AI Job Trends

AI
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring AI skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 38 59
Rank change year-on-year +34 +21 +60
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,991 2,625 3,228
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 13.91% 5.74% 4.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.70% 6.15% 4.68%
Number of salaries quoted 2,539 1,341 1,735
10th Percentile £33,750 £42,500 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,125 £60,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +7.14% -
75th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £113,750 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,450 £66,235 £60,000
% change year-on-year -10.24% +10.39% -7.69%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

AI falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 56,435 42,676 68,967
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.59% 93.36% 87.81%
Number of salaries quoted 33,915 21,866 52,740
10th Percentile £29,250 £32,500 £29,329
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,463 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

AI
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing AI relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

AI job vacancy trend in the UK

AI
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing AI.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing AI

AI
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing AI over the 6 months to 5 March 2026.

Salary histogram for AI in the UK

AI
Top 18 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing AI within the UK over the 6 months to 5 March 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +35 9,148 £70,000 -6.67% 3,279
UK excluding London +37 7,165 £59,450 -10.24% 2,242
North of England +46 2,645 £61,250 -8.27% 517
Work from Home +32 2,520 £67,500 +1.88% 1,664
London +33 2,351 £80,939 -12.50% 1,530
North West +36 1,988 £62,500 -12.28% 267
Midlands +83 1,554 £55,000 -13.73% 263
South East +38 1,483 £50,000 -33.33% 767
West Midlands +76 1,266 £55,000 -4.35% 146
East of England +20 694 £55,000 -16.96% 293
Yorkshire +40 547 £58,750 +2.17% 191
South West +14 380 £62,500 -3.85% 254
East Midlands +67 299 £50,000 -23.08% 117
Scotland +19 287 £70,000 +38.76% 103
Wales +38 124 £47,500 -15.56% 59
North East +43 110 £55,000 -26.42% 62
Northern Ireland -7 58 £90,000 -5.26% 29
Channel Islands - 8 - -

AI
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 91 (0.91%) SharePoint
2 86 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
3 83 (0.83%) Apache Spark
4 61 (0.61%) Jupyter
5 50 (0.50%) Confluence
6 48 (0.48%) CMS
7 37 (0.37%) Apache
8 30 (0.30%) ArcGIS
9 24 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
10 22 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
11 20 (0.20%) WordPress
12 17 (0.17%) Appian
13 15 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 13 (0.13%) JBoss
14 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
15 8 (0.080%) SAS
16 6 (0.060%) Apache Solr
17 5 (0.050%) Apache Pulsar
17 5 (0.050%) IIS
17 5 (0.050%) Umbraco
Applications
1 943 (9.44%) Chatbot
2 808 (8.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 87 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
4 45 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.15%) Maya
8 14 (0.14%) UserZoom
9 6 (0.060%) Microsoft Project
10 5 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
10 5 (0.050%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 4 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.040%) Weka
12 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.030%) Simulink
12 3 (0.030%) Sketch
13 2 (0.020%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.020%) CapCut
14 1 (0.010%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 39 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.18%) NetSuite
3 17 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
4 14 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
6 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
7 8 (0.080%) Distributed Ledger
7 8 (0.080%) Endur
7 8 (0.080%) Shopify
8 7 (0.070%) Oracle EBS
8 7 (0.070%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.040%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.030%) Dynamics AX
10 3 (0.030%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.030%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 2 (0.020%) Dynamics GP
11 2 (0.020%) Maximo
11 2 (0.020%) SAP FI/CO
11 2 (0.020%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,150 (41.54%) Cloud Computing
2 1,738 (17.40%) Azure
3 1,098 (10.99%) Power Platform
4 775 (7.76%) AWS
5 765 (7.66%) Azure AI
6 443 (4.43%) SaaS
7 322 (3.22%) GCP
8 217 (2.17%) GitHub
9 196 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
10 188 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
11 134 (1.34%) Snowflake
12 113 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
13 111 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
14 108 (1.08%) GitHub Copilot
14 108 (1.08%) Serverless
15 105 (1.05%) Entra ID
16 99 (0.99%) Power Automate
17 89 (0.89%) Adobe Analytics
18 70 (0.70%) dbt
18 70 (0.70%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4,059 (40.63%) Internet
2 140 (1.40%) Broadband
3 54 (0.54%) Firewall
4 34 (0.34%) Network Security
5 32 (0.32%) Unified Communications
6 27 (0.27%) VPN
7 25 (0.25%) VoIP
8 23 (0.23%) WAN
9 20 (0.20%) TCP/IP
10 19 (0.19%) HTTP
11 15 (0.15%) DNS
12 14 (0.14%) Telepresence
12 14 (0.14%) VLAN
12 14 (0.14%) WebEx
13 13 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
14 11 (0.11%) DHCP
15 8 (0.080%) SD-WAN
15 8 (0.080%) Wireshark
16 7 (0.070%) Modbus
16 7 (0.070%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 939 (9.40%) Power BI
2 811 (8.12%) Tableau
3 158 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
4 108 (1.08%) Data Lake
5 103 (1.03%) SQL Server
6 92 (0.92%) Metadata
7 91 (0.91%) NoSQL
8 86 (0.86%) PostgreSQL
9 76 (0.76%) MongoDB
10 72 (0.72%) Big Data
11 45 (0.45%) BigQuery
12 38 (0.38%) MySQL
13 37 (0.37%) Pinecone
14 35 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
14 35 (0.35%) Looker
15 34 (0.34%) Relational Database
16 32 (0.32%) GIS
17 30 (0.30%) Apache Hive
17 30 (0.30%) Hadoop
18 29 (0.29%) Redis
Development Applications
1 163 (1.63%) Git
2 108 (1.08%) JIRA
3 57 (0.57%) MLflow
4 54 (0.54%) Visual Studio Code
5 47 (0.47%) Jenkins
6 34 (0.34%) GitLab
7 23 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
8 20 (0.20%) Cypress.io
9 18 (0.18%) Selenium
10 15 (0.15%) Claude Code
10 15 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
10 15 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
10 15 (0.15%) TeamCity
11 13 (0.13%) Postman
12 12 (0.12%) Visual Studio
13 10 (0.10%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.090%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.090%) Storybook
15 8 (0.080%) Subversion
15 8 (0.080%) Vite
General
1 5,892 (58.97%) Social Skills
2 4,482 (44.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,253 (42.57%) Banking
4 1,224 (12.25%) Finance
5 999 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
6 405 (4.05%) Marketing
7 312 (3.12%) Public Sector
8 294 (2.94%) Legal
9 265 (2.65%) Law
10 255 (2.55%) Retail
11 213 (2.13%) Games
12 173 (1.73%) Manufacturing
13 111 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
14 106 (1.06%) Telecoms
15 91 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
16 90 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
17 86 (0.86%) Financial Institution
18 78 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
19 56 (0.56%) Electronics
20 48 (0.48%) German Language
Job Titles
1 3,160 (31.63%) Lecturer
2 901 (9.02%) Analyst
3 862 (8.63%) Trainer
4 743 (7.44%) Data Analyst
5 726 (7.27%) Senior
6 682 (6.83%) Junior
7 661 (6.62%) Junior Analyst
7 661 (6.62%) Junior Data Analyst
8 489 (4.89%) Lead
9 420 (4.20%) Developer
10 296 (2.96%) Architect
11 260 (2.60%) Consultant
12 192 (1.92%) Software Engineer
13 160 (1.60%) Data Engineer
14 132 (1.32%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 131 (1.31%) Solutions Architect
16 104 (1.04%) Data Scientist
17 102 (1.02%) Content Editor
18 95 (0.95%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 92 (0.92%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 241 (2.41%) React
2 175 (1.75%) .NET
3 169 (1.69%) PyTorch
4 166 (1.66%) REST
5 133 (1.33%) TensorFlow
6 122 (1.22%) RESTful
7 116 (1.16%) Node.js
8 111 (1.11%) HTML
9 107 (1.07%) scikit-learn
10 100 (1.00%) Pandas
11 95 (0.95%) Hugging Face
12 91 (0.91%) LangChain
13 86 (0.86%) FastAPI
14 85 (0.85%) CSS
15 83 (0.83%) Kafka
16 79 (0.79%) Django
17 74 (0.74%) NumPy
18 72 (0.72%) AngularJS
19 65 (0.65%) Spring
20 59 (0.59%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 4,085 (40.89%) IoT
2 283 (2.83%) Cloud Native
3 195 (1.95%) Onboarding
4 188 (1.88%) Algorithms
5 169 (1.69%) Product Ownership
6 165 (1.65%) AI Agents
7 148 (1.48%) Robotics
8 136 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
8 136 (1.36%) Social Media
9 126 (1.26%) Blog
10 107 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
11 104 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
12 102 (1.02%) Management Information System
13 92 (0.92%) Life Science
14 90 (0.90%) Low-Code
15 89 (0.89%) Molecular Biology
16 75 (0.75%) Mobile App
17 71 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
18 65 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
19 63 (0.63%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 88 (0.88%) Windows
2 86 (0.86%) Linux
3 83 (0.83%) Android
4 60 (0.60%) Unix
5 56 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 29 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.090%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.050%) VMS
10 4 (0.040%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
10 4 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.030%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.020%) Mac OS X
12 2 (0.020%) zOS
13 1 (0.010%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.010%) Solaris
13 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,115 (51.20%) Machine Learning
2 4,329 (43.33%) Cybersecurity
3 4,321 (43.25%) User Experience
4 4,071 (40.75%) Web Development
5 1,167 (11.68%) Analytics
6 1,086 (10.87%) Business Intelligence
7 997 (9.98%) Conversational UI
8 962 (9.63%) Agile
9 721 (7.22%) Problem-Solving
10 701 (7.02%) Roadmaps
11 646 (6.47%) CI/CD
12 611 (6.12%) Decision-Making
13 585 (5.86%) Software Engineering
14 572 (5.73%) Continuous Improvement
15 558 (5.59%) DevOps
16 527 (5.27%) Data Science
17 523 (5.23%) LLM
18 507 (5.07%) Generative AI
19 458 (4.58%) Mentoring
20 436 (4.36%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 1,870 (18.72%) Python
2 1,282 (12.83%) SQL
3 247 (2.47%) JavaScript
4 244 (2.44%) Java
5 238 (2.38%) TypeScript
6 169 (1.69%) C#
7 86 (0.86%) C++
8 78 (0.78%) PowerShell
9 69 (0.69%) Bash
10 65 (0.65%) Go
11 57 (0.57%) R
12 39 (0.39%) PHP
13 35 (0.35%) Kotlin
13 35 (0.35%) Rust
14 27 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 25 (0.25%) Scala
16 23 (0.23%) Apex Code
17 22 (0.22%) C
18 18 (0.18%) PL/SQL
19 16 (0.16%) Swift
Qualifications
1 5,753 (57.58%) Degree
2 4,696 (47.00%) Master's Degree
3 4,636 (46.40%) PhD
4 4,051 (40.55%) Postgraduate
5 715 (7.16%) Azure Certification
6 337 (3.37%) Security Cleared
7 248 (2.48%) SC Cleared
8 193 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
9 114 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 89 (0.89%) DV Cleared
11 69 (0.69%) DBS Check
12 52 (0.52%) CISSP
13 50 (0.50%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 50 (0.50%) PMP
14 49 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
15 44 (0.44%) ACCA
16 36 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
17 35 (0.35%) Cisco Certification
17 35 (0.35%) PMI Certification
18 31 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 257 (2.57%) Accessibility
2 245 (2.45%) Data Quality
3 151 (1.51%) QA
4 140 (1.40%) GDPR
5 77 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 44 (0.44%) EU AI Act
7 43 (0.43%) WCAG
8 38 (0.38%) GxP
8 38 (0.38%) NIST
9 36 (0.36%) HIPAA
9 36 (0.36%) IFRS
10 30 (0.30%) GRC
11 24 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
11 24 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
12 22 (0.22%) PMO
12 22 (0.22%) Solvency II
13 21 (0.21%) PSD2
14 20 (0.20%) SLA
15 18 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 17 (0.17%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 260 (2.60%) Docker
2 80 (0.80%) Active Directory
3 19 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (0.16%) Firmware
5 15 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
7 10 (0.10%) vSphere
8 4 (0.040%) Lustre
8 4 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 3 (0.030%) Kamailio
9 3 (0.030%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.020%) Ceph
10 2 (0.020%) GPFS
10 2 (0.020%) NFS
10 2 (0.020%) RACF
11 1 (0.010%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 250 (2.50%) Kubernetes
2 229 (2.29%) Terraform
3 54 (0.54%) Ansible
4 45 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 40 (0.40%) Prometheus
6 36 (0.36%) Grafana
7 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
8 10 (0.10%) Argo
9 7 (0.070%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.060%) Proxmox
11 5 (0.050%) Kubeflow
11 5 (0.050%) SCCM
12 4 (0.040%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.040%) Control-M
12 4 (0.040%) Nessus
12 4 (0.040%) Nmap
12 4 (0.040%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.040%) SolarWinds Orion
13 3 (0.030%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
Vendors
1 1,496 (14.97%) Microsoft
2 856 (8.57%) PayPal
3 190 (1.90%) Databricks
3 190 (1.90%) Google
4 141 (1.41%) Adobe
5 117 (1.17%) OpenAI
5 117 (1.17%) Oracle
6 108 (1.08%) Dell
7 95 (0.95%) Salesforce
8 92 (0.92%) Cisco
9 71 (0.71%) SAP
10 48 (0.48%) Alteryx
10 48 (0.48%) Foundry
11 47 (0.47%) Palantir
12 44 (0.44%) Blue Prism
13 41 (0.41%) ServiceNow
14 34 (0.34%) Bloomberg
15 33 (0.33%) Fortinet
15 33 (0.33%) HubSpot
16 31 (0.31%) Red Hat