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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 51 66
Rank change year-on-year +47 +15 +54
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,562 2,559 2,703
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 15.25% 4.85% 4.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.99% 5.31% 4.54%
Number of salaries quoted 2,228 1,258 1,595
10th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £60,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £71,000 £77,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.79% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £118,750 £117,875 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,450 £70,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -15.07% +12.00% +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 50,353 48,156 59,526
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.28% 91.19% 88.97%
Number of salaries quoted 29,725 23,186 46,025
10th Percentile £28,675 £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 £76,250
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 25 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 25 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 +46 8,714 £72,500 -6.45% 4,899
UK excluding London +53 6,889 £59,450 -15.07% 4,430
Work from Home +61 2,727 £67,500 -10.00% 2,419
North of England +58 2,553 £61,418 -9.01% 755
London +35 2,242 £80,000 -11.11% 1,218
North West +43 1,987 £61,418 -10.01% 328
Midlands +95 1,512 £60,000 -7.69% 495
South East +31 1,421 £50,000 -35.06% 1,558
West Midlands +86 1,250 £62,500 +8.70% 187
East of England +64 637 £55,000 -16.99% 697
Yorkshire +54 461 £72,500 +11.54% 307
South West +36 339 £62,500 - 547
Scotland +40 335 £66,250 +11.34% 172
East Midlands +83 272 £41,250 -43.10% 294
Wales +44 120 £53,171 -5.47% 224
North East +55 105 £55,000 -27.63% 123
Northern Ireland -5 47 £90,000 +1.41% 98
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 96 (1.00%) SharePoint
2 59 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
3 51 (0.53%) Apache Spark
4 48 (0.50%) 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
11 9 (0.094%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.063%) SAS
13 5 (0.052%) Apache Pulsar
13 5 (0.052%) IIS
13 5 (0.052%) nginx
13 5 (0.052%) Umbraco
Applications
1 1,204 (12.59%) Chatbot
2 480 (5.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 98 (1.02%) 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 5 (0.052%) Sketch
11 4 (0.042%) InDesign
11 4 (0.042%) Weka
12 3 (0.031%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.031%) Simulink
12 3 (0.031%) UserZoom
13 1 (0.010%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.010%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 56 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
3 18 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
5 11 (0.12%) Shopify
6 8 (0.084%) Endur
6 8 (0.084%) Workday HCM
7 7 (0.073%) Oracle EBS
7 7 (0.073%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.063%) Distributed Ledger
9 5 (0.052%) Elite 3E
10 4 (0.042%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.042%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.031%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.031%) Oracle Assets
11 3 (0.031%) SAP Business One
12 2 (0.021%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 2 (0.021%) SAP SCM
12 2 (0.021%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 4,097 (42.85%) Cloud Computing
2 1,391 (14.55%) Azure
3 757 (7.92%) Power Platform
4 700 (7.32%) AWS
5 441 (4.61%) Azure AI
6 429 (4.49%) SaaS
7 323 (3.38%) GCP
8 226 (2.36%) GitHub
9 210 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
10 180 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
11 121 (1.27%) Snowflake
12 115 (1.20%) GitHub Copilot
13 107 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
14 106 (1.11%) Serverless
15 105 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
16 96 (1.00%) Entra ID
17 91 (0.95%) Power Automate
18 75 (0.78%) Vertex AI
19 65 (0.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 65 (0.68%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 4,060 (42.46%) Internet
2 39 (0.41%) Firewall
3 31 (0.32%) Network Security
4 27 (0.28%) Unified Communications
5 25 (0.26%) VoIP
6 24 (0.25%) Broadband
7 20 (0.21%) VPN
8 15 (0.16%) HTTP
8 15 (0.16%) WAN
9 14 (0.15%) DNS
9 14 (0.15%) TCP/IP
9 14 (0.15%) Telepresence
9 14 (0.15%) WebEx
9 14 (0.15%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (0.13%) VLAN
11 9 (0.094%) DHCP
11 9 (0.094%) Wireless
12 8 (0.084%) InfiniBand
12 8 (0.084%) LAN
13 7 (0.073%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 606 (6.34%) Power BI
2 466 (4.87%) Tableau
3 157 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 110 (1.15%) NoSQL
5 106 (1.11%) SQL Server
6 104 (1.09%) Data Lake
7 78 (0.82%) Metadata
8 76 (0.79%) MongoDB
8 76 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
9 68 (0.71%) Big Data
10 45 (0.47%) BigQuery
11 41 (0.43%) MySQL
12 37 (0.39%) Pinecone
13 35 (0.37%) Hadoop
14 34 (0.36%) Relational Database
15 31 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
16 30 (0.31%) Looker
16 30 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 27 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
18 24 (0.25%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 137 (1.43%) Git
2 122 (1.28%) JIRA
3 48 (0.50%) Jenkins
3 48 (0.50%) MLflow
4 29 (0.30%) GitLab
5 20 (0.21%) Cypress.io
5 20 (0.21%) Octopus Deploy
5 20 (0.21%) TeamCity
6 18 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
7 14 (0.15%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.14%) Selenium
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 (58.29%) Social Skills
2 4,494 (47.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,215 (44.08%) Banking
4 1,125 (11.77%) Finance
5 1,089 (11.39%) Analytical Skills
6 392 (4.10%) Marketing
7 293 (3.06%) Public Sector
8 278 (2.91%) Law
9 265 (2.77%) Legal
10 200 (2.09%) Retail
11 118 (1.23%) Games
12 111 (1.16%) Manufacturing
13 104 (1.09%) Telecoms
14 94 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
15 93 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
16 76 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
17 75 (0.78%) Financial Institution
18 74 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
19 66 (0.69%) Electronics
20 63 (0.66%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 3,163 (33.08%) Lecturer
2 1,163 (12.16%) Trainer
3 684 (7.15%) Senior
4 547 (5.72%) Analyst
5 406 (4.25%) Data Analyst
6 397 (4.15%) Developer
7 391 (4.09%) Lead
8 354 (3.70%) Junior
9 331 (3.46%) Junior Analyst
9 331 (3.46%) Junior Data Analyst
10 262 (2.74%) Architect
11 220 (2.30%) Consultant
12 176 (1.84%) Software Engineer
13 155 (1.62%) Content Editor
13 155 (1.62%) Data Engineer
14 138 (1.44%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 110 (1.15%) Solutions Architect
16 106 (1.11%) Support Specialist
17 98 (1.02%) Customer Support Specialist
18 93 (0.97%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 234 (2.45%) React
2 181 (1.89%) .NET
3 176 (1.84%) REST
4 142 (1.49%) PyTorch
5 122 (1.28%) TensorFlow
6 115 (1.20%) Node.js
7 111 (1.16%) LangChain
7 111 (1.16%) RESTful
8 98 (1.02%) HTML
9 83 (0.87%) FastAPI
10 73 (0.76%) AngularJS
11 72 (0.75%) CSS
12 69 (0.72%) Kafka
13 68 (0.71%) Django
14 61 (0.64%) Vue
15 58 (0.61%) scikit-learn
16 54 (0.56%) Next.js
17 53 (0.55%) OAuth
18 52 (0.54%) Flask
18 52 (0.54%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 4,077 (42.64%) IoT
2 273 (2.86%) Cloud Native
3 189 (1.98%) Product Ownership
4 175 (1.83%) Onboarding
5 153 (1.60%) AI Agents
5 153 (1.60%) Robotics
6 128 (1.34%) Algorithms
6 128 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
7 119 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
8 112 (1.17%) Blog
9 98 (1.02%) Management Information System
10 97 (1.01%) Molecular Biology
11 95 (0.99%) Life Science
12 91 (0.95%) Low-Code
13 85 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
14 82 (0.86%) Distributed Systems
15 71 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
16 70 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
17 63 (0.66%) Virtual Team
18 55 (0.58%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 77 (0.81%) Windows
2 75 (0.78%) Linux
3 58 (0.61%) Android
4 54 (0.56%) Unix
5 35 (0.37%) Apple iOS
6 28 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 12 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.10%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.052%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.031%) OpenWrt
10 3 (0.031%) VMS
11 2 (0.021%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.021%) Robot Operating System
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 5,064 (52.96%) Machine Learning
2 4,329 (45.27%) Cybersecurity
3 4,315 (45.13%) User Experience
4 4,071 (42.57%) Web Development
5 1,249 (13.06%) Conversational UI
6 1,013 (10.59%) Analytics
7 907 (9.49%) Agile
8 751 (7.85%) Problem-Solving
9 740 (7.74%) Business Intelligence
10 594 (6.21%) Roadmaps
11 588 (6.15%) DevOps
12 572 (5.98%) CI/CD
13 568 (5.94%) Software Engineering
14 562 (5.88%) Decision-Making
15 540 (5.65%) Continuous Improvement
16 478 (5.00%) Generative AI
17 473 (4.95%) Data Science
18 471 (4.93%) Computer Science
19 452 (4.73%) LLM
20 394 (4.12%) Chemistry
Programming Languages
1 1,373 (14.36%) Python
2 930 (9.73%) SQL
3 252 (2.64%) JavaScript
4 247 (2.58%) TypeScript
5 201 (2.10%) Java
6 148 (1.55%) C#
7 86 (0.90%) PowerShell
8 75 (0.78%) C++
9 66 (0.69%) Bash
10 60 (0.63%) Go
11 59 (0.62%) R
12 38 (0.40%) PHP
13 34 (0.36%) Rust
14 33 (0.35%) Scala
15 31 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 27 (0.28%) Kotlin
17 23 (0.24%) Apex Code
18 21 (0.22%) C
18 21 (0.22%) PL/SQL
19 19 (0.20%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 6,104 (63.84%) Degree
2 4,803 (50.23%) Master's Degree
3 4,733 (49.50%) PhD
4 4,049 (42.34%) Postgraduate
5 375 (3.92%) Azure Certification
6 323 (3.38%) Security Cleared
7 259 (2.71%) SC Cleared
8 220 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
9 79 (0.83%) DV Cleared
10 61 (0.64%) AWS Certification
11 60 (0.63%) DBS Check
12 47 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
13 46 (0.48%) PMP
14 44 (0.46%) CISSP
15 36 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
16 34 (0.36%) ACCA
17 31 (0.32%) PMI Certification
18 30 (0.31%) CISA
18 30 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
19 28 (0.29%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (2.34%) Data Quality
2 135 (1.41%) Accessibility
3 130 (1.36%) 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 29 (0.30%) IFRS
10 27 (0.28%) SLA
11 25 (0.26%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
13 23 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
14 22 (0.23%) Solvency II
15 21 (0.22%) GRC
15 21 (0.22%) PMO
15 21 (0.22%) PSD2
15 21 (0.22%) WCAG
16 20 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 17 (0.18%) GAAP
System Software
1 235 (2.46%) Docker
2 69 (0.72%) Active Directory
3 21 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
3 21 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (0.16%) Firmware
6 13 (0.14%) vSphere
7 7 (0.073%) Lustre
8 5 (0.052%) GPFS
8 5 (0.052%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.052%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.042%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.021%) Ceph
10 2 (0.021%) NFS
10 2 (0.021%) RACF
11 1 (0.010%) Kamailio
11 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 231 (2.42%) Terraform
2 216 (2.26%) Kubernetes
3 51 (0.53%) Ansible
4 48 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
5 42 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
6 30 (0.31%) Prometheus
7 22 (0.23%) Grafana
8 14 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
9 9 (0.094%) Kubeflow
10 8 (0.084%) Argo
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%) HP Fortify
15 2 (0.021%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
Vendors
1 1,163 (12.16%) PayPal
2 1,119 (11.70%) Microsoft
3 187 (1.96%) Google
4 170 (1.78%) Databricks
5 117 (1.22%) OpenAI
6 102 (1.07%) Salesforce
7 101 (1.06%) Oracle
8 99 (1.04%) Cisco
9 86 (0.90%) Dell
10 81 (0.85%) Adobe
11 69 (0.72%) SAP
12 48 (0.50%) Alteryx
13 47 (0.49%) Blue Prism
14 46 (0.48%) Foundry
15 44 (0.46%) HubSpot
16 41 (0.43%) Palantir
17 38 (0.40%) Fortinet
18 35 (0.37%) Apple
19 34 (0.36%) Bloomberg
20 30 (0.31%) Palo Alto