, this good news did not continue, and come 2023, the job market would be facing some of its toughest challenges since the last recession. 

The Job Market Reset Theory 

2023 marked the release of the Einstein 1 Platform, one of Salesforce’s most advanced offerings yet, and a strong step forward in the developing world of AI. However, the release of this did nothing to help the mass layoffs that shook the market, nor the fact that, for the first time in years, talent supply outweighed demand.

In 2024, our own research and data collected by Salesforce consulting firm 10K indicated that the market was still very much saturated, but that conditions were not as dire as they had previously been. There was no notable uptick thus far, but the discrepancies between supply and demand began to shorten, and the release of Salesforce’s Agentforce had instilled a pragmatic sense of hope in the ecosystem.

The job market had enjoyed the highs of 2020-2022, stomached the lows of 2023 and the start of 2024, and was anticipating slightly better days ahead as 2025 rolled in – cultivating a full job market reset. 

2025’s Outlook: How is the Market Looking?

Now that we’re in the second quarter of 2025, how are conditions looking? 

Arguably, the biggest factor impacting the job market this year is the wider socioeconomic landscape, especially as we sit at the cusp of a potential recession and as the tech world faces challenges of worldwide tariffs. 

There have been indicators that the job market is noticing a subtle bounce back, with a resurgence in the U.S. market cited by experts like Founder and CEO of Cloud for Good, Tal Frankfurt. 

However, mixed opinions from other industry heads, like Founder and Co-CEO of Third Republic Mat Roche, tell a slightly different side to the story, hinting that there likely is a small increment, but nothing to be excited about. 

Juan Fach, a Salesforce Consultant, told Salesforce Ben that he believes the state of the job market at present depends on who is hiring. 

“Either you’re expensive, or the position is Admin-Dev-BA-Architect and coffee maker,” he said. “Job descriptions are hard to believe; they want one person to do so many things and do it right. There are no specializations like Health Cloud or Education Cloud, and 90% of the jobs that say ‘developer’ are throwing code because it is more lucrative.”

Juan explained that the market is now crowded with “all-in-one positions” that are broken up into two sides: partners and end-users on the one hand, who are looking for “unicorn Salesforce professionals” to reduce or cut costs, and recruiters on the other hand, who do not know how to define a role.

This becomes a real struggle once you realize that a lot of the advice given, including from us at Salesforce Ben, is to focus on a niche to stand out. Joseph Monroe, a Senior Salesforce Consultant, maintains this advice, saying that niches are a “must for new entrants to the sector.”

This unclear picture can be incredibly frustrating for many members of the ecosystem, especially entry-level professionals. Unfortunately, it does not seem to get any clearer from here.

Bad News for Entry-Level Professionals

Despite a lack of clarity over what employers want from entry-level professionals, it’s clear that just knowing Salesforce isn’t enough, as Founder and CEO of Synergise Talent Solutions, Danny O’Rielly, insists. 

“Companies are looking for people who can dive deep into specific clouds, industries, or skill sets,” he said. “I’m seeing a real emphasis on problem-solving and business acumen. Technical skills are still crucial, of course, but companies want people who can understand the bigger picture and translate tech into tangible business value.”

However, that is all well and good provided that companies actually want to hire entry-level talent. Shawn Smothers, a Salesforce Data Analyst, said that he has found that companies just won’t hire juniors, and are opting for “job-ready” professionals. 

If they are hired, then bad examples have the potential to ruin the market for others, as Joe Cusano, a Salesforce Administrator, explained. 

“Thanks to the over-hyped job market, unscrupulous individuals gain enough superficial knowledge about Salesforce to ace interviews for jobs with rather high starting salaries. When these unqualified people get hired and the projects go sideways, a pall is cast over Salesforce and entry-level professionals, making landing a job even more difficult for someone new to the ecosystem.” Joe Cusano, Salesforce Administrator

Ecosystem Maturity 

As the demand for entry-level professionals seemingly drops, it’s clear that we are in an era of maturity with the Salesforce job market. This is a notion supported by Danny, citing that it’s a “fascinating time” to be in the Salesforce space. 

“I think we’re seeing an interesting ‘maturing’ of the ecosystem,” he said. “That wild west phase of rapid, almost unchecked growth – that’s definitely shifting. We’re seeing a more nuanced landscape now.”

Surekha Shetty, a Salesforce Co-Founder, agrees, saying that it feels as if the job market is entering a “refinement” era. 

“[It’s] still full of opportunity, but with higher expectations and faster-moving trends,” she said. 

This kind of observation lines up with the current job market trends that we’ve been actively noticing – most notably the saturation and supply/demand imbalance. Organizations are now much pickier when it comes to their workforces, hiring with budget constraints and new directions (such as AI) in mind. 

Is it Worth Exploring Alternative Industries? 

Lastly, it’s very natural for a sector experiencing a slowdown in growth to begin looking into what other industries are offering. The question is, are we at this stage with Salesforce yet? 

Khero Witey, an Associate Vice President of Third Republic, says that he actively recommends that entry-level professionals with no IT or CRM experience venture into an alternative industry, such as ServiceNow or HubSpot. 

“Factor in the rise of Agentforce and AI reducing the number of admins needed to maintain an org, plus the maturity of nearshore and offshore options at more cost-effective rates/salaries, and I think it’s a tough sell for a customer to hire someone junior/no experience. Networking is the only option/hope. You’re more likely to get a chance if someone knows you and/or has met you.”

Shawn echoed this sentiment, saying that if a professional wants to learn AI or coding, they shouldn’t just learn Salesforce. 

“Many developers cross over to Salesforce from Java, but they didn’t start with Salesforce, and that made them more successful,” he said. 

At present, it isn’t a case of one industry being better than another – it’s about making yourself as valuable (and unfortunately profitable) as possible. Not only will having a broadened skill set make you more marketable to organizations, but that skill set also has the potential to open up new opportunities in the future, should you need them.

Final Thoughts

After all my time writing about the Salesforce job market, only one thing is clear: there is no concrete advice that is guaranteed to help you land a job. 

The market is ever-changing, and observations of it differ so wildly depending on regions, employment levels, and even social circles. The only advice that holds real merit is to continually have your finger on the pulse to stay up to date. Keeping up to date with the market’s trends will be your biggest asset.

In the dog-eat-dog tech market and Salesforce job market that we currently find ourselves in, having ambitions while remaining realistic will always be a real driver. Listen to the top voices around you. Read the research. Talk to others in your spaces. The market will improve soon enough.