NZ supplies as much skilled talent as it competes for, and the market runs well beyond Australia
For skilled workers, the world is their oyster – and that oyster can be from Bluff or Chesapeake Bay.
New data from Deel's Global Talent Map 2026 shows the most mobile, most skilled workers now compare job offers across borders the same way they'd compare top cuisine – sure, there might be a little local favouritism but the main factor is what you get for the money.
For New Zealand employers looking to attract Kiwi talent, that competition comes from Sydney, London, Dubai and San Francisco as much as down the road. This means that the broader international market as well as the local one needs to be factored in when HR and talent leaders set pay bands.
New Zealand supplies talent as much as it competes for it
Deel's data shows New Zealand is the second largest source of foreign workers moving into Australia, behind India and ahead of the UK, China and Sri Lanka. At the same time, Australia is pulling Indian workers onto its platform at 724% year-on-year growth, the fastest rate of any destination Deel tracked. That's the same labour pool New Zealand employers are trying to attract and retain, being bid for aggressively next door.
Singapore adds a further wrinkle. Rather than functioning as an entry point for younger workers, it's become a hub for established professionals, with the largest immigrant shares sitting in the 35 to 44 (41.3%) and 45 to 54 (25.7%) age brackets. Workers who emigrate from high income countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia) are concentrated in the 35 to 44 age group. That's precisely the experienced, mid-career cohort New Zealand businesses tend to work hardest to hold onto.
The global pattern, on the other hand, skews younger, with 43% of workers living outside their country of citizenship being aged 25 to 34.
Technical skills travel, sales skills stay local
Not every role is equally exposed to this competition. Deel's analysis found technical skills move across borders far more readily than commercial or creative ones. Software developers made up 13% of UK Skilled Worker visa holders, while over 99% of salespeople on the platform were local citizens, in both the UK and the US.
The premium is sharper still in tech roles specifically. Software developers and data scientists on UK Skilled Worker visas earned a median of just over GBP112,000, compared with GBP93,808 for UK citizens in the same roles. In the US, the same comparison held: H-1B software developers and data scientists earned a median of USD160,000, against USD154,000 for US citizens.
Sales and creative roles depend on local market knowledge that doesn't transfer easily, so those hires stay close to home. Engineering and technical roles, by contrast, compete on a global price. For New Zealand employers, that's a useful way to sort where international benchmarking actually matters and where it doesn't.
International hiring isn't a cost cutting exercise
The instinct to treat overseas hiring as a way to save money doesn't hold up against Deel's numbers from any of the markets it measured.
Across the UK, US and UAE, for example, visa holders earned more than local workers in comparable roles, despite being younger. In the UK, Skilled Worker visa holders earned a median of GBP96,000 compared with GBP87,000 for UK citizens in similar positions, a four-year age gap in the visa holders' favour. In the US, H-1B workers earned a median of USD140,000 against USD130,000 for citizens, at a median age of 31.5 versus 37. In the UAE, Golden Visa holders earned 605,000 AED compared with 459,000 AED for standard employment visa holders.
The pattern reflects selection rather than generosity. Visa processes filter for skills that are scarce locally, and the workers who clear that bar are paid for filling a gap the domestic market can't.
Speed is a lever New Zealand can pull
One factor sits entirely within a government's control, and it's less about policy settings than administration. Deel's report found Canada and the UK have shifted to digital-first visa systems that resolve in weeks, while markets that remain paper-based can take months to process the same applications. In a competitive hiring market, that gap in processing time often decides where a candidate ends up taking the job. Treating visa and immigration processing as a slow-moving administrative function, rather than a live part of talent strategy, has a real cost attached to it.
What New Zealand employers can do
None of this means New Zealand businesses are locked out of competing. It means the competition needs to be treated as global by default rather than assumed to be local. That starts with benchmarking pay against the markets actually bidding for the same skills, not just against other New Zealand employers. It continues with investing in candidate experience for international hires, since a slow or unclear process loses candidates before an offer is even finalised. And it means being upfront with candidates about pay and pathway to residency, rather than leaving those conversations until late in the hiring process.
Deel's Global Talent Map 2026 sets out the full picture across the UK, US, UAE and Asia-Pacific markets, along with a companion guide on attracting, hiring and retaining remote talent. Read the full report to see where New Zealand's talent competition actually sits, and what to do about it.
This article was produced in partnership with Deel
