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Malta placed second in the Ayre Index's assessment of 56 Commonwealth members for youth readiness for artificial intelligence, with Cyprus seventh. But FYI.LTD's vacancy data still puts Cyprus at the top of trading-firm hiring, though repeated and long-running adverts complicate that lead.
Vacancy data narrows Cyprus's lead
On 1 October, 23% of 2,557 open positions across 77 brokers, crypto exchanges and prop firms called for AI skills, up from 19% a quarter earlier, consultancy FYI.LTD said. People familiar with the matter said IronFX cut about 150 jobs in March to improve efficiency amid the AI wave. Meanwhile, FM Intelligence's licence monitor counted 1,966 active Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) licences on 5 November 2026, making that register fourth-largest among 10 tracked.
Cyprus accounted for 8.5% of vacancies in FYI.LTD's fourth-quarter sample, down from 11.1% in the third quarter. Its 218 openings put it ahead of the United States, with 190, and Singapore, with 182.
A separate measure gave Cyprus 22.8% of vacancies at the 50 largest brokers in the first quarter, as reported in February. FM Intelligence says 38% of Cyprus adverts had appeared in an earlier quarter and 25 had been active for six months or more. On new adverts alone, its calculation puts the United States first.
Skills indicators point towards Malta
Hiring patterns vary between firms. XM reduced its Cyprus listings from 62 to 47, while Exness moved from 32 to 18; Kraken emerged as one of the island's biggest recruiters this year. Equiti established a technology hub in Bangalore in July. Deriv, by contrast, added a second Cyprus office in Nicosia in 2024 for AI and data positions. Malta did not rank among the top ten locations in FYI.LTD's vacancy data.
The Ayre Think Tank's first-edition index uses seven pillars, including access to technology and the quality of work available to young people. Its AI model assessed the indicators, giving Malta 75.0 out of 100 and Cyprus 67.4, with the largest differences in decent work and digital capability. European Commission data for people aged 16 to 74 also puts Malta ahead: basic digital skills reach 66.8% there, versus 55.8% in Cyprus and an EU average of 60.4%. Maltese enterprises use AI at a rate of 21.5%, compared with 9.3% in Cyprus.
Where this lands in the stack
For firms planning platform, data and AI teams, the vacancy totals leave practical questions unanswered. Which Cyprus adverts represent genuinely new capacity, and which are repeat listings?
The figures do not show how many roles require AI skills specifically in trading technology, or how hiring is split across engineering, risk and operations. Those distinctions matter when matching recruitment plans to systems work.
FinTop Consulting puts annual pay for MT5 and cTrader platform engineers in Cyprus at $39,000 to almost $65,000. For most salaries in that band, the pay falls short of the level required for newcomers to qualify for Cyprus's largest income tax relief. The broader analysis from Finance Magnates tracks how Cyprus filled technology roles since 2019, payrolls and income per employee at CySEC-licensed firms from 2020 to 2025, and estimated staffing at the end of 2026.
Operations teams can use the vacancy figures as a prompt to check which adverts are new, which have been reposted, and what skills each role requires. The published figures do not distinguish backfills from additional capacity or show which vacancies map to platform engineering, data or AI work. Before using the totals in hiring or systems plans, firms can verify the status and requirements of the roles relevant to their own technology stack.
