Report covering 150 countries shows where NZ sits in global hiring corridors and what's coming next
Compensation growth for project managers in New Zealand and Australia is now more than double the rate for those based in the UK and well above numbers for the US – if your remuneration benchmarks haven’t kept up, your best people may already be talking to someone else.
That is just one insight in Deel's State of Global Hiring Report, a kind of live map of where opportunity is opening and where pressure is building in cross-border recruitment. It reveals how the fastest growing startups use global hiring to place product, sales and AI talent in the markets that matter most to them, and what the fastest-growing job in the world is right now (it’s one that barely existed two years ago).
The report also puts the long-standing assumption that cross border hiring is a cost cutting trick to rest, painting a picture of a global labour market that has quietly, but decisively, grown up.
"What intrigues me the most is that we now have proof that hiring internationally isn't driven by shrinking budgets, but an intense competition for the best talent," said the report's lead economist Lauren Thomas. She added that this talent still gravitates toward major urban centres, closer to big cities than workers have been in recent years, making them a hot commodity for companies around the world.
Data on hiring corridors, pay for roles like software developers, sales leaders and AI trainers, and the currencies global contractors prefer are likely to act as a blueprint for savvy Kiwi businesses in the competition for global talent. Download the report here.
The AI trainer – a new role to know
Perhaps the most striking finding in the report is the emergence of AI training as a distinct, global profession. Two years ago, the role barely existed in any structured form. In 2026, it is the single fastest-growing cross-border role on Deel's platform, with general AI trainer positions hired from abroad growing 283% in 2025.
More than 70,000 workers now train AI systems across more than 600 organisations, performing tasks that range from basic data annotation to expert-level feedback in medicine, economics, and translation. Pay reflects that range sharply: 30% of AI trainers earn between USD$15 and $20 per hour for annotation work, while 19% earn $50 to $75 per hour, and 6 earn over $100 per hour for subject-matter expertise.
The geographic spread of AI trainers reflects the need for linguistic diversity and regional expertise. While 58% are based in the US, the profession spans India, the Philippines, Canada, and Kenya, among others. For New Zealand companies building AI-assisted products or workflows, this represents a global talent pool that is accessible through the right global employment infrastructure -the kind that Deel provides.
A gender pay gap persists within the profession. In the US, male AI trainers earn a median of USD$50 per hour compared to $30 for female trainers - a disparity driven largely by occupational segmentation, with more specialised and higher-paying AI training roles skewing male.
Compensation shifts that matter for ANZ
For HR leaders responsible for benchmarking and retention, the report's compensation data offers some specific reference points for the ANZ region.
Salary growth in 2025 was concentrated in senior leadership positions globally, but the drivers varied by region. In the US, project managers led all roles at 24.5% compensation growth, followed by COOs at 21.6% and CEOs at 20%. In Australia and New Zealand, project managers saw 39.6% compensation growth - more than double the UK equivalent of 18.2%, and well above the US figure.
C-suite roles also saw strong compensation gains in the ANZ region, while technical sales positions such as ICT account managers declined 7.4%. That divergence - leadership up, some technical roles softening -may reflect both demand signals and the global supply of talent becoming more accessible through remote and cross-border models.
Another finding in the report deserves particular attention from Kiwi sales and commercial leaders. Seven of the top ten cross-border roles globally are in sales, marketing, or customer-facing functions - a concentration that reflects something AI cannot easily replicate. Local market knowledge, cultural fluency, and the ability to build relationships in-market remain deeply human capabilities, and companies are hiring across borders to access exactly that.
For New Zealand companies with ambitions in the US, UK, or European markets, this points to a practical hiring strategy: lead your international expansion with market-facing roles, not just product or engineering. The data from top-funded startups supports this - their first international expansions are typically anchored by sales and customer-facing hires.
New Zealand inside the global corridors
Among nearly 100 startups founded between 2020 and 2025 that raised USD$100 million or more in funding, cross-border hiring is overwhelmingly directed at wealthy, high-income countries. The UK leads the way at 12.2% of cross-border hires, followed by Canada (11.9%), Germany (8.8%), Australia (5.8%) and Spain (5.2%).
Software developers make up 28% of cross-border hires among top startups, followed by tech sales (6.2%), business developers (4%), and AI engineers (2%). Top startups are also 13.6% more likely to hire software developers cross-border than general small to medium size businesses - a gap that reflects deliberate strategy rather than circumstance.
Cross-border hiring in New Zealand is also growing, with software developers and sales managers the most sought-after roles that Kiwi companies hire overseas. The top locations of remote workers hired by New Zealand companies are the United States, India and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, companies in the US, Australia and the UK are the three largest employers hiring New Zealand-based workers.
This reflects a broader pattern identified in the report: cross-border hiring concentrates along familiar corridors shaped by language, proximity, and regulatory alignment. For New Zealand, that means strong ties to the Anglosphere, with the United Kingdom serving as both a source of incoming hires and a mirror market for outbound talent. For HR leaders building global teams, understanding these corridors is as practical as understanding salary benchmarks.
Currency and compliance - the operational reality
Another unexpected finding in the report is the rise of what Deel's team calls "currency hopping" - contractors in economically volatile markets choosing to be paid in US dollars or stablecoins rather than their local currencies. In Argentina, more contractors chose USD over the local peso. Argentina also leads stablecoin adoption globally, followed by Cameroon, South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam, Tajikistan, Sri Lanka and Ukraine.
For New Zealand companies engaging international contractors, this is an operational consideration as much as a curiosity. Offering payment flexibility - whether in USD, local currency, or digital assets has become part of the competitive offer for global talent.
Deel's general manager of global mobility Kristine Lipscomb framed it as a structural shift in how workers approach financial risk. "When a contractor in Argentina chooses to get paid in USD or stablecoins instead of pesos, it's not just a financial decision," said Lipscomb. "It's a vote of confidence in the global, borderless economy. Companies that want to attract and retain the best talent worldwide need to offer the flexibility to match how modern workers actually want to be paid.”
That kind of flexibility - across employment models, currencies, payroll structures and compliance requirements - is precisely what Deel's unified platform is built to deliver. Rather than stitching together separate tools for employer of record services, contractor management, HR administration and payroll, Deel operates as a single infrastructure across more than 150 countries.
For New Zealand companies beginning their global hiring journey, that means starting where you need to and scaling without rebuilding from scratch.
Read the full State of Global Hiring Report to explore the complete findings and guidance for cross-border hiring.
This article was produced in partnership with Deel
