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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 51 66
Rank change year-on-year +47 +15 +53
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,545 2,550 2,586
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 15.51% 4.81% 4.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 19.25% 5.29% 4.61%
Number of salaries quoted 2,230 1,236 1,526
10th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £58,750 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,463 £77,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
90th Percentile £118,750 £118,750 £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 49,597 48,194 56,134
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.59% 90.99% 89.24%
Number of salaries quoted 29,262 23,336 43,211
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £30,500
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 £75,246 £80,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £96,250
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 21 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 21 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 8,707 £72,500 -6.45% 4,485
UK excluding London +52 6,878 £59,450 -15.07% 4,012
Work from Home +61 2,729 £67,500 -10.00% 2,366
North of England +51 2,557 £62,500 -8.42% 657
London +35 2,245 £80,000 -11.11% 1,185
North West +43 1,988 £60,709 -12.65% 286
Midlands +100 1,511 £60,000 -7.69% 437
South East +32 1,417 £50,000 -35.06% 1,431
West Midlands +90 1,248 £62,500 +8.70% 174
East of England +75 630 £52,500 -30.92% 596
Yorkshire +56 464 £72,500 +12.71% 262
South West +33 337 £62,500 - 520
Scotland +41 334 £67,500 +13.45% 164
East Midlands +79 273 £42,500 -43.14% 251
Wales +43 121 £55,000 -2.22% 213
North East +55 105 £55,000 -27.63% 113
Northern Ireland -4 46 £90,000 +1.41% 92
Channel Islands - 8 - - 1

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 (1.00%) SharePoint
2 57 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
3 51 (0.53%) Confluence
4 49 (0.51%) Apache Spark
5 40 (0.42%) CMS
6 20 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
6 20 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 16 (0.17%) Apache
7 16 (0.17%) WordPress
8 15 (0.16%) Appian
9 12 (0.13%) JBoss
9 12 (0.13%) Jupyter
9 12 (0.13%) WebSphere
10 9 (0.094%) Apache Solr
11 8 (0.084%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.052%) Apache Pulsar
12 5 (0.052%) IIS
12 5 (0.052%) nginx
12 5 (0.052%) Umbraco
13 4 (0.042%) Drupal
Applications
1 1,206 (12.63%) Chatbot
2 480 (5.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 97 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
4 44 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.22%) Maya
6 12 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.094%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.073%) Adobe Premiere
8 7 (0.073%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.073%) Notion
8 7 (0.073%) Sketch
9 6 (0.063%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.063%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.042%) InDesign
10 4 (0.042%) Weka
11 3 (0.031%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.031%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.031%) Simulink
11 3 (0.031%) UserZoom
12 2 (0.021%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 55 (0.58%) 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
8 6 (0.063%) Distributed Ledger
8 6 (0.063%) Salesforce CRM
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%) Oracle General Ledger
12 2 (0.021%) SAP ERP
12 2 (0.021%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,096 (42.91%) Cloud Computing
2 1,384 (14.50%) Azure
3 750 (7.86%) Power Platform
4 704 (7.38%) AWS
5 440 (4.61%) Azure AI
6 427 (4.47%) SaaS
7 322 (3.37%) GCP
8 224 (2.35%) GitHub
9 208 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
10 175 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
11 120 (1.26%) Snowflake
12 115 (1.20%) GitHub Copilot
13 106 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
14 103 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
14 103 (1.08%) Serverless
15 91 (0.95%) Entra ID
16 88 (0.92%) Power Automate
17 74 (0.78%) Vertex AI
18 66 (0.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 64 (0.67%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 4,060 (42.54%) Internet
2 37 (0.39%) Firewall
3 32 (0.34%) Network Security
4 27 (0.28%) Unified Communications
5 26 (0.27%) Broadband
6 25 (0.26%) VoIP
7 20 (0.21%) VPN
8 16 (0.17%) WAN
9 15 (0.16%) HTTP
9 15 (0.16%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.15%) DNS
10 14 (0.15%) Telepresence
10 14 (0.15%) WebEx
11 13 (0.14%) TCP/IP
12 11 (0.12%) VLAN
13 10 (0.10%) Wireless
14 9 (0.094%) LAN
15 8 (0.084%) DHCP
15 8 (0.084%) InfiniBand
16 7 (0.073%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 602 (6.31%) Power BI
2 466 (4.88%) Tableau
3 154 (1.61%) Data Warehouse
4 116 (1.22%) NoSQL
5 107 (1.12%) SQL Server
6 104 (1.09%) Data Lake
7 79 (0.83%) MongoDB
8 78 (0.82%) Metadata
9 77 (0.81%) PostgreSQL
10 69 (0.72%) Big Data
11 43 (0.45%) MySQL
12 42 (0.44%) BigQuery
13 35 (0.37%) Pinecone
14 34 (0.36%) Hadoop
14 34 (0.36%) Relational Database
15 31 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 30 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
16 30 (0.31%) Looker
17 28 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
18 24 (0.25%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 136 (1.42%) Git
2 128 (1.34%) JIRA
3 51 (0.53%) Jenkins
4 48 (0.50%) MLflow
5 28 (0.29%) GitLab
6 21 (0.22%) Octopus Deploy
6 21 (0.22%) TeamCity
7 19 (0.20%) Cypress.io
8 18 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
9 13 (0.14%) Visual Studio
10 12 (0.13%) Selenium
11 9 (0.094%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.094%) Vite
12 8 (0.084%) Postman
12 8 (0.084%) Subversion
13 7 (0.073%) Burp Suite
13 7 (0.073%) Storybook
13 7 (0.073%) WebDriver
14 6 (0.063%) JMeter
14 6 (0.063%) JUnit
General
1 5,572 (58.38%) Social Skills
2 4,494 (47.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,215 (44.16%) Banking
4 1,121 (11.74%) Finance
5 1,090 (11.42%) Analytical Skills
6 386 (4.04%) Marketing
7 289 (3.03%) Public Sector
8 279 (2.92%) Law
9 263 (2.76%) Legal
10 201 (2.11%) Retail
11 123 (1.29%) Games
12 110 (1.15%) Manufacturing
13 105 (1.10%) Telecoms
14 96 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
15 93 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
16 75 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
16 75 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
17 74 (0.78%) Financial Institution
18 64 (0.67%) Aviation
19 63 (0.66%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 3,162 (33.13%) Lecturer
2 1,163 (12.18%) Trainer
3 674 (7.06%) Senior
4 547 (5.73%) Analyst
5 405 (4.24%) Data Analyst
6 395 (4.14%) Developer
7 386 (4.04%) Lead
8 355 (3.72%) Junior
9 331 (3.47%) Junior Analyst
9 331 (3.47%) Junior Data Analyst
10 260 (2.72%) Architect
11 219 (2.29%) Consultant
12 177 (1.85%) Software Engineer
13 155 (1.62%) Content Editor
14 153 (1.60%) Data Engineer
15 135 (1.41%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 106 (1.11%) Solutions Architect
16 106 (1.11%) Support Specialist
17 98 (1.03%) Customer Support Specialist
18 91 (0.95%) Research Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 235 (2.46%) React
2 179 (1.88%) .NET
3 177 (1.85%) REST
4 141 (1.48%) PyTorch
5 122 (1.28%) TensorFlow
6 118 (1.24%) Node.js
7 112 (1.17%) LangChain
8 109 (1.14%) RESTful
9 94 (0.98%) HTML
10 85 (0.89%) FastAPI
11 73 (0.76%) AngularJS
12 71 (0.74%) Kafka
13 69 (0.72%) Django
14 68 (0.71%) CSS
15 62 (0.65%) Vue
16 57 (0.60%) scikit-learn
17 54 (0.57%) Flask
18 53 (0.56%) Next.js
19 52 (0.54%) OAuth
20 50 (0.52%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 4,076 (42.70%) IoT
2 268 (2.81%) Cloud Native
3 189 (1.98%) Product Ownership
4 175 (1.83%) Onboarding
5 154 (1.61%) AI Agents
6 148 (1.55%) Robotics
7 130 (1.36%) Algorithms
8 127 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
9 121 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
10 112 (1.17%) Blog
11 99 (1.04%) Management Information System
12 97 (1.02%) Molecular Biology
13 94 (0.98%) Life Science
14 91 (0.95%) Low-Code
15 88 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
16 84 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
17 70 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
17 70 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
18 64 (0.67%) Virtual Team
19 55 (0.58%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 76 (0.80%) Windows
2 73 (0.76%) Linux
3 59 (0.62%) Android
4 54 (0.57%) Unix
5 37 (0.39%) 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
11 2 (0.021%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.021%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.021%) VMS
11 2 (0.021%) zOS
12 1 (0.010%) Debian
12 1 (0.010%) Solaris
12 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,057 (52.98%) Machine Learning
2 4,333 (45.40%) Cybersecurity
3 4,314 (45.20%) User Experience
4 4,070 (42.64%) Web Development
5 1,253 (13.13%) Conversational UI
6 1,002 (10.50%) Analytics
7 911 (9.54%) Agile
8 750 (7.86%) Problem-Solving
9 736 (7.71%) Business Intelligence
10 591 (6.19%) Roadmaps
11 582 (6.10%) DevOps
12 569 (5.96%) CI/CD
13 564 (5.91%) Software Engineering
14 558 (5.85%) Decision-Making
15 539 (5.65%) Continuous Improvement
16 474 (4.97%) Generative AI
17 469 (4.91%) Data Science
18 462 (4.84%) Computer Science
19 448 (4.69%) LLM
20 395 (4.14%) Chemistry
Programming Languages
1 1,358 (14.23%) Python
2 934 (9.79%) SQL
3 249 (2.61%) TypeScript
4 246 (2.58%) JavaScript
5 198 (2.07%) Java
6 145 (1.52%) C#
7 84 (0.88%) PowerShell
8 75 (0.79%) C++
9 63 (0.66%) Bash
10 60 (0.63%) R
11 58 (0.61%) Go
12 36 (0.38%) PHP
13 34 (0.36%) Rust
14 31 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 31 (0.32%) Scala
15 28 (0.29%) Kotlin
16 24 (0.25%) Apex Code
17 21 (0.22%) C
17 21 (0.22%) PL/SQL
18 20 (0.21%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 6,099 (63.90%) Degree
2 4,805 (50.34%) Master's Degree
3 4,730 (49.55%) PhD
4 4,049 (42.42%) Postgraduate
5 373 (3.91%) Azure Certification
6 321 (3.36%) Security Cleared
7 258 (2.70%) SC Cleared
8 218 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
9 79 (0.83%) DV Cleared
10 59 (0.62%) AWS Certification
11 56 (0.59%) DBS Check
12 47 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
12 47 (0.49%) PMP
13 43 (0.45%) CISSP
14 37 (0.39%) ACCA
15 34 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
16 32 (0.34%) PMI Certification
17 30 (0.31%) CISA
17 30 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
18 28 (0.29%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 220 (2.30%) Data Quality
2 134 (1.40%) Accessibility
3 129 (1.35%) QA
4 110 (1.15%) GDPR
5 72 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 43 (0.45%) GxP
7 40 (0.42%) EU AI Act
8 34 (0.36%) NIST
9 30 (0.31%) IFRS
9 30 (0.31%) SLA
10 24 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
10 24 (0.25%) HIPAA
11 23 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
12 22 (0.23%) Solvency II
13 21 (0.22%) PSD2
14 20 (0.21%) GRC
14 20 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 20 (0.21%) PMO
15 19 (0.20%) WCAG
16 18 (0.19%) GAAP
System Software
1 237 (2.48%) Docker
2 65 (0.68%) Active Directory
3 22 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
4 20 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
6 15 (0.16%) Firmware
7 12 (0.13%) vSphere
8 7 (0.073%) Lustre
9 6 (0.063%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.052%) GPFS
10 5 (0.052%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 4 (0.042%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.021%) Ceph
12 2 (0.021%) NFS
12 2 (0.021%) RACF
13 1 (0.010%) Kamailio
13 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 231 (2.42%) Terraform
2 217 (2.27%) Kubernetes
3 51 (0.53%) Ansible
4 50 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
5 42 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
6 29 (0.30%) Prometheus
7 21 (0.22%) Grafana
8 14 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
9 10 (0.10%) Kubeflow
10 8 (0.084%) Argo
10 8 (0.084%) SCCM
11 5 (0.052%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.042%) Nessus
12 4 (0.042%) Nmap
12 4 (0.042%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.031%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
13 3 (0.031%) RSA Archer
14 2 (0.021%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
14 2 (0.021%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.021%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 1,162 (12.17%) PayPal
2 1,122 (11.75%) Microsoft
3 187 (1.96%) Google
4 170 (1.78%) Databricks
5 116 (1.22%) OpenAI
6 103 (1.08%) Oracle
7 100 (1.05%) Cisco
7 100 (1.05%) Salesforce
8 88 (0.92%) Adobe
8 88 (0.92%) Dell
9 70 (0.73%) SAP
10 49 (0.51%) Alteryx
11 47 (0.49%) Blue Prism
11 47 (0.49%) Foundry
12 45 (0.47%) HubSpot
13 42 (0.44%) Apple
14 40 (0.42%) Fortinet
14 40 (0.42%) Palantir
15 38 (0.40%) Palo Alto
16 34 (0.36%) Bloomberg