Current Challenges for Accessibility Professionals
Today's article is all about the current challenges accessibility experts are facing. I would like to shed light on what the situation currently looks like for both seasoned professionals and newcomers.
The Changing Job Market
In recent months, I’ve noticed a striking trend: the number of open positions for accessibility professionals has fallen in Germany. Four to five years ago, the picture was very different. Back then, particularly at large IT service providers, there were numerous job openings for senior and mid-level positions. That has changed significantly over the last year.
The reason is obvious. The German Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) came into force last year. The large implementation projects associated with it ran in part for two to three years and have now concluded. Many IT service providers and clients now believe that immediate demand has been met. As a result, entering the field today is noticeably harder—even with experience.
For juniors, the situation was already difficult before. Pure junior positions without practical experience were virtually non-existent. Most entered through other roles within companies and gradually worked their way into the topic. That, at least, is my observation for Germany. Unlike in UX design, it is uncommon here to hire juniors and purposefully train them further. In the long run, this leads to a shortage of experienced professionals—a genuine paradox in our field.
The Interplay of Two Waves
Currently, two problems are coming together. The first is the BFSG, where the first major wave has passed. The second topic concerns the public sector, which is currently awarding fewer contracts.
As a reminder: In 2019, the new German BITV came into force, based on the EU standard Directive 2016-2102. This EU directive standardized the subject across Europe in the public sector, triggering a real hype at the time. Since the public sector is vast and everything takes a bit longer, we experienced an extremely strong demand for specialists from 2019 to 2025.
Experience shows that accessibility moves in waves. If you want to start during a trough, it is extremely difficult. New waves are usually triggered by laws, audit cycles, or scandals—though scandals are rather rare here. In the public sector, regular audits must take place at the local, state, and federal levels, which usually creates a small boom in contracts.
At the moment, we find ourselves at the end of two waves that almost coincided. Even the laggards of the BFSG are done. We have reached the trough. However, I estimate that things will start picking up again by autumn or next year at the latest. It is not yet possible to predict this with complete certainty.
Crisis and Price Dumping
On top of this comes the general economic crisis, which is hitting Germany particularly hard. Many IT contracts are being postponed—both in the public and private sectors. Accessibility is then often pushed to the back burner until the economy recovers. We are also seeing this in the US, where large tech companies like Microsoft are laying off entire accessibility teams.
Another issue is price dumping. Many new players are entering the market, often lacking real expertise. They offer prices that normal freelancers or IT companies simply cannot compete with. It is impossible to cover costs at those rates—even if work is outsourced to India or the Philippines. Whether decent work comes out of it in the end and enough remains for the contractor is questionable. Currently, it is a real money-losing business.
The AI Factor
Naturally, Artificial Intelligence plays a role as well. There are impressive AI agents claiming to explain how accessibility works. Some now believe developers no longer need experts and can simply ask AI, or that developers can quickly pick up the skills themselves.
In practice, that is extremely difficult. Making a single component accessible or testing keyboard navigation—that works well with instructions. But understanding the bigger picture and the complex interplay of elements is an entirely different story. For that, real experts will continue to be needed in the future.
Emotional Pressure and the Risk of Burnout
A major topic I hear about internationally—especially from the US—is burnout among accessibility experts. There are various reasons for this. Many professionals in this field are deeply passionate; they don't just work in accessibility, they live it. Often, this is paired with activist commitment.
When you constantly hit resistance within companies on the job, you burn out quickly. You permanently have to persuade people and repeatedly explain the exact same basics because errors keep recurring. In my perception, this tends to affect the more experienced folks in the industry. Personally, I don't know anyone in Germany to whom this applies yet, but of course, I could be wrong.
A huge point of frustration remains the lack of junior positions. Because these entry-level jobs barely exist, there are no people to take on basic tasks cost-effectively. This makes accessibility more expensive overall—after all, a mid-level or senior consultant costs more. As a result, the entire workload falls on experienced personnel. At the same time, thanks to AI, everyone nowadays expects you to deliver ten times as much in the same amount of time while casually juggling 30 AI agents. Unfortunately, that just seems to be part of the IT sector today.
The Market Power Shift
We are currently experiencing a massive shift in the market upwards. What freelancers used to do is now being handled by small agencies. What small agencies covered is moving to mid-sized ones, and their projects are going to the giant IT corporations.
This isn't necessarily a matter of price, but rather due to increased requirements and compliance standards. A new freelancer is often not granted the necessary trust. With a small agency of ten employees, the client at least knows that the project will continue if someone gets sick or spontaneously goes on a backpacking trip to Vietnam.
At the same time, technical demands have grown. Even a small municipal website today requires a completely different setup regarding hosting, compliance, and interfaces compared to 15 years ago. A small agency often can't handle that anymore, so the contract goes to an agency with 100 people. The highly complex cases then end up directly with the IT giants.
This is a problem for the market. Looking at current tenders, if you have fewer than 100 employees, less than five years of proven experience, and a team of fewer than five top experts, it's often not even worth applying. The hurdles—both in terms of content and legalities—are extremely high.
The Overlay Scheme
Last but not least, we need to talk about overlay providers. They are pushing into the market aggressively and with shady methods. They bait clients with supposedly super AI-powered tools and extremely low introductory prices. The calculation behind it: after a few years, prices are hiked up. Clients are then caught in a trap (vendor lock-in) and can't easily get out of the contracts.
These providers make life difficult for us as experts, but the real issue lies elsewhere: it harms the clients and, above all, people with disabilities.
Even a monitoring tool or some AI bot that generates meaningless alt texts and unfitting ARIA labels helps no one. Unfortunately, you can't expect honest education from these overlay providers.
An Optimistic Look to the Future
I don't want to end this post on a pessimistic note. The profession is and remains super exciting! If you're interested, you should definitely jump in—or stick with it if you're already involved.
I am convinced that the situation will improve significantly again soon, early next year at the latest. Market surveillance is really getting into gear right now and sending out the first letters to major providers. The next monitoring cycle in the public sector is also right around the corner. Over the next one to two years, we will therefore see another major boom.
Things are also getting uncomfortable for providers of dubious overlays. Simply telling clients fairy tales will come back to haunt them sooner or later. Exactly when that happens is hard to predict—but it will happen. Even if we might not reach the extreme wave of hype from the early years again, the market situation for us will improve drastically.
The idea that developers can just handle accessibility completely on the side is unrealistic anyway. Modern applications are far too complex for that. Developers are already fully occupied getting up to speed with new frameworks and AI tools. Accessibility isn't something you just pick up casually. The more closely authorities look, the clearer this becomes. The demand for real consultants will therefore rise again. It is a classic cycle of ups and downs. We are currently in a trough, but the next peak is coming.
Giving advice to freelancers isn't all that easy at the moment. I'm personally affected by the drop in traffic myself. I run one of the larger websites on the subject, and I can tell you quite frankly: I've lost a good two-thirds of my reach over the last two years. I used to get around 5,000 to 6,000 visits a month; today, in good times, it's around 1,500 to 2,000. This is due to AI search features, the flood of thin content from other providers, and Google favoring large institutions.
Having your own website or LinkedIn presence is a must, but today it hardly brings in new contracts directly anymore. It functions more like a digital business card when someone searches for you specifically. By the way, I advise against cold outreach. We'd better leave that to the aggressive overlay providers. As accessibility professionals, we are often simply "obsessively honest"—that doesn't fit with cold calling.
Since most of us originally come from other professions—be it development, design, or UX—my most important advice is: pursue a dual track. Keep both options open. It is extremely unlikely that both industries will experience a slump at the same time. If things slow down in one area, you simply shift your focus to the other.
Also, use networks to stay up to date. Although there are few events in Germany, the Accessibility Club in Würzburg is a great place to start. The IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals) also regularly offers webinars, breakfasts, and forums to connect with the German community. In addition, there are very active Slack and Discord channels. For local exchanges, Berlin and Munich in particular have a vibrant community.
Stay on Top of Things and Sharpen Soft Skills
The most important thing is: stay on top of things, even if the order situation is currently thin. Without proof of recent practice, it becomes even harder to get jobs. Test websites regularly and—my personal favorite—send well-founded complaints about a lack of accessibility to providers. While that doesn't bring in money, it keeps your technical skills sharp.
Last but not least: technical knowledge is the foundation, but today it is no longer enough. What you need in any IT and consulting job are strong communication skills and emotional distance.
If you get desperate or angry every time a client grimaces or blocks the topic, it helps no one. Neither you nor the client. You have to find professional ways to persuade—or simply let the client go if necessary.
Especially among people who drive the topic from an activist standpoint, criticism is often taken too personally. With all due respect: that is unprofessional. Always maintain the necessary distance and professionalism. Sharpen your soft skills to advance accessibility strategically and successfully.