2025 was a year of green shoots. Candidate numbers remained high and job listings stayed low, but our community rallied. Thousands of students and recent graduates joined our programme seeking skills, confidence, and connection - and together, we helped them take meaningful steps toward their future careers.

Despite the continuation of 2024’s tight job market, there was plenty to celebrate: employers who had paused hiring returned with renewed commitment, sponsors re-engaged, and new organisations came knocking for the first time, eager to find fresh talent. And with 2,906 live candidates registered when we closed signups in August, the junior talent pipeline remained strong as we shifted our focus to preparation and support for recruitment season.

Across the motu, our events brought the community together: Auckland and Wellington Meet & Greets saw strong employer turnout, our Community Zone expanded to Wellington, and new food and beverage sponsors kept the energy high. Our sponsors helped provide $4K in scholarships and financial assistance to 32 people, including Māori, Pasifika, female, and gender-diverse students - to ensure they were supported to participate fully in recruitment season.

*Some highlights from our 2025 programme.*

2025 showed the strength of our mission and community. The commitment of our tiny but mighty team, our employers, our sponsors, our volunteers, and our industry partners ensured that even in a constrained job market, junior talent was supported and empowered for the future.

Here’s a roundup of the Summer of Tech 2025 programme.

2025 Candidates

We reached 2,906 live candidates by August 1 (on par with 2024) after closing registrations to focus on preparation for recruitment season.

*Graph showing 2023, 2024 & 2025 available candidate numbers*

We had candidates join our programme from 37 different tertiary institutions this year. The majority were in their final year of study, or already graduated. Though we had a male-dominated candidate pool once again, we had our highest percentage of non-male candidates since 2017, with 37.9% of candidates not identifying as male.

The overwhelming majority of our candidates were Auckland-based this year, with almost twice as many candidates based there vs. Wellington.

Volunteers

As a charity, we are privileged to work with a broad network of industry volunteers, many of whom are alumni from past years, past or present employers. Our volunteers make a huge impact on the candidates coming through our programme. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to run the number of events we do each year to help candidates upskill, practice their interviewing skills, improve their CVs and connect with industry.

We had fewer active volunteers than in 2024, but our volunteers joined more sessions, with many of them supporting five or more sessions, and one superstar joining ten of our twelve career clinics!

94 active volunteers (Compared to 100 in 2024)
21 volunteer bootcamps (11 Careers/Professional & 10 Technical Bootcamps)
12 volunteer-run career clinics (6 CV review sessions & 6 mock interview sessions)
A total of 344.5 volunteer hours across bootcamps, career clinics and Meet & Greets

Events

Through our programme, candidates have access to up free events each year to help prepare them for industry. Supported by our industry volunteers and sponsors, we run bootcamps, workshops, career panels, CV review sessions, mock interviews, mentor groups and 1:1 sessions.

Our free industry-led bootcamps on technical and core skills help candidates develop personally and professionally. These events give them practical experience opportunities and a taste of real world work and are the key ingredients that make Summer of Tech the best place to find junior talent.

Across our 50 events, we had 1,444 unique candidate attendees. The average number of events attended by successful candidates was 4.4.

*SoT candidates attending Pushpay’s sponsor bootcamp - a full day conference in their Auckland offices.*

Recruitment season

2025 recruitment season kicked off in September, with our Meet & Greet events in Auckland, Wellington and online. This year a total of 1,057 candidates attended at least one Meet & Greet, with 311 candidates attending multiple Meet & Greet events to maximise their chances of connecting with employers.

We had 9 different companies represented at our Auckland event, 21 in Wellington, and 12 online. With 98 employer representatives at our Auckland Meet & Greet, and 205 in Wellington, it definitely felt like the enthusiasm and drive to hire juniors was on the up!

*Hundreds of SoT candidates attended our 2025 Wellington Meet & Greet, taking their chance to chat face to face with employers about junior roles!*

Our Speed Interviews proved popular for employers looking to narrow down their longlists efficiently, with over 400 interviews scheduled over the two days. Some employers chose to send out offers straight away after completing their Speed Interviews, locking in their top picks early, while other employers followed up with further interviews, technical tests and office tours to meet the team before offering to their top candidates.

Placements

We had 140 accepted offers for Summer of Tech roles, up from 132 in 2024. These placements are across 49 different organisations - eight more than last year.

Nearly 48% of roles were filled by women and gender diverse candidates, up from 42% in 2024, showing a return to strategic hiring, and organisations looking to support underrepresented groups. In 2024, we saw a dramatic reduction in gender-diverse hiring vs 2023, so we are incredibly happy to see positive growth in this area this year!

*Gender distribution of our 2025 placements.*

Successful candidates this year came from 16 tertiary institutions, up 3 from 2024, but still down on 2023, where organisations hired candidates from a range of 22 different tertiaries. It’s the smaller, non-traditional institutions that haven’t been represented in our 2024 & 2025 placements.

*2025 placements broken down by tertiary institution.*

Average wage across all roles was $30.33/hr, a small increase on 2024, with software roles proving the highest paid, at an average of $30.66/hour.

Looking ahead to 2026

We’re grateful to still be here doing what we love - backing juniors, supporting industry, and strengthening pathways for juniors into tech careers. Our tech sector depends on a steady pipeline of new talent, and the need to invest hasn’t gone away. If anything, it’s more urgent than ever. We’ve got thousands of motivated students and graduates ready to contribute; what they need now is opportunity.

Please join us as we prepare for a brighter 2026, and keep hustling towards our vision of an empowering tech role for every graduate in Aotearoa!

Thank you to our sponsors

Thank you to our incredible 2025 sponsors and partners who continue to support our mahi and build a bright future for Aotearoa’s tech industry:

If you have any pātai about our report, are keen to see more data, or are ready to sign up for 2026, we’d love to hear from you!

Contact us at hello@summeroftech.co.nz for a chat.

2025 Annual Report