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 27 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 49 67
Rank change year-on-year +45 +18 +51
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,577 2,580 2,756
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 15.24% 4.94% 4.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.98% 5.40% 4.54%
Number of salaries quoted 2,235 1,285 1,628
10th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £60,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £77,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £118,750 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,450 £66,345 £62,500
% change year-on-year -10.39% +6.15% +0.67%

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 50,453 47,821 60,729
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.27% 91.48% 88.85%
Number of salaries quoted 29,778 22,900 47,030
10th Percentile £28,697 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £76,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £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 27 January 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 27 January 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 +43 8,731 £71,014 -7.77% 4,617
UK excluding London +52 6,898 £59,450 -10.39% 4,083
Work from Home +55 2,734 £67,500 -3.57% 2,493
North of England +56 2,556 £61,418 -10.01% 662
London +36 2,249 £80,000 -11.11% 1,248
North West +43 1,989 £61,418 -10.01% 291
Midlands +94 1,512 £59,527 -8.42% 425
South East +33 1,421 £50,000 -35.06% 1,527
West Midlands +89 1,250 £60,000 +4.35% 172
East of England +46 642 £55,000 -16.96% 639
Yorkshire +55 462 £70,000 +7.69% 259
South West +32 341 £62,500 - 473
Scotland +43 334 £65,000 +9.24% 166
East Midlands +76 272 £41,250 -43.10% 242
Wales +40 120 £53,171 -5.47% 207
North East +50 105 £55,000 -27.63% 116
Northern Ireland -6 47 £90,000 +1.41% 89
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 97 (1.01%) SharePoint
2 58 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
3 51 (0.53%) Apache Spark
4 47 (0.49%) Confluence
5 40 (0.42%) CMS
6 21 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
7 20 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 16 (0.17%) Apache
8 16 (0.17%) Appian
9 15 (0.16%) WordPress
10 13 (0.14%) JBoss
10 13 (0.14%) Jupyter
10 13 (0.14%) WebSphere
11 9 (0.094%) Apache Solr
12 8 (0.084%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.063%) SAS
14 5 (0.052%) Apache Pulsar
14 5 (0.052%) IIS
14 5 (0.052%) nginx
14 5 (0.052%) Umbraco
Applications
1 1,204 (12.57%) Chatbot
2 480 (5.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 97 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
4 44 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.22%) Maya
6 12 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.10%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.073%) Adobe Premiere
8 7 (0.073%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.073%) Notion
9 6 (0.063%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.063%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.042%) InDesign
10 4 (0.042%) Sketch
10 4 (0.042%) Weka
11 3 (0.031%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.031%) Simulink
11 3 (0.031%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.010%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.010%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 56 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
3 18 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
5 11 (0.11%) Shopify
6 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
7 8 (0.084%) Endur
8 7 (0.073%) Oracle EBS
8 7 (0.073%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.063%) Distributed Ledger
10 5 (0.052%) Elite 3E
11 4 (0.042%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.042%) Oracle Receivables
12 3 (0.031%) Dynamics GP
12 3 (0.031%) Oracle Assets
12 3 (0.031%) SAP Business One
13 2 (0.021%) SAP CO
13 2 (0.021%) SAP FI/CO
13 2 (0.021%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,098 (42.79%) Cloud Computing
2 1,390 (14.51%) Azure
3 757 (7.90%) Power Platform
4 698 (7.29%) AWS
5 442 (4.62%) Azure AI
6 430 (4.49%) SaaS
7 321 (3.35%) GCP
8 226 (2.36%) GitHub
9 210 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
10 181 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
11 121 (1.26%) Snowflake
12 113 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
13 108 (1.13%) Microsoft Copilot
14 105 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
15 104 (1.09%) Serverless
16 96 (1.00%) Entra ID
17 92 (0.96%) Power Automate
18 74 (0.77%) Vertex AI
19 65 (0.68%) dbt
20 64 (0.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 4,060 (42.39%) Internet
2 40 (0.42%) Firewall
3 33 (0.34%) Broadband
4 31 (0.32%) Network Security
5 29 (0.30%) Unified Communications
6 26 (0.27%) VoIP
7 20 (0.21%) VPN
8 17 (0.18%) HTTP
9 15 (0.16%) DNS
9 15 (0.16%) WAN
9 15 (0.16%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.15%) TCP/IP
10 14 (0.15%) Telepresence
10 14 (0.15%) WebEx
11 12 (0.13%) VLAN
12 10 (0.10%) DHCP
13 9 (0.094%) Wireless
14 8 (0.084%) InfiniBand
14 8 (0.084%) Intranet
14 8 (0.084%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 605 (6.32%) Power BI
2 465 (4.86%) Tableau
3 157 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 110 (1.15%) NoSQL
5 107 (1.12%) SQL Server
6 104 (1.09%) Data Lake
7 79 (0.82%) Metadata
8 75 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
9 74 (0.77%) MongoDB
10 69 (0.72%) Big Data
11 45 (0.47%) BigQuery
12 40 (0.42%) MySQL
13 37 (0.39%) Pinecone
14 35 (0.37%) Hadoop
15 33 (0.34%) Relational Database
16 31 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
17 30 (0.31%) Looker
17 30 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 27 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
19 24 (0.25%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 138 (1.44%) Git
2 120 (1.25%) JIRA
3 49 (0.51%) MLflow
4 48 (0.50%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.31%) GitLab
6 20 (0.21%) Cypress.io
6 20 (0.21%) Octopus Deploy
6 20 (0.21%) TeamCity
7 18 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
8 14 (0.15%) Selenium
8 14 (0.15%) Visual Studio
9 9 (0.094%) Bitbucket
9 9 (0.094%) Vite
10 8 (0.084%) Postman
10 8 (0.084%) Subversion
11 7 (0.073%) Burp Suite
11 7 (0.073%) Storybook
11 7 (0.073%) WebDriver
12 6 (0.063%) ERwin
12 6 (0.063%) Maven
General
1 5,574 (58.20%) Social Skills
2 4,496 (46.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,215 (44.01%) Banking
4 1,129 (11.79%) Finance
5 1,089 (11.37%) Analytical Skills
6 390 (4.07%) Marketing
7 294 (3.07%) Public Sector
8 281 (2.93%) Law
9 262 (2.74%) Legal
10 197 (2.06%) Retail
11 127 (1.33%) Games
12 113 (1.18%) Manufacturing
13 101 (1.05%) Telecoms
14 94 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
14 94 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
15 76 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
16 75 (0.78%) Financial Institution
17 73 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
18 65 (0.68%) Electronics
19 61 (0.64%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 3,163 (33.03%) Lecturer
2 1,163 (12.14%) Trainer
3 687 (7.17%) Senior
4 547 (5.71%) Analyst
5 406 (4.24%) Data Analyst
6 399 (4.17%) Developer
6 399 (4.17%) Lead
7 354 (3.70%) Junior
8 331 (3.46%) Junior Analyst
8 331 (3.46%) Junior Data Analyst
9 266 (2.78%) Architect
10 218 (2.28%) Consultant
11 174 (1.82%) Software Engineer
12 155 (1.62%) Content Editor
13 154 (1.61%) Data Engineer
14 137 (1.43%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 112 (1.17%) Solutions Architect
16 106 (1.11%) Support Specialist
17 98 (1.02%) Customer Support Specialist
18 95 (0.99%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 232 (2.42%) React
2 181 (1.89%) .NET
3 175 (1.83%) REST
4 143 (1.49%) PyTorch
5 123 (1.28%) TensorFlow
6 116 (1.21%) Node.js
7 110 (1.15%) LangChain
7 110 (1.15%) RESTful
8 99 (1.03%) HTML
9 84 (0.88%) FastAPI
10 72 (0.75%) CSS
11 70 (0.73%) AngularJS
11 70 (0.73%) Django
12 69 (0.72%) Kafka
13 58 (0.61%) Vue
14 57 (0.60%) scikit-learn
15 55 (0.57%) OAuth
16 54 (0.56%) Flask
16 54 (0.56%) Next.js
17 52 (0.54%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 4,077 (42.57%) IoT
2 271 (2.83%) Cloud Native
3 187 (1.95%) Product Ownership
4 175 (1.83%) Onboarding
5 153 (1.60%) Robotics
6 152 (1.59%) AI Agents
7 129 (1.35%) Algorithms
8 128 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
9 119 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
10 112 (1.17%) Blog
11 100 (1.04%) Management Information System
12 97 (1.01%) Molecular Biology
13 96 (1.00%) Life Science
14 91 (0.95%) Low-Code
15 84 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
15 84 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
16 71 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
17 70 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
18 64 (0.67%) Virtual Team
19 53 (0.55%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 79 (0.82%) Windows
2 75 (0.78%) Linux
3 57 (0.60%) Android
4 55 (0.57%) Unix
5 34 (0.36%) Apple iOS
6 29 (0.30%) Windows Server
7 13 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.094%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.052%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.031%) OpenWrt
10 3 (0.031%) Robot Operating System
10 3 (0.031%) VMS
11 2 (0.021%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.021%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.021%) zOS
12 1 (0.010%) Debian
12 1 (0.010%) Solaris
12 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,055 (52.78%) Machine Learning
2 4,328 (45.19%) Cybersecurity
3 4,313 (45.03%) User Experience
4 4,071 (42.51%) Web Development
5 1,247 (13.02%) Conversational UI
6 1,022 (10.67%) Analytics
7 917 (9.58%) Agile
8 752 (7.85%) Problem-Solving
9 739 (7.72%) Business Intelligence
10 603 (6.30%) Roadmaps
11 589 (6.15%) DevOps
12 578 (6.04%) CI/CD
13 571 (5.96%) Software Engineering
14 565 (5.90%) Decision-Making
15 543 (5.67%) Continuous Improvement
16 476 (4.97%) Generative AI
17 473 (4.94%) Data Science
18 471 (4.92%) Computer Science
19 448 (4.68%) LLM
20 394 (4.11%) Chemistry
Programming Languages
1 1,374 (14.35%) Python
2 928 (9.69%) SQL
3 253 (2.64%) JavaScript
4 248 (2.59%) TypeScript
5 201 (2.10%) Java
6 146 (1.52%) C#
7 86 (0.90%) PowerShell
8 77 (0.80%) C++
9 67 (0.70%) Bash
10 60 (0.63%) Go
11 58 (0.61%) R
12 38 (0.40%) PHP
13 34 (0.36%) Rust
14 32 (0.33%) Scala
15 31 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 27 (0.28%) Kotlin
17 23 (0.24%) Apex Code
18 22 (0.23%) C
19 21 (0.22%) PL/SQL
20 19 (0.20%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 6,104 (63.74%) Degree
2 4,802 (50.14%) Master's Degree
3 4,733 (49.42%) PhD
4 4,049 (42.28%) Postgraduate
5 375 (3.92%) Azure Certification
6 322 (3.36%) Security Cleared
7 258 (2.69%) SC Cleared
8 219 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
9 78 (0.81%) DV Cleared
10 61 (0.64%) AWS Certification
11 60 (0.63%) DBS Check
12 47 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
13 46 (0.48%) CISSP
13 46 (0.48%) PMP
14 37 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
15 35 (0.37%) ACCA
16 31 (0.32%) PMI Certification
17 30 (0.31%) CISA
17 30 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
18 28 (0.29%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 221 (2.31%) Data Quality
2 144 (1.50%) Accessibility
3 131 (1.37%) QA
4 113 (1.18%) GDPR
5 75 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 43 (0.45%) GxP
7 40 (0.42%) EU AI Act
8 35 (0.37%) NIST
9 30 (0.31%) IFRS
10 28 (0.29%) SLA
11 25 (0.26%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
13 22 (0.23%) Solvency II
13 22 (0.23%) WCAG
14 21 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
14 21 (0.22%) GRC
14 21 (0.22%) PMO
14 21 (0.22%) PSD2
15 20 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 17 (0.18%) GAAP
System Software
1 233 (2.43%) Docker
2 70 (0.73%) Active Directory
3 22 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
4 21 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
6 15 (0.16%) Firmware
7 13 (0.14%) vSphere
8 7 (0.073%) Lustre
9 5 (0.052%) GPFS
9 5 (0.052%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.052%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 4 (0.042%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.021%) Ceph
11 2 (0.021%) Kamailio
11 2 (0.021%) NFS
11 2 (0.021%) RACF
12 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 232 (2.42%) Terraform
2 216 (2.26%) Kubernetes
3 51 (0.53%) Ansible
4 49 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
5 43 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
6 30 (0.31%) Prometheus
7 22 (0.23%) Grafana
8 14 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
9 9 (0.094%) Argo
9 9 (0.094%) Kubeflow
10 8 (0.084%) SCCM
11 6 (0.063%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.052%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.042%) Nessus
13 4 (0.042%) Nmap
14 3 (0.031%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
14 3 (0.031%) Proxmox
14 3 (0.031%) RSA Archer
15 2 (0.021%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
15 2 (0.021%) SELinux
Vendors
1 1,163 (12.14%) PayPal
2 1,120 (11.69%) Microsoft
3 188 (1.96%) Google
4 170 (1.78%) Databricks
5 117 (1.22%) OpenAI
6 103 (1.08%) Salesforce
7 102 (1.07%) Oracle
8 98 (1.02%) Cisco
9 88 (0.92%) Adobe
10 85 (0.89%) Dell
11 69 (0.72%) SAP
12 48 (0.50%) Alteryx
13 47 (0.49%) Blue Prism
14 46 (0.48%) Foundry
15 43 (0.45%) HubSpot
16 41 (0.43%) Palantir
17 39 (0.41%) Fortinet
18 35 (0.37%) Apple
19 34 (0.36%) Bloomberg
20 30 (0.31%) Palo Alto