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

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 47 70
Rank change year-on-year +43 +23 +52
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,884 2,554 2,823
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 14.95% 5.14% 3.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.74% 5.59% 4.32%
Number of salaries quoted 2,384 1,330 1,673
10th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £61,250 £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 £118,750 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,450 £66,254 £62,500
% change year-on-year -10.27% +6.01% -

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 52,730 45,725 65,371
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.77% 92.08% 88.28%
Number of salaries quoted 31,308 22,323 50,742
10th Percentile £29,000 £35,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,250 £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 £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,125 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 11 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 11 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 +43 8,996 £72,000 -4.00% 2,122
UK excluding London +48 7,112 £59,450 -10.27% 1,459
Work from Home +46 2,789 £67,500 +1.75% 1,189
North of England +49 2,628 £60,709 -9.41% 343
London +34 2,317 £80,000 -11.11% 1,103
North West +44 2,015 £60,000 -11.11% 198
Midlands +96 1,538 £59,527 -8.42% 166
South East +40 1,472 £50,000 -35.06% 555
West Midlands +84 1,260 £60,000 - 107
East of England +27 662 £55,000 -16.96% 122
Yorkshire +48 506 £67,500 +8.00% 107
South West +31 367 £62,500 -3.85% 153
Scotland +42 347 £70,000 +19.15% 89
East Midlands +74 288 £47,500 -26.92% 58
Wales +43 125 £53,171 +6.34% 39
North East +52 107 £55,000 -26.42% 41
Northern Ireland -4 52 £90,000 -5.26% 15
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 95 (0.96%) SharePoint
2 62 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (0.55%) Apache Spark
4 51 (0.52%) Confluence
5 42 (0.42%) CMS
6 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
7 23 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
8 22 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
9 20 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 18 (0.18%) WordPress
11 17 (0.17%) Appian
12 14 (0.14%) Apache
13 13 (0.13%) JBoss
13 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
14 11 (0.11%) ArcGIS
15 9 (0.091%) Apache Solr
16 7 (0.071%) SAS
17 5 (0.051%) Apache Pulsar
17 5 (0.051%) IIS
17 5 (0.051%) Umbraco
Applications
1 1,213 (12.27%) Chatbot
2 593 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 92 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
4 41 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 19 (0.19%) Maya
6 14 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.10%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.071%) Microsoft Project
9 6 (0.061%) Adobe Premiere
10 5 (0.051%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 5 (0.051%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.040%) Notion
11 4 (0.040%) Sketch
11 4 (0.040%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.040%) Weka
12 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.030%) Simulink
13 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 1 (0.010%) Blender
14 1 (0.010%) GNU Octave
Business Applications
1 50 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
3 19 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
4 12 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
5 11 (0.11%) Shopify
6 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
7 8 (0.081%) Distributed Ledger
7 8 (0.081%) Endur
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 GP
10 3 (0.030%) Elite 3E
10 3 (0.030%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.030%) SAP Business One
11 2 (0.020%) SAP ERP
11 2 (0.020%) SAP FI/CO
11 2 (0.020%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,120 (41.68%) Cloud Computing
2 1,535 (15.53%) Azure
3 877 (8.87%) Power Platform
4 713 (7.21%) AWS
5 551 (5.57%) Azure AI
6 454 (4.59%) SaaS
7 330 (3.34%) GCP
8 232 (2.35%) GitHub
9 203 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
10 197 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
11 123 (1.24%) Snowflake
12 114 (1.15%) GitHub Copilot
13 110 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
14 105 (1.06%) Entra ID
14 105 (1.06%) Microsoft Copilot
15 103 (1.04%) Serverless
16 96 (0.97%) Power Automate
17 67 (0.68%) Vertex AI
18 66 (0.67%) dbt
19 64 (0.65%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4,061 (41.09%) Internet
2 65 (0.66%) Broadband
3 50 (0.51%) Firewall
4 33 (0.33%) Network Security
5 32 (0.32%) Unified Communications
6 27 (0.27%) VoIP
7 23 (0.23%) VPN
8 19 (0.19%) HTTP
9 16 (0.16%) DNS
9 16 (0.16%) TCP/IP
9 16 (0.16%) WAN
10 14 (0.14%) Telepresence
10 14 (0.14%) VLAN
10 14 (0.14%) WebEx
11 13 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
12 12 (0.12%) DHCP
13 8 (0.081%) Intranet
13 8 (0.081%) Wireshark
14 7 (0.071%) DMZ
14 7 (0.071%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 721 (7.29%) Power BI
2 578 (5.85%) Tableau
3 158 (1.60%) Data Warehouse
4 108 (1.09%) NoSQL
4 108 (1.09%) SQL Server
5 100 (1.01%) Data Lake
6 87 (0.88%) Metadata
7 77 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
8 76 (0.77%) MongoDB
9 73 (0.74%) Big Data
10 43 (0.44%) BigQuery
11 40 (0.40%) MySQL
11 40 (0.40%) Pinecone
12 36 (0.36%) Hadoop
13 35 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
14 34 (0.34%) Relational Database
15 30 (0.30%) Looker
16 29 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 26 (0.26%) Data Mining
18 25 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 135 (1.37%) Git
2 121 (1.22%) JIRA
3 52 (0.53%) MLflow
4 47 (0.48%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.30%) GitLab
6 20 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
7 18 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 18 (0.18%) Octopus Deploy
7 18 (0.18%) Oracle Forms
7 18 (0.18%) TeamCity
8 16 (0.16%) Selenium
9 14 (0.14%) Visual Studio
10 11 (0.11%) Postman
11 9 (0.091%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.091%) Claude Code
12 8 (0.081%) Subversion
12 8 (0.081%) Vite
12 8 (0.081%) WebDriver
13 7 (0.071%) Burp Suite
13 7 (0.071%) Storybook
General
1 5,695 (57.62%) Social Skills
2 4,493 (45.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,227 (42.77%) Banking
4 1,177 (11.91%) Finance
5 1,082 (10.95%) Analytical Skills
6 416 (4.21%) Marketing
7 299 (3.03%) Public Sector
8 278 (2.81%) Law
9 271 (2.74%) Legal
10 229 (2.32%) Retail
11 151 (1.53%) Games
12 130 (1.32%) Manufacturing
13 108 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
14 103 (1.04%) Telecoms
15 94 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
16 81 (0.82%) Financial Institution
17 78 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
18 68 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
19 63 (0.64%) Electronics
20 56 (0.57%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 3,164 (32.01%) Lecturer
2 1,158 (11.72%) Trainer
3 709 (7.17%) Senior
4 662 (6.70%) Analyst
5 522 (5.28%) Data Analyst
6 463 (4.68%) Junior
7 442 (4.47%) Junior Analyst
7 442 (4.47%) Junior Data Analyst
8 435 (4.40%) Lead
9 424 (4.29%) Developer
10 284 (2.87%) Architect
11 219 (2.22%) Consultant
12 181 (1.83%) Software Engineer
13 159 (1.61%) Data Engineer
14 155 (1.57%) Content Editor
15 135 (1.37%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 122 (1.23%) Solutions Architect
17 106 (1.07%) Support Specialist
18 100 (1.01%) Senior Manager
19 98 (0.99%) Customer Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 242 (2.45%) React
2 185 (1.87%) .NET
3 181 (1.83%) REST
4 148 (1.50%) PyTorch
5 124 (1.25%) TensorFlow
6 120 (1.21%) Node.js
6 120 (1.21%) RESTful
7 108 (1.09%) HTML
8 101 (1.02%) LangChain
9 84 (0.85%) FastAPI
10 80 (0.81%) CSS
11 73 (0.74%) AngularJS
11 73 (0.74%) Django
11 73 (0.74%) Kafka
12 71 (0.72%) scikit-learn
13 65 (0.66%) Hugging Face
14 59 (0.60%) Flask
15 58 (0.59%) OAuth
16 57 (0.58%) Next.js
16 57 (0.58%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 4,078 (41.26%) IoT
2 279 (2.82%) Cloud Native
3 187 (1.89%) Onboarding
4 182 (1.84%) Product Ownership
5 159 (1.61%) Robotics
6 157 (1.59%) AI Agents
7 147 (1.49%) Algorithms
8 131 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
9 117 (1.18%) Blog
10 114 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 100 (1.01%) Management Information System
12 97 (0.98%) Molecular Biology
13 96 (0.97%) Life Science
14 95 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
15 94 (0.95%) Low-Code
16 76 (0.77%) Social Media
17 72 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
18 71 (0.72%) Legacy Systems
19 68 (0.69%) Analytical Mindset
20 62 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 86 (0.87%) Windows
2 81 (0.82%) Linux
3 62 (0.63%) Android
4 56 (0.57%) Unix
5 40 (0.40%) Apple iOS
6 31 (0.31%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.17%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.091%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.051%) Kali Linux
9 5 (0.051%) 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%) Debian
13 1 (0.010%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.010%) Solaris
13 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,075 (51.35%) Machine Learning
2 4,338 (43.89%) Cybersecurity
3 4,319 (43.70%) User Experience
4 4,071 (41.19%) Web Development
5 1,257 (12.72%) Conversational UI
6 1,079 (10.92%) Analytics
7 929 (9.40%) Agile
8 861 (8.71%) Business Intelligence
9 748 (7.57%) Problem-Solving
10 640 (6.48%) Roadmaps
11 601 (6.08%) CI/CD
12 597 (6.04%) Decision-Making
13 592 (5.99%) Software Engineering
14 583 (5.90%) Continuous Improvement
15 582 (5.89%) DevOps
16 492 (4.98%) Generative AI
17 475 (4.81%) Data Science
18 467 (4.72%) LLM
19 451 (4.56%) Computer Science
20 406 (4.11%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 1,554 (15.72%) Python
2 1,043 (10.55%) SQL
3 266 (2.69%) JavaScript
4 259 (2.62%) TypeScript
5 217 (2.20%) Java
6 156 (1.58%) C#
7 89 (0.90%) PowerShell
8 81 (0.82%) C++
9 73 (0.74%) Bash
10 70 (0.71%) Go
11 58 (0.59%) R
12 39 (0.39%) PHP
13 35 (0.35%) Rust
14 31 (0.31%) Scala
15 29 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 29 (0.29%) Kotlin
16 24 (0.24%) C
17 23 (0.23%) Apex Code
18 22 (0.22%) PL/SQL
19 18 (0.18%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 6,080 (61.51%) Degree
2 4,783 (48.39%) Master's Degree
3 4,718 (47.73%) PhD
4 4,049 (40.97%) Postgraduate
5 490 (4.96%) Azure Certification
6 331 (3.35%) Security Cleared
7 262 (2.65%) SC Cleared
8 200 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
9 83 (0.84%) AWS Certification
10 81 (0.82%) DV Cleared
11 66 (0.67%) DBS Check
12 48 (0.49%) CISSP
12 48 (0.49%) PMP
13 47 (0.48%) BPSS Clearance
14 37 (0.37%) ACCA
15 36 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
16 33 (0.33%) PMI Certification
17 31 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
18 30 (0.30%) CISA
19 28 (0.28%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (2.28%) Data Quality
2 177 (1.79%) Accessibility
3 139 (1.41%) QA
4 126 (1.27%) GDPR
5 79 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 42 (0.42%) GxP
7 39 (0.39%) EU AI Act
8 35 (0.35%) NIST
9 32 (0.32%) IFRS
10 26 (0.26%) GRC
11 25 (0.25%) HIPAA
11 25 (0.25%) SLA
12 24 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
13 23 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
13 23 (0.23%) WCAG
14 22 (0.22%) PMO
14 22 (0.22%) Solvency II
15 21 (0.21%) PSD2
16 18 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
17 16 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 246 (2.49%) Docker
2 74 (0.75%) Active Directory
3 23 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
4 22 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
6 16 (0.16%) Firmware
7 13 (0.13%) vSphere
8 6 (0.061%) Lustre
9 5 (0.051%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 4 (0.040%) GPFS
10 4 (0.040%) VMware ESXi
11 3 (0.030%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.030%) Kamailio
12 2 (0.020%) Ceph
12 2 (0.020%) NFS
12 2 (0.020%) RACF
13 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 243 (2.46%) Terraform
2 238 (2.41%) Kubernetes
3 54 (0.55%) Ansible
4 48 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
5 46 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
6 37 (0.37%) Prometheus
7 31 (0.31%) Grafana
8 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
9 11 (0.11%) Argo
10 9 (0.091%) Kubeflow
11 8 (0.081%) SCCM
12 7 (0.071%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.061%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 5 (0.051%) Proxmox
15 4 (0.040%) Nessus
15 4 (0.040%) Nmap
15 4 (0.040%) SolarWinds Orion
16 3 (0.030%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
16 3 (0.030%) RSA Archer
17 2 (0.020%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
Vendors
1 1,270 (12.85%) Microsoft
2 1,155 (11.69%) PayPal
3 188 (1.90%) Google
4 173 (1.75%) Databricks
5 121 (1.22%) OpenAI
6 103 (1.04%) Oracle
7 102 (1.03%) Adobe
7 102 (1.03%) Salesforce
8 90 (0.91%) Cisco
9 89 (0.90%) Dell
10 72 (0.73%) SAP
11 47 (0.48%) Alteryx
11 47 (0.48%) Blue Prism
12 45 (0.46%) Palantir
13 44 (0.45%) Foundry
14 39 (0.39%) HubSpot
15 37 (0.37%) Fortinet
16 34 (0.34%) Bloomberg
17 31 (0.31%) Apple
18 30 (0.30%) VMware