Why the SAP Job Market Feels Frozen — and How to Break the Ice in 2025
By the ShinyGigs.com team
1. What’s behind the deep-freeze?
A flood of experienced talent.
SAP’s 2024 restructuring grows bigger every quarter, with up to 10 000 jobs affected. Many of those professionals are now chasing the same roles you are, saturating LinkedIn inboxes and recruiter short-lists. crn.com
Budgets are back—but requisitions lag.
CFOs reopened transformation spend in Q2 2025, yet time-to-fill for specialised tech roles has stretched to 45-60 days, and even longer for senior SAP positions. forbes.com
Contractual pressure, not head-count pressure.
SAP’s warning that Compatibility Pack usage becomes a breach of contract after 31 Dec 2025 is forcing customers to upgrade—but they’re solving it with short, outcome-based SOWs rather than full-time hires. cio.com
Big consultancies hit pause—then reorganised.
PwC, EY, Deloitte, and others trimmed staff in 2024 before spinning up new, industry-specific advisory groups. Most openings today are senior architect or “sell-and-deliver” roles, not analyst positions. businessinsider.com
Flex-and-scale staffing rules.
Demand for contingent labour on S/4HANA and data-migration “sprints” is rising, letting firms scale teams up or down without adding FTEs. baergroup.com
2. The skills that still get callbacks
SAP BTP (CAP/RAP, Integration Suite) — Why it’s hot: the clean-core mandate pushes most custom extensions into the cloud. Fast-track action: earn one BTP certification and publish a small GitHub demo app that shows you can deliver.
S/4HANA Public Cloud — Why it’s hot: GROW with SAP customers need consultants who can configure fit-to-standard at speed. Fast-track action: complete the S/4 Public Cloud Implementation Learning Journey and display the badge prominently on LinkedIn.
AI & Joule extensions — Why it’s hot: SAP’s Joule assistant and the new Mistral AI partnership give almost every project an AI angle. Fast-track action: build a tiny Joule-powered chatbot in a demo tenant and record a two-minute Loom walkthrough.
Process redesign / Signavio — Why it’s hot: modern upgrades start with process mining, not code retrofits. Fast-track action: earn the Signavio Process Insights badge and publish a teardown of a broken process you fixed.
Industry-cloud specialisation — Why it’s hot: the big integrators are staffing by vertical (utilities, life-sciences, public sector). Fast-track action: map your past projects to one vertical and prepare two concise “war stories” that prove real domain depth.
3. Five moves to thaw your pipeline
- Pitch deliverables, not hours.
- Craft 4-, 8-, or 12-week accelerator packages (e.g., “Compatibility Pack Impact Scan”) that clients can fund from project budgets, bypassing HR freeze-lines.
- Ride the partner ecosystems.
- List yourself in SAP PartnerEdge talent pools and attend virtual partner job fairs. The big SIs keep “bench” spreadsheets of pre-vetted freelancers.
- Show work in the open.
- Post mini-demos on GitHub or YouTube: BTP workflows, clean-core tutorials, or Joule prompts. Recruiters search GitHub almost as often as they search LinkedIn.
- Warm-intro into the reorganising Big Four.
- PwC’s new advisory platforms are hiring thousands, but referrals still beat résumés. Ask ex-colleagues for 15-minute coffee chats and bring a one-pager on how you’d apply BTP in their industry. businessinsider.com
- Stay rate-flexible.
- Offer blended models: remote build time at a competitive rate, with short on-site bursts for design or UAT. It signals partnership instead of “take-it-or-leave-it.”
4. Outlook: Spring thaw by Q4 2025?
ECC mainstream support ends in 2027, and customers that punted decisions in 2024–25 can’t wait much longer. Analysts predict a budget-release spike in late 2025, especially in public sector and highly regulated industries. Position yourself now so that when the PO floodgates open, you’re already on the shortlist.
5. Ready to pounce? ShinyGigs can help
- Bookmark our LIVE SAP job feed—updated every few hours.
- Join the ShinyGigs Talent Cloud (it’s free) to be visible to hiring managers the moment they spin up a new SOW.
- Subscribe to ZReport, our three-times-a-week newsletter with fresh SAP gigs, market intel, and career tips.
The market may feel icy today, but with the right skills and a proactive strategy, you can skate to where the puck is headed—not where it’s been.
tags / keywords
SAP jobs, SAP job market 2025, S/4HANA migration, SAP BTP skills, SAP career tips, Joule AI, Signavio process mining, SAP freelance contracts, SAP consulting trends, ShinyGigs