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 4 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 36 50
Rank change year-on-year +31 +14 +70
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,952 2,587 4,280
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 12.37% 6.32% 4.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.19% 6.80% 5.45%
Number of salaries quoted 2,853 1,452 1,932
10th Percentile £33,750 £32,500 £40,107
25th Percentile £51,250 £53,750 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,000 £72,500 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.69% +3.57% -0.36%
75th Percentile £96,250 £100,000 £92,500
90th Percentile £115,000 £119,020 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £66,206 £60,000
% change year-on-year -9.37% +10.34% -11.11%

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 61,485 38,072 78,558
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 76.40% 93.03% 86.34%
Number of salaries quoted 37,986 22,481 58,309
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,241
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +9.09% -11.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,321 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.95% +8.64% -8.41%

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 4 April 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 4 April 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 +30 9,222 £72,500 -3.33% 2,826
UK excluding London +26 7,017 £60,000 -9.37% 1,756
North of England +37 2,538 £61,418 -5.51% 455
London +28 2,500 £85,000 -10.53% 1,477
North West +32 1,918 £61,418 -15.29% 229
Work from Home +25 1,798 £67,500 +1.93% 1,250
Midlands +64 1,534 £52,250 -16.40% 214
South East +31 1,434 £55,000 -21.43% 594
West Midlands +64 1,233 £52,500 -12.50% 110
East of England +19 754 £55,000 -16.95% 145
Yorkshire +38 529 £67,500 +50.00% 165
South West +10 371 £60,000 - 199
East Midlands +56 312 £50,000 -21.57% 103
Scotland +11 232 £70,000 +55.56% 95
Wales +31 118 £50,335 -19.46% 68
North East +32 91 £55,000 -21.17% 63
Northern Ireland -1 64 £90,000 -7.69% 26
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
1 116 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
2 104 (1.05%) Apache Spark
3 90 (0.90%) SharePoint
4 65 (0.65%) Jupyter
5 59 (0.59%) Confluence
6 56 (0.56%) CMS
7 41 (0.41%) Apache
8 30 (0.30%) ArcGIS
9 26 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
10 22 (0.22%) WordPress
11 18 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
12 17 (0.17%) Appian
13 13 (0.13%) JBoss
13 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.090%) SAS
15 8 (0.080%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 5 (0.050%) Apache Pulsar
16 5 (0.050%) IIS
17 4 (0.040%) Umbraco
18 3 (0.030%) Drupal
Applications
1 1,056 (10.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 137 (1.38%) Chatbot
3 81 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
4 51 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 30 (0.30%) UserZoom
6 22 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
7 20 (0.20%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
8 7 (0.070%) Maya
9 6 (0.060%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.060%) Microsoft Project
10 5 (0.050%) Camtasia
10 5 (0.050%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.040%) CapCut
11 4 (0.040%) Weka
12 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.030%) Sketch
13 1 (0.010%) Notion
Business Applications
1 34 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.20%) NetSuite
3 18 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 11 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
5 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
6 8 (0.080%) Distributed Ledger
7 7 (0.070%) Oracle EBS
7 7 (0.070%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.060%) Shopify
9 4 (0.040%) Dynamics AX
9 4 (0.040%) Oracle Assets
9 4 (0.040%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.040%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 3 (0.030%) Cloudability
10 3 (0.030%) Oracle General Ledger
10 3 (0.030%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.030%) SAP FI
11 2 (0.020%) Endur
11 2 (0.020%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 4,156 (41.76%) Cloud Computing
2 2,182 (21.93%) Azure
3 1,344 (13.50%) Power Platform
4 1,197 (12.03%) Azure AI
5 854 (8.58%) AWS
6 480 (4.82%) SaaS
7 375 (3.77%) GCP
8 216 (2.17%) GitHub
9 193 (1.94%) Snowflake
10 190 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
11 167 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
12 160 (1.61%) Adobe Analytics
13 126 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 123 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
14 123 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
15 117 (1.18%) Serverless
16 108 (1.09%) GitHub Copilot
17 103 (1.03%) Entra ID
18 100 (1.00%) Azure Machine Learning
19 95 (0.95%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 4,053 (40.73%) Internet
2 243 (2.44%) Broadband
3 53 (0.53%) Firewall
4 30 (0.30%) Unified Communications
5 28 (0.28%) Network Security
6 25 (0.25%) VPN
7 22 (0.22%) HTTP
8 21 (0.21%) TCP/IP
9 18 (0.18%) VoIP
9 18 (0.18%) WAN
10 17 (0.17%) DNS
11 16 (0.16%) DHCP
12 12 (0.12%) Telepresence
12 12 (0.12%) WebEx
13 9 (0.090%) VLAN
14 8 (0.080%) Wi-Fi
15 7 (0.070%) Intranet
16 6 (0.060%) DMZ
16 6 (0.060%) SD-WAN
16 6 (0.060%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1,213 (12.19%) Power BI
2 1,104 (11.09%) Tableau
3 195 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
4 154 (1.55%) Data Lake
5 139 (1.40%) SQL Server
6 98 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
7 96 (0.96%) Metadata
8 82 (0.82%) MongoDB
9 78 (0.78%) NoSQL
10 70 (0.70%) BigQuery
11 59 (0.59%) Big Data
11 59 (0.59%) Looker
12 55 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
13 47 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
14 43 (0.43%) Pinecone
15 41 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
16 39 (0.39%) MySQL
17 35 (0.35%) Snowflake Schema
18 33 (0.33%) Relational Database
19 31 (0.31%) Redis
Development Applications
1 150 (1.51%) Git
2 96 (0.96%) JIRA
3 78 (0.78%) MLflow
4 58 (0.58%) Visual Studio Code
5 52 (0.52%) Jenkins
6 36 (0.36%) GitLab
7 34 (0.34%) Claude Code
8 25 (0.25%) Cypress.io
8 25 (0.25%) IBM UrbanCode
8 25 (0.25%) Selenium
9 17 (0.17%) Postman
10 13 (0.13%) SpecFlow
11 11 (0.11%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.11%) Visual Studio
12 10 (0.10%) Storybook
13 9 (0.090%) Oracle Forms
13 9 (0.090%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.080%) Gradle
14 8 (0.080%) Subversion
14 8 (0.080%) Vite
General
1 6,256 (62.86%) Social Skills
2 4,488 (45.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,272 (42.93%) Banking
4 1,235 (12.41%) Finance
5 720 (7.23%) Analytical Skills
6 418 (4.20%) Marketing
7 328 (3.30%) Legal
8 313 (3.15%) Public Sector
9 278 (2.79%) Law
10 275 (2.76%) Games
11 243 (2.44%) Retail
12 179 (1.80%) Manufacturing
13 116 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
14 115 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
15 98 (0.98%) Telecoms
16 90 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
17 79 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
18 77 (0.77%) Financial Institution
19 55 (0.55%) Advertising
20 49 (0.49%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 3,157 (31.72%) Lecturer
2 1,158 (11.64%) Analyst
3 1,004 (10.09%) Data Analyst
4 962 (9.67%) Junior
5 937 (9.42%) Junior Analyst
5 937 (9.42%) Junior Data Analyst
6 794 (7.98%) Senior
7 608 (6.11%) Lead
8 437 (4.39%) Developer
9 368 (3.70%) Architect
10 271 (2.72%) Consultant
11 261 (2.62%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 210 (2.11%) Software Engineer
13 190 (1.91%) Data Engineer
14 162 (1.63%) Solutions Architect
15 109 (1.10%) Data Scientist
16 99 (0.99%) Python Engineer
17 98 (0.98%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 92 (0.92%) Full-Stack Developer
19 86 (0.86%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 272 (2.73%) React
2 198 (1.99%) PyTorch
3 165 (1.66%) .NET
3 165 (1.66%) REST
4 155 (1.56%) TensorFlow
5 141 (1.42%) HTML
6 134 (1.35%) scikit-learn
7 131 (1.32%) RESTful
8 128 (1.29%) Node.js
9 124 (1.25%) LangChain
10 114 (1.15%) CSS
11 107 (1.08%) Kafka
12 104 (1.05%) Pandas
13 95 (0.95%) FastAPI
14 92 (0.92%) Hugging Face
15 87 (0.87%) Django
16 78 (0.78%) NumPy
17 74 (0.74%) PySpark
18 65 (0.65%) AngularJS
19 63 (0.63%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 4,078 (40.98%) IoT
2 321 (3.23%) Cloud Native
3 216 (2.17%) Onboarding
4 211 (2.12%) Social Media
5 182 (1.83%) AI Agents
6 171 (1.72%) Algorithms
7 165 (1.66%) Product Ownership
8 152 (1.53%) Robotics
9 129 (1.30%) Blog
10 125 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
11 117 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
12 101 (1.01%) Low-Code
13 99 (0.99%) Management Information System
14 88 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
15 86 (0.86%) Mobile App
16 85 (0.85%) Life Science
17 84 (0.84%) Public Cloud
18 66 (0.66%) Data Centre
18 66 (0.66%) Virtual Team
19 55 (0.55%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 91 (0.91%) Linux
2 89 (0.89%) Windows
3 81 (0.81%) Android
4 56 (0.56%) Apple iOS
4 56 (0.56%) Unix
5 29 (0.29%) Windows Server
6 15 (0.15%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.090%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.050%) VMS
8 5 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
10 3 (0.030%) OpenWrt
11 2 (0.020%) Kali Linux
11 2 (0.020%) zOS
12 1 (0.010%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.010%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.010%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.010%) Solaris
12 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,218 (52.43%) Machine Learning
2 4,333 (43.54%) User Experience
3 4,310 (43.31%) Cybersecurity
4 4,075 (40.95%) Web Development
5 1,370 (13.77%) Business Intelligence
6 1,302 (13.08%) Analytics
7 1,006 (10.11%) Agile
8 819 (8.23%) Roadmaps
9 767 (7.71%) Problem-Solving
10 679 (6.82%) Decision-Making
11 678 (6.81%) CI/CD
12 631 (6.34%) Continuous Improvement
13 616 (6.19%) Software Engineering
14 580 (5.83%) Generative AI
15 567 (5.70%) LLM
16 566 (5.69%) Data Science
17 558 (5.61%) DevOps
18 496 (4.98%) Mentoring
19 423 (4.25%) Data Engineering
20 418 (4.20%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 2,341 (23.52%) Python
2 1,589 (15.97%) SQL
3 262 (2.63%) JavaScript
4 254 (2.55%) Java
5 224 (2.25%) TypeScript
6 174 (1.75%) C#
7 82 (0.82%) C++
8 76 (0.76%) Go
9 66 (0.66%) Bash
10 59 (0.59%) PowerShell
11 55 (0.55%) R
12 40 (0.40%) Kotlin
13 35 (0.35%) PHP
14 29 (0.29%) Scala
15 28 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 26 (0.26%) Rust
17 22 (0.22%) Bicep
18 20 (0.20%) C
19 19 (0.19%) Apex Code
20 18 (0.18%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 4,908 (49.32%) Degree
2 4,235 (42.55%) Master's Degree
3 4,173 (41.93%) PhD
4 4,050 (40.70%) Postgraduate
5 1,106 (11.11%) Azure Certification
6 297 (2.98%) Security Cleared
7 193 (1.94%) SC Cleared
8 176 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
9 119 (1.20%) AWS Certification
10 90 (0.90%) DV Cleared
11 66 (0.66%) ACCA
11 66 (0.66%) DBS Check
12 56 (0.56%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 45 (0.45%) CISSP
13 45 (0.45%) PMP
14 44 (0.44%) CIMA
15 43 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
16 30 (0.30%) PMI Certification
17 27 (0.27%) Cisco Certification
18 26 (0.26%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 330 (3.32%) Accessibility
2 266 (2.67%) Data Quality
3 174 (1.75%) GDPR
4 155 (1.56%) QA
5 69 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 64 (0.64%) WCAG
7 50 (0.50%) EU AI Act
8 47 (0.47%) GRC
9 42 (0.42%) IFRS
10 41 (0.41%) HIPAA
11 39 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 38 (0.38%) NIST
13 28 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
14 27 (0.27%) GxP
15 26 (0.26%) Solvency II
16 22 (0.22%) PSD2
17 21 (0.21%) SLA
18 20 (0.20%) PMO
19 18 (0.18%) GAAP
20 17 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 271 (2.72%) Docker
2 79 (0.79%) Active Directory
3 55 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (0.14%) Firmware
5 11 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
6 9 (0.090%) vSphere
7 4 (0.040%) Lustre
7 4 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 4 (0.040%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.030%) Kamailio
8 3 (0.030%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.020%) Ceph
9 2 (0.020%) GPFS
9 2 (0.020%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.020%) RACF
10 1 (0.010%) Apache Flume
10 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 258 (2.59%) Kubernetes
2 211 (2.12%) Terraform
3 57 (0.57%) Ansible
4 42 (0.42%) Grafana
5 41 (0.41%) Prometheus
6 40 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
7 30 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (0.12%) Cisco CUCM
9 9 (0.090%) Argo
9 9 (0.090%) Kubeflow
10 8 (0.080%) Proxmox
11 7 (0.070%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.040%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.040%) Functional Safety
12 4 (0.040%) SolarWinds Orion
13 3 (0.030%) Control-M
13 3 (0.030%) RSA Archer
14 2 (0.020%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
14 2 (0.020%) EMC NetWorker
14 2 (0.020%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,763 (17.72%) Microsoft
2 286 (2.87%) Databricks
3 213 (2.14%) Adobe
4 208 (2.09%) Google
5 138 (1.39%) Dell
6 124 (1.25%) OpenAI
7 97 (0.97%) Oracle
8 94 (0.94%) Salesforce
9 74 (0.74%) Cisco
10 69 (0.69%) SAP
11 57 (0.57%) Foundry
12 50 (0.50%) Palantir
13 48 (0.48%) ServiceNow
14 43 (0.43%) Alteryx
14 43 (0.43%) Informatica
15 41 (0.41%) PayPal
16 34 (0.34%) Apple
17 31 (0.31%) Red Hat
18 30 (0.30%) Bloomberg
19 27 (0.27%) Fortinet