What does
the dark web job market
look like in 2025
The Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence team has updated its view on the dark web job market, its main trends and most demanded specialists
This report examines how employment and recruitment function on the dark web, drawing on thousands of job-related posts collected from shadow forums between January 2023 and June 2025. Our analysis shows that the dark web continues to serve as a parallel labor market with its own norms, recruitment practices and salary expectations, while also reflecting broader global economic shifts.
We analyzed more than 2,225 job-related publications (vacancies and resumes) on the dark web in order to identify the shadow job market’s main distinguishing features.
Our research revealed:
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What types of jobs people seek on the dark web
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What kinds of information (including personal data) job seekers tend to specify in their resumes
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What are the most popular specialists on the dark web job market
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What age groups are presented on the dark web job market and what do teens seek for there
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What are the highest-paid specialists on the dark web
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What are the proportions of male and female job seekers on the dark web and what are the preferences of each gender
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What is a portrait of a typical job seeker on the dark web?
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And after all, how different is the dark web job market from the legal one?
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Over the three-year period, job search posts slightly outnumbered recruitment posts: 55% of resumes compared to 45% for vacancies. This imbalance was particularly noticeable at the end of 2023, when the number of resumes began to rise.
As in the regular job market, job seekers on the dark web provide detailed lists of their skills and abilities, and some also disclose personal information, such as age or gender, which allowed as to build a portrait of a typical job seeker on the dark web. We analyzed job vacancies published on the dark web and identified the most frequently mentioned specializations.
Does the dark web job market differ that much from the legal one?
Together with Kaspersky Human Resources we compared the dark web job market and the legal one and identified their differences and similarities in trends and approaches. Our analysis shows that, despite having distinctions, labor markets coincide in some ways.