Upwork Monthly Hiring Report: Growing Demand For Seasonal Support

As the world’s largest human and AI-powered work marketplace, Upwork continues to keep a close watch on hiring trends. As of October 2025, our latest monthly hiring report indicates that companies are actively expanding their workforce to address seasonal hiring needs. 

While seasonal hiring isn’t a new concept, there’s a unique interest in support from independent talent this year — with 78% of businesses planning to hire flexible talent in the next three months. This marks the highest interest in flexible hiring through all of 2025, and is a strong sign of growth for the freelance economy that already generates an estimated $1.5 trillion in annual earnings.

“Flexible talent is an essential extension of the workforce,” said Anthony Kappus, chief operating officer at Upwork. “The data shows how businesses are hiring independent professionals to connect with and serve customers through the busy holiday season, drive creative and technical work, and fill key roles faster.”

Hiring insights for October 2025

Our October hiring report draws upon more than one million job posts on Upwork’s U.S. marketplace as well as insights gleaned from the Upwork Research Institute's monthly business pulse survey. Whether you’re a business owner or an independent professional, these are the top three insights you need to know about as you enter the end-of-year holiday season. 

1. Demand for customer-facing talent is up by 30%

While many companies have experimented with AI-powered customer support solutions over the past year, demand for humans in customer-facing roles is up by 30%. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are hiring talent who can bolster customer support and manage brand reputation before, during, and immediately after the holidays. 

This increase is particularly notable at e-commerce companies, where talent support both maintaining customer-facing storefronts as well as providing support for purchases and more. 

On the Upwork Marketplace, we’re seeing:

• 30% more interest in customer service and tech support ³
• 29% growth in demand for community management and tagging expertise ³
• 9% higher need for e-commerce development work ³

But why are so many SMBs hiring independent talent for the holiday season?

When it comes down to it, many SMB leaders don’t have the time or bandwidth to go through long hiring processes for seasonal help. This makes hiring flexible talent an attractive solution — 25% of SMBs want to use talent due to their flexibility, while another 23% like how quickly they can find and onboard independent professionals.¹

Hiring for high-value creative contracts is increasing by as much as 38%

Creative work — from designers driving marketing campaigns to developers working on games that’ll make perfect gifts — is in high demand this holiday season. Companies are interested in hiring experienced, high-value talent who can use, collaborate with, and expand upon work done by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. 

This continues the “human guidance” trend noted in our September 2025 report. By hiring skilled human talent, companies can combat AI workslop and move critical creative projects forward during the busy holiday season. These businesses are looking for specific skills including:

• AI proficiency and understanding 
• Digital marketing
• Strategic and creative thinking 

This is reflected in an uptick in demand for specific jobs across the Upwork Marketplace:

• Game design and development jobs grew by 38%³
• Branding and logo design posts are up by 19%³
• Marketing, public relations, and brand strategy requests increased by 14%³

Over 50% of SMBs expect to hire data professionals in the next three months

This interest in skilled talent with AI expertise isn’t limited to creative roles, either, with 55% of businesses anticipating they’ll hire data analysts and data scientists in the next three months.

Across the Upwork Marketplace, demand is up for talent who can validate AI outputs and maintain trust in automated workflows. This includes:

• 26% higher demand for data mining and management professionals ³
• 15% more jobs for AI and machine learning talent ³
• 7% increase in need for quality assurance testing experts ³

“We’re seeing AI adoption move from experimentation to execution. Companies are shifting resources to build permanent AI infrastructure … pairing machine learning engineers with quality assurance and data experts to make sure AI systems perform reliably in production.”

— Professor Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University, member of Upwork’s Economic Advisory Council 

The 10 most in-demand skills for independent talent in October 2025

With AI touching so many aspects of business right now, demand is up across the board for skilled professionals who can balance human and AI work. From creative to technical work, these are the top 10 AI-enabled skills that companies are hiring for on Upwork right now:⁴

1. Graphic design
2. Python
3. Video editing
4. Machine learning
5. AI-generated video
6. ChatGPT
7. Adobe Photoshop (new)
8. JavaScript (new)
9. Adobe Illustrator
10. Content writing

“The coexistence of skills like graphic design, video editing, and AI-generated video among this month’s top 10 AI-related skills shows that AI and creativity are no longer separate disciplines but part of a continuous production pipeline,” said Dr. Teng Liu, economist for the Upwork Research Institute. “Teams are using AI to accelerate ideation, generation, and refinement, transforming creative work from one-off projects into scalable, iterative content systems.”

The Upwork Monthly Hiring Report is released monthly to provide timely workforce insights. 

For more insights from the world’s human and AI-powered work marketplace, visit upwork.com/research.

About the Upwork Monthly Hiring Report

The Upwork Monthly Hiring Report is designed to provide an early signal of broader shifts in how business leaders are hiring in real-time and aims to provide a more comprehensive picture of hiring trends in the U.S. labor market with a focus on the freelance economy – a dynamic sector of the workforce that generates an estimated $1.5 trillion in earnings annually.² It draws upon data from more than 1 million jobs posted annually on the Upwork Marketplace and a monthly business pulse survey from the Upwork Research Institute.

Methodology and sources

¹October Business Pulse Survey from the Upwork Research Institute.

²Upwork Future Workforce Index, April 2025.

³Upwork Marketplace data reflecting month-over-month (MoM) changes based on new contract activity in the U.S. from October 1-26, 2025 compared to September 1-26, 2025. High-value work is defined as a contract of at least $1,000.

⁴Upwork Marketplace data reflecting top skills hired for based on new contract activity in the U.S. from October 1-26, 2025.