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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 40 64
Rank change year-on-year +36 +24 +55
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,909 2,625 3,096
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 14.21% 5.54% 4.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.00% 5.96% 4.64%
Number of salaries quoted 2,483 1,340 1,702
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% -3.85%

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 55,039 44,035 66,669
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.92% 92.97% 88.39%
Number of salaries quoted 32,968 22,033 51,326
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,487
25th Percentile £38,541 £45,651 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,001 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £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 27 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 27 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 9,060 £70,000 -6.67% 1,950
UK excluding London +40 7,117 £59,450 -10.27% 1,400
North of England +50 2,623 £60,709 -10.06% 322
Work from Home +33 2,534 £67,500 +1.85% 931
London +34 2,327 £80,939 -12.50% 978
North West +44 1,985 £61,418 -10.66% 173
Midlands +86 1,539 £55,000 -15.38% 161
South East +35 1,479 £50,000 -33.33% 556
West Midlands +80 1,256 £55,000 -6.38% 99
East of England +22 685 £55,000 -16.96% 133
Yorkshire +43 534 £61,250 -3.77% 106
South West +18 369 £62,500 -3.85% 141
Scotland +32 305 £70,000 +21.74% 72
East Midlands +66 294 £50,000 -23.08% 60
Wales +37 122 £47,500 -15.56% 32
North East +44 104 £55,000 -26.42% 44
Northern Ireland -6 56 £90,000 -5.26% 7
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 90 (0.91%) SharePoint
2 81 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
3 75 (0.76%) Apache Spark
4 59 (0.60%) Jupyter
5 52 (0.52%) Confluence
6 47 (0.47%) CMS
7 36 (0.36%) Apache
8 30 (0.30%) ArcGIS
9 24 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
10 22 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
11 18 (0.18%) WordPress
12 17 (0.17%) Appian
12 17 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 13 (0.13%) JBoss
13 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
14 7 (0.071%) SAS
15 6 (0.061%) Apache Solr
16 5 (0.050%) Apache Pulsar
16 5 (0.050%) IIS
16 5 (0.050%) Umbraco
Applications
1 961 (9.70%) Chatbot
2 752 (7.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 86 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
4 41 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.16%) Maya
6 16 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.13%) UserZoom
8 6 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
9 4 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 4 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
9 4 (0.040%) Photoshop
9 4 (0.040%) Weka
10 3 (0.030%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
10 3 (0.030%) Simulink
10 3 (0.030%) Sketch
11 1 (0.010%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.010%) CapCut
11 1 (0.010%) Notion
Business Applications
1 39 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.19%) NetSuite
3 18 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
4 14 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
6 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
7 8 (0.081%) Distributed Ledger
7 8 (0.081%) Endur
7 8 (0.081%) Shopify
8 7 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
8 7 (0.071%) 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%) SAP Business One
10 3 (0.030%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 2 (0.020%) Dynamics GP
11 2 (0.020%) SAP CO
11 2 (0.020%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,150 (41.88%) Cloud Computing
2 1,686 (17.01%) Azure
3 1,043 (10.53%) Power Platform
4 761 (7.68%) AWS
5 710 (7.17%) Azure AI
6 435 (4.39%) SaaS
7 321 (3.24%) GCP
8 222 (2.24%) GitHub
9 196 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
10 193 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
11 129 (1.30%) Snowflake
12 112 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
13 110 (1.11%) GitHub Copilot
14 108 (1.09%) Microsoft Copilot
15 105 (1.06%) Entra ID
15 105 (1.06%) Serverless
16 100 (1.01%) Power Automate
17 80 (0.81%) Adobe Analytics
18 69 (0.70%) PaaS
19 66 (0.67%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4,059 (40.96%) Internet
2 127 (1.28%) Broadband
3 53 (0.53%) Firewall
4 33 (0.33%) Network Security
5 32 (0.32%) Unified Communications
6 26 (0.26%) VoIP
7 25 (0.25%) VPN
8 20 (0.20%) WAN
9 19 (0.19%) HTTP
10 17 (0.17%) TCP/IP
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 (0.081%) Wireshark
16 7 (0.071%) DMZ
16 7 (0.071%) SD-WAN
16 7 (0.071%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 882 (8.90%) Power BI
2 754 (7.61%) Tableau
3 155 (1.56%) Data Warehouse
4 103 (1.04%) SQL Server
5 98 (0.99%) Data Lake
6 95 (0.96%) NoSQL
7 92 (0.93%) Metadata
8 82 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
9 77 (0.78%) MongoDB
10 73 (0.74%) Big Data
11 42 (0.42%) BigQuery
12 38 (0.38%) MySQL
12 38 (0.38%) Pinecone
13 34 (0.34%) Relational Database
14 32 (0.32%) GIS
15 31 (0.31%) Hadoop
15 31 (0.31%) Looker
16 30 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
17 28 (0.28%) Apache Hive
17 28 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 155 (1.56%) Git
2 109 (1.10%) JIRA
3 54 (0.54%) MLflow
4 52 (0.52%) Visual Studio Code
5 48 (0.48%) Jenkins
6 33 (0.33%) GitLab
7 21 (0.21%) IBM UrbanCode
8 19 (0.19%) Cypress.io
9 17 (0.17%) Selenium
10 16 (0.16%) Octopus Deploy
10 16 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
10 16 (0.16%) TeamCity
11 12 (0.12%) Claude Code
11 12 (0.12%) Visual Studio
12 11 (0.11%) Postman
13 10 (0.10%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.091%) Storybook
15 8 (0.081%) Subversion
15 8 (0.081%) Vite
16 7 (0.071%) Gradle
General
1 5,853 (59.07%) Social Skills
2 4,493 (45.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,250 (42.89%) Banking
4 1,232 (12.43%) Finance
5 1,033 (10.42%) Analytical Skills
6 400 (4.04%) Marketing
7 307 (3.10%) Public Sector
8 295 (2.98%) Legal
9 270 (2.72%) Law
10 253 (2.55%) Retail
11 202 (2.04%) Games
12 166 (1.68%) Manufacturing
13 110 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
14 106 (1.07%) Telecoms
15 94 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
16 89 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
17 86 (0.87%) Financial Institution
18 74 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
19 57 (0.58%) Electronics
20 48 (0.48%) German Language
Job Titles
1 3,161 (31.90%) Lecturer
2 880 (8.88%) Trainer
3 845 (8.53%) Analyst
4 712 (7.19%) Senior
5 689 (6.95%) Data Analyst
6 627 (6.33%) Junior
7 607 (6.13%) Junior Analyst
7 607 (6.13%) Junior Data Analyst
8 475 (4.79%) Lead
9 425 (4.29%) Developer
10 290 (2.93%) Architect
11 247 (2.49%) Consultant
12 187 (1.89%) Software Engineer
13 160 (1.61%) Data Engineer
14 132 (1.33%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 123 (1.24%) Solutions Architect
16 102 (1.03%) Content Editor
17 99 (1.00%) Data Scientist
18 93 (0.94%) Senior Manager
19 91 (0.92%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 239 (2.41%) React
2 175 (1.77%) .NET
3 166 (1.68%) PyTorch
3 166 (1.68%) REST
4 129 (1.30%) TensorFlow
5 121 (1.22%) RESTful
6 112 (1.13%) Node.js
7 108 (1.09%) HTML
8 102 (1.03%) scikit-learn
9 98 (0.99%) Pandas
10 94 (0.95%) Hugging Face
11 89 (0.90%) LangChain
12 82 (0.83%) FastAPI
13 81 (0.82%) CSS
14 78 (0.79%) Django
14 78 (0.79%) Kafka
15 73 (0.74%) NumPy
16 69 (0.70%) AngularJS
17 64 (0.65%) Spring
18 59 (0.60%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 4,084 (41.22%) IoT
2 276 (2.79%) Cloud Native
3 189 (1.91%) Onboarding
4 186 (1.88%) Algorithms
5 170 (1.72%) Product Ownership
6 159 (1.60%) AI Agents
7 153 (1.54%) Robotics
8 134 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
9 123 (1.24%) Blog
10 122 (1.23%) Social Media
11 110 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
12 104 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
13 103 (1.04%) Management Information System
14 95 (0.96%) Life Science
15 90 (0.91%) Low-Code
16 89 (0.90%) Molecular Biology
17 73 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
18 68 (0.69%) Mobile App
19 65 (0.66%) Analytical Mindset
20 63 (0.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 86 (0.87%) Windows
2 84 (0.85%) Linux
3 80 (0.81%) Android
4 60 (0.61%) Unix
5 53 (0.53%) Apple iOS
6 28 (0.28%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.091%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.050%) Kali Linux
9 5 (0.050%) VMS
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 5,098 (51.45%) Machine Learning
2 4,331 (43.71%) Cybersecurity
3 4,319 (43.59%) User Experience
4 4,071 (41.08%) Web Development
5 1,159 (11.70%) Analytics
6 1,024 (10.33%) Business Intelligence
7 1,010 (10.19%) Conversational UI
8 962 (9.71%) Agile
9 728 (7.35%) Problem-Solving
10 699 (7.05%) Roadmaps
11 636 (6.42%) CI/CD
12 609 (6.15%) Decision-Making
13 584 (5.89%) Continuous Improvement
14 583 (5.88%) Software Engineering
15 561 (5.66%) DevOps
16 513 (5.18%) LLM
17 509 (5.14%) Data Science
18 492 (4.97%) Generative AI
19 448 (4.52%) Mentoring
20 433 (4.37%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 1,793 (18.09%) Python
2 1,224 (12.35%) SQL
3 251 (2.53%) JavaScript
4 239 (2.41%) TypeScript
5 237 (2.39%) Java
6 165 (1.67%) C#
7 88 (0.89%) C++
8 81 (0.82%) PowerShell
9 69 (0.70%) Bash
10 64 (0.65%) Go
11 55 (0.56%) R
12 39 (0.39%) PHP
13 37 (0.37%) Kotlin
14 35 (0.35%) Rust
15 27 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 24 (0.24%) Scala
17 23 (0.23%) Apex Code
17 23 (0.23%) C
18 20 (0.20%) PL/SQL
19 17 (0.17%) Swift
Qualifications
1 5,782 (58.35%) Degree
2 4,718 (47.61%) Master's Degree
3 4,658 (47.01%) PhD
4 4,050 (40.87%) Postgraduate
5 657 (6.63%) Azure Certification
6 341 (3.44%) Security Cleared
7 253 (2.55%) SC Cleared
8 193 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
9 112 (1.13%) AWS Certification
10 87 (0.88%) DV Cleared
11 68 (0.69%) DBS Check
12 52 (0.52%) CISSP
13 49 (0.49%) PMP
14 48 (0.48%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 48 (0.48%) BPSS Clearance
15 42 (0.42%) ACCA
16 34 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
16 34 (0.34%) PMI Certification
17 32 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
18 31 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (2.45%) Accessibility
1 243 (2.45%) Data Quality
2 146 (1.47%) QA
3 138 (1.39%) GDPR
4 78 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 43 (0.43%) EU AI Act
6 40 (0.40%) GxP
7 39 (0.39%) NIST
8 36 (0.36%) IFRS
9 35 (0.35%) HIPAA
9 35 (0.35%) WCAG
10 30 (0.30%) GRC
11 24 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
12 23 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.22%) PMO
13 22 (0.22%) Solvency II
14 21 (0.21%) PSD2
15 19 (0.19%) SLA
16 18 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 17 (0.17%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 256 (2.58%) Docker
2 78 (0.79%) Active Directory
3 21 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.16%) Firmware
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 (2.52%) Kubernetes
2 236 (2.38%) Terraform
3 54 (0.54%) Ansible
4 46 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
6 40 (0.40%) Prometheus
7 36 (0.36%) Grafana
8 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
9 10 (0.10%) Argo
10 7 (0.071%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.061%) Proxmox
11 6 (0.061%) SCCM
12 5 (0.050%) Kubeflow
13 4 (0.040%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.040%) Nessus
13 4 (0.040%) Nmap
13 4 (0.040%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.040%) SolarWinds Orion
14 3 (0.030%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
14 3 (0.030%) Control-M
Vendors
1 1,447 (14.60%) Microsoft
2 874 (8.82%) PayPal
3 187 (1.89%) Google
4 181 (1.83%) Databricks
5 134 (1.35%) Adobe
6 116 (1.17%) OpenAI
6 116 (1.17%) Oracle
7 102 (1.03%) Dell
8 98 (0.99%) Salesforce
9 93 (0.94%) Cisco
10 73 (0.74%) SAP
11 47 (0.47%) Alteryx
11 47 (0.47%) Blue Prism
11 47 (0.47%) Foundry
11 47 (0.47%) Palantir
12 37 (0.37%) HubSpot
13 36 (0.36%) ServiceNow
14 34 (0.34%) Bloomberg
14 34 (0.34%) Fortinet
15 32 (0.32%) Apple