Issue · Q2 2026Published July 30, 2026← Last issue: March 2026

Upwork market data for Q2 2026

448,118 jobs across April, May and June, plus the agency proposals that chased them. Reply and view rate by category, budget ranges, and what a first reply costs in connects.

448K
Upwork jobs in Q2
▼14.2% QoQ
-18.8%
Jobs over $5,000
steepest band
17.7%
Market view rate
▼0.6pp
5.1%
Market reply rate
▼0.7pp
Featured

The cross-industry overview

Q2 2026 Upwork market report cover
Flagship report

74,000 jobs gone, and not from the bottom

Twenty sections. The contraction gradient by budget band, cost per first reply by skill, the collapse of file-shaped work against the growth of voice and CAD, the corrected client quality table, and the first look at profile data.

Read the report →
Coming next

Per-industry deep-dives

Shopify and e-commerce

Coming soon

Theme dev, app dev, conversion work. Reply rates and cost per reply per Shopify niche.

AI and Machine Learning

Coming soon

AI integration, agents, automation plumbing. Where the demand is real and where it is flooded.

Legal

Coming soon

The category that barely moved in Q2. Practice-area reply rates and the hourly ceiling.

Video and audio

Coming soon

The cheapest first reply on the platform, from $8.95 in videography. Broken down by sub-skill.

CAD and engineering

Coming soon

Physical and spatial work held its volume while the market fell 14.2%. Drafting, mechanical, and the rate bands.

Voice and phone work

Coming soon

Telemarketing replies at 16.1%. The highest-converting lane we track.

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