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 20 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 45 66
Rank change year-on-year +41 +21 +56
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,813 2,638 2,950
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 14.31% 5.39% 3.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.06% 5.83% 4.46%
Number of salaries quoted 2,464 1,354 1,680
10th Percentile £33,750 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £50,000 £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 £97,500 £92,500
90th Percentile £115,000 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,450 £66,253 £62,500
% change year-on-year -10.27% +6.00% -0.40%

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 54,345 45,260 66,146
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.25% 92.54% 88.33%
Number of salaries quoted 32,629 22,226 51,183
10th Percentile £29,000 £34,000 £29,490
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,000 £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 £76,000 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.33%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 +38 8,962 £70,000 -6.67% 5,704
UK excluding London +42 7,055 £59,450 -10.27% 3,844
North of England +50 2,597 £60,000 -10.50% 786
Work from Home +37 2,521 £67,500 +1.82% 2,550
London +33 2,305 £80,000 -12.09% 2,574
North West +38 1,984 £60,000 -14.29% 416
Midlands +89 1,524 £55,000 -15.38% 425
South East +37 1,474 £50,000 -33.33% 1,296
West Midlands +79 1,246 £59,527 +3.53% 185
East of England +26 664 £55,000 -16.96% 514
Yorkshire +44 510 £61,250 - 272
South West +20 361 £62,500 -3.85% 456
Scotland +38 323 £70,000 +21.74% 241
East Midlands +74 288 £50,000 -23.08% 230
Wales +40 120 £51,585 +3.17% 139
North East +48 103 £55,000 -24.14% 99
Northern Ireland -5 55 £90,000 -5.26% 58
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 92 (0.94%) SharePoint
2 61 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
3 57 (0.58%) Jupyter
4 54 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 49 (0.50%) Confluence
6 44 (0.45%) CMS
7 24 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.22%) ArcGIS
8 22 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
9 18 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 18 (0.18%) WordPress
10 17 (0.17%) Appian
11 16 (0.16%) Apache
12 13 (0.13%) JBoss
12 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 7 (0.071%) SAS
14 6 (0.061%) Apache Solr
15 5 (0.051%) Apache Pulsar
15 5 (0.051%) IIS
15 5 (0.051%) Umbraco
Applications
1 961 (9.79%) Chatbot
2 702 (7.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 89 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
4 41 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.17%) Maya
6 16 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.10%) MS Visio
8 6 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
9 5 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
9 5 (0.051%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.051%) UserZoom
10 4 (0.041%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 4 (0.041%) Weka
11 3 (0.031%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.031%) Simulink
11 3 (0.031%) Sketch
12 2 (0.020%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.020%) Notion
13 1 (0.010%) InDesign
13 1 (0.010%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 47 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.19%) NetSuite
2 19 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
3 13 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.10%) Shopify
5 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
6 8 (0.082%) Distributed Ledger
6 8 (0.082%) Endur
7 7 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
7 7 (0.071%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.041%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.031%) Oracle Assets
9 3 (0.031%) SAP Business One
9 3 (0.031%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 2 (0.020%) Dynamics GP
10 2 (0.020%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 2 (0.020%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.020%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,148 (42.27%) Cloud Computing
2 1,645 (16.76%) Azure
3 988 (10.07%) Power Platform
4 735 (7.49%) AWS
5 657 (6.70%) Azure AI
6 440 (4.48%) SaaS
7 324 (3.30%) GCP
8 226 (2.30%) GitHub
9 200 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
9 200 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
10 125 (1.27%) Snowflake
11 113 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
12 111 (1.13%) GitHub Copilot
13 109 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
14 107 (1.09%) Entra ID
15 103 (1.05%) Serverless
16 98 (1.00%) Power Automate
17 68 (0.69%) PaaS
18 66 (0.67%) dbt
19 63 (0.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 4,059 (41.36%) Internet
2 87 (0.89%) Broadband
3 52 (0.53%) Firewall
4 32 (0.33%) Network Security
4 32 (0.33%) Unified Communications
5 26 (0.26%) VoIP
6 25 (0.25%) VPN
7 19 (0.19%) HTTP
8 18 (0.18%) WAN
9 17 (0.17%) TCP/IP
10 16 (0.16%) DNS
11 14 (0.14%) Telepresence
11 14 (0.14%) VLAN
11 14 (0.14%) WebEx
12 13 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.12%) DHCP
14 8 (0.082%) Wireshark
15 7 (0.071%) DMZ
15 7 (0.071%) Intranet
15 7 (0.071%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 828 (8.44%) Power BI
2 685 (6.98%) Tableau
3 157 (1.60%) Data Warehouse
4 103 (1.05%) SQL Server
5 98 (1.00%) NoSQL
6 97 (0.99%) Data Lake
7 93 (0.95%) Metadata
8 77 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
9 75 (0.76%) Big Data
10 74 (0.75%) MongoDB
11 43 (0.44%) BigQuery
12 38 (0.39%) Pinecone
13 37 (0.38%) MySQL
14 35 (0.36%) Relational Database
15 33 (0.34%) Hadoop
16 30 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
16 30 (0.31%) Looker
17 29 (0.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 27 (0.28%) Data Mining
19 26 (0.26%) GIS
Development Applications
1 131 (1.33%) Git
2 115 (1.17%) JIRA
3 55 (0.56%) MLflow
4 49 (0.50%) Visual Studio Code
5 45 (0.46%) Jenkins
6 31 (0.32%) GitLab
7 19 (0.19%) Cypress.io
8 17 (0.17%) Octopus Deploy
8 17 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
8 17 (0.17%) Selenium
8 17 (0.17%) TeamCity
9 13 (0.13%) Visual Studio
10 12 (0.12%) Postman
11 10 (0.10%) Claude Code
12 9 (0.092%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.082%) Storybook
13 8 (0.082%) Subversion
14 7 (0.071%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.071%) Vite
15 6 (0.061%) Gradle
General
1 5,811 (59.22%) Social Skills
2 4,494 (45.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,231 (43.12%) Banking
4 1,221 (12.44%) Finance
5 1,049 (10.69%) Analytical Skills
6 404 (4.12%) Marketing
7 304 (3.10%) Public Sector
8 283 (2.88%) Legal
9 280 (2.85%) Law
10 247 (2.52%) Retail
11 164 (1.67%) Games
12 159 (1.62%) Manufacturing
13 109 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
14 104 (1.06%) Telecoms
15 95 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
16 85 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
17 84 (0.86%) Financial Institution
18 74 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
19 61 (0.62%) Electronics
20 48 (0.49%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 3,161 (32.21%) Lecturer
2 882 (8.99%) Trainer
3 775 (7.90%) Analyst
4 703 (7.16%) Senior
5 635 (6.47%) Data Analyst
6 572 (5.83%) Junior
7 552 (5.63%) Junior Analyst
7 552 (5.63%) Junior Data Analyst
8 450 (4.59%) Lead
9 419 (4.27%) Developer
10 292 (2.98%) Architect
11 237 (2.42%) Consultant
12 186 (1.90%) Software Engineer
13 161 (1.64%) Data Engineer
14 131 (1.33%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 124 (1.26%) Solutions Architect
16 102 (1.04%) Content Editor
17 99 (1.01%) Senior Manager
18 97 (0.99%) Data Scientist
19 88 (0.90%) Research Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 234 (2.38%) React
2 178 (1.81%) .NET
3 170 (1.73%) REST
4 159 (1.62%) PyTorch
5 128 (1.30%) TensorFlow
6 119 (1.21%) RESTful
7 109 (1.11%) HTML
8 108 (1.10%) Node.js
9 100 (1.02%) scikit-learn
10 93 (0.95%) Hugging Face
11 89 (0.91%) LangChain
12 84 (0.86%) Pandas
13 81 (0.83%) CSS
14 80 (0.82%) FastAPI
15 76 (0.77%) Kafka
16 75 (0.76%) Django
17 70 (0.71%) NumPy
18 69 (0.70%) AngularJS
19 61 (0.62%) Spring
20 58 (0.59%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 4,083 (41.61%) IoT
2 278 (2.83%) Cloud Native
3 189 (1.93%) Onboarding
4 184 (1.88%) Algorithms
5 178 (1.81%) Product Ownership
6 159 (1.62%) AI Agents
7 158 (1.61%) Robotics
8 131 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
9 120 (1.22%) Blog
10 112 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
11 105 (1.07%) Management Information System
12 99 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
13 97 (0.99%) Life Science
14 92 (0.94%) Low-Code
15 91 (0.93%) Molecular Biology
16 90 (0.92%) Social Media
17 72 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
18 66 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
19 63 (0.64%) Legacy Systems
19 63 (0.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 85 (0.87%) Windows
2 81 (0.83%) Linux
3 68 (0.69%) Android
4 59 (0.60%) Unix
5 46 (0.47%) Apple iOS
6 28 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.17%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.092%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.051%) Kali Linux
9 5 (0.051%) VMS
10 4 (0.041%) Robot Operating System
10 4 (0.041%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.031%) 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 5,104 (52.01%) Machine Learning
2 4,336 (44.19%) Cybersecurity
3 4,319 (44.01%) User Experience
4 4,071 (41.49%) Web Development
5 1,122 (11.43%) Analytics
6 1,005 (10.24%) Conversational UI
7 969 (9.87%) Business Intelligence
8 921 (9.39%) Agile
9 737 (7.51%) Problem-Solving
10 670 (6.83%) Roadmaps
11 618 (6.30%) Decision-Making
12 600 (6.11%) CI/CD
13 589 (6.00%) Continuous Improvement
14 582 (5.93%) Software Engineering
15 576 (5.87%) DevOps
16 502 (5.12%) Data Science
17 497 (5.06%) LLM
18 489 (4.98%) Generative AI
19 434 (4.42%) Computer Science
20 432 (4.40%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 1,705 (17.37%) Python
2 1,152 (11.74%) SQL
3 253 (2.58%) JavaScript
4 242 (2.47%) TypeScript
5 225 (2.29%) Java
6 159 (1.62%) C#
7 87 (0.89%) PowerShell
8 85 (0.87%) C++
9 72 (0.73%) Bash
10 67 (0.68%) Go
11 59 (0.60%) R
12 38 (0.39%) PHP
13 34 (0.35%) Rust
14 28 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 28 (0.29%) Kotlin
15 26 (0.26%) Scala
16 23 (0.23%) Apex Code
16 23 (0.23%) C
17 21 (0.21%) PL/SQL
18 17 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 5,792 (59.02%) Degree
2 4,727 (48.17%) Master's Degree
3 4,662 (47.51%) PhD
4 4,049 (41.26%) Postgraduate
5 602 (6.13%) Azure Certification
6 342 (3.49%) Security Cleared
7 259 (2.64%) SC Cleared
8 191 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
9 110 (1.12%) AWS Certification
10 85 (0.87%) DV Cleared
11 70 (0.71%) DBS Check
12 52 (0.53%) CISSP
13 49 (0.50%) PMP
14 47 (0.48%) BPSS Clearance
15 46 (0.47%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 41 (0.42%) ACCA
17 36 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
18 34 (0.35%) PMI Certification
19 31 (0.32%) CISA
19 31 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (2.28%) Data Quality
2 205 (2.09%) Accessibility
3 146 (1.49%) QA
4 133 (1.36%) GDPR
5 80 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 42 (0.43%) EU AI Act
7 41 (0.42%) GxP
8 38 (0.39%) NIST
9 36 (0.37%) IFRS
10 28 (0.29%) GRC
11 25 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
11 25 (0.25%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.22%) PMO
13 22 (0.22%) Solvency II
13 22 (0.22%) WCAG
14 21 (0.21%) PSD2
14 21 (0.21%) SLA
15 19 (0.19%) PCI DSS
16 18 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 249 (2.54%) Docker
2 78 (0.79%) Active Directory
3 22 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
4 20 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.16%) Firmware
5 16 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
6 12 (0.12%) vSphere
7 5 (0.051%) Lustre
8 4 (0.041%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 3 (0.031%) GPFS
9 3 (0.031%) Kamailio
9 3 (0.031%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.020%) Ceph
10 2 (0.020%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.020%) NFS
10 2 (0.020%) RACF
11 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 247 (2.52%) Kubernetes
2 240 (2.45%) Terraform
3 50 (0.51%) Ansible
4 47 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
5 45 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
6 40 (0.41%) Prometheus
7 35 (0.36%) Grafana
8 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
9 11 (0.11%) Argo
10 7 (0.071%) Kubeflow
10 7 (0.071%) SCCM
10 7 (0.071%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.061%) Proxmox
12 5 (0.051%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.041%) Nessus
13 4 (0.041%) Nmap
13 4 (0.041%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.041%) SolarWinds Orion
14 3 (0.031%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
14 3 (0.031%) Control-M
Vendors
1 1,404 (14.31%) Microsoft
2 877 (8.94%) PayPal
3 189 (1.93%) Google
4 178 (1.81%) Databricks
5 117 (1.19%) OpenAI
6 108 (1.10%) Adobe
7 102 (1.04%) Salesforce
8 101 (1.03%) Oracle
9 95 (0.97%) Dell
10 93 (0.95%) Cisco
11 74 (0.75%) SAP
12 48 (0.49%) Foundry
13 47 (0.48%) Alteryx
13 47 (0.48%) Blue Prism
13 47 (0.48%) Palantir
14 41 (0.42%) HubSpot
15 35 (0.36%) Fortinet
16 34 (0.35%) Bloomberg
17 32 (0.33%) Apple
17 32 (0.33%) ServiceNow