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

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 39 62
Rank change year-on-year +35 +23 +56
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,882 2,587 3,214
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 13.99% 5.68% 4.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.80% 6.09% 4.64%
Number of salaries quoted 2,498 1,318 1,749
10th Percentile £33,750 £45,000 £41,850
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 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £115,000 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £58,932 £66,254 £60,000
% change year-on-year -11.05% +10.42% -7.69%

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 55,531 42,488 69,308
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.63% 93.22% 87.90%
Number of salaries quoted 33,358 21,624 53,124
10th Percentile £29,000 £32,750 £29,250
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £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 £76,900 £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 3 March 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 3 March 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 +36 9,053 £70,000 -6.67% 4,282
UK excluding London +37 7,089 £58,932 -11.05% 2,988
North of England +44 2,616 £60,000 -11.11% 644
Work from Home +32 2,505 £67,500 +1.86% 2,139
London +33 2,325 £80,939 -12.50% 1,763
North West +41 1,975 £61,418 -13.80% 312
Midlands +83 1,542 £55,000 -13.73% 351
South East +37 1,472 £50,000 -33.33% 991
West Midlands +84 1,260 £55,000 -4.35% 160
East of England +22 686 £55,000 -16.96% 431
Yorkshire +43 535 £57,500 -9.67% 256
South West +14 372 £62,500 -3.85% 345
East Midlands +64 293 £50,000 -23.08% 185
Scotland +22 282 £70,000 +21.74% 141
Wales +37 121 £47,500 -15.56% 103
North East +41 106 £55,000 -26.42% 80
Northern Ireland -6 57 £90,000 -5.26% 48
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 88 (0.89%) SharePoint
2 81 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
3 78 (0.79%) Apache Spark
4 61 (0.62%) Jupyter
5 50 (0.51%) Confluence
6 47 (0.48%) CMS
7 36 (0.36%) Apache
8 30 (0.30%) ArcGIS
9 23 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
10 22 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
11 19 (0.19%) WordPress
12 17 (0.17%) Appian
13 15 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 13 (0.13%) JBoss
14 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
15 8 (0.081%) SAS
16 6 (0.061%) Apache Solr
17 5 (0.051%) Apache Pulsar
17 5 (0.051%) IIS
17 5 (0.051%) Umbraco
Applications
1 942 (9.53%) Chatbot
2 751 (7.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 87 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
4 45 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.16%) Maya
8 14 (0.14%) UserZoom
9 6 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
10 5 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
10 5 (0.051%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 4 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.040%) Weka
12 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.030%) Simulink
12 3 (0.030%) Sketch
13 2 (0.020%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.020%) CapCut
14 1 (0.010%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 39 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.18%) NetSuite
3 17 (0.17%) 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%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 2 (0.020%) Dynamics GP
11 2 (0.020%) Maximo
11 2 (0.020%) SAP FI/CO
11 2 (0.020%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,150 (42.00%) Cloud Computing
2 1,668 (16.88%) Azure
3 1,034 (10.46%) Power Platform
4 763 (7.72%) AWS
5 708 (7.16%) Azure AI
6 444 (4.49%) SaaS
7 320 (3.24%) GCP
8 217 (2.20%) GitHub
9 194 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
10 186 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
11 126 (1.28%) Snowflake
12 110 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
13 108 (1.09%) Microsoft Copilot
14 107 (1.08%) GitHub Copilot
15 105 (1.06%) Serverless
16 102 (1.03%) Entra ID
17 99 (1.00%) Power Automate
18 89 (0.90%) Adobe Analytics
19 69 (0.70%) PaaS
20 65 (0.66%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4,059 (41.07%) Internet
2 140 (1.42%) Broadband
3 53 (0.54%) Firewall
4 33 (0.33%) Network Security
5 32 (0.32%) Unified Communications
6 26 (0.26%) VPN
7 25 (0.25%) VoIP
8 21 (0.21%) 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
1 878 (8.88%) Power BI
2 752 (7.61%) Tableau
3 148 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
4 103 (1.04%) SQL Server
5 96 (0.97%) Data Lake
6 92 (0.93%) Metadata
7 89 (0.90%) NoSQL
8 84 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
9 75 (0.76%) MongoDB
10 71 (0.72%) Big Data
11 41 (0.41%) BigQuery
12 38 (0.38%) MySQL
13 37 (0.37%) Pinecone
14 33 (0.33%) Relational Database
15 32 (0.32%) GIS
16 31 (0.31%) Looker
17 30 (0.30%) Apache Hive
17 30 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
17 30 (0.30%) Hadoop
18 28 (0.28%) Redis
Development Applications
1 158 (1.60%) Git
2 106 (1.07%) JIRA
3 54 (0.55%) MLflow
3 54 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
4 47 (0.48%) Jenkins
5 34 (0.34%) GitLab
6 23 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
7 20 (0.20%) Cypress.io
8 18 (0.18%) Selenium
9 15 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
9 15 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 15 (0.15%) TeamCity
10 13 (0.13%) Postman
11 12 (0.12%) Claude Code
11 12 (0.12%) Visual Studio
12 10 (0.10%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.091%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.091%) Storybook
14 8 (0.081%) Subversion
14 8 (0.081%) Vite
General
1 5,827 (58.97%) Social Skills
2 4,483 (45.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,252 (43.03%) Banking
4 1,221 (12.36%) Finance
5 994 (10.06%) Analytical Skills
6 400 (4.05%) Marketing
7 308 (3.12%) Public Sector
8 294 (2.98%) Legal
9 265 (2.68%) Law
10 256 (2.59%) Retail
11 216 (2.19%) Games
12 170 (1.72%) Manufacturing
13 110 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
14 106 (1.07%) Telecoms
15 91 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
16 90 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
17 86 (0.87%) Financial Institution
18 74 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
19 56 (0.57%) Electronics
20 48 (0.49%) German Language
Job Titles
1 3,160 (31.98%) Lecturer
2 862 (8.72%) Trainer
3 844 (8.54%) Analyst
4 712 (7.21%) Senior
5 688 (6.96%) Data Analyst
6 627 (6.34%) Junior
7 606 (6.13%) Junior Analyst
7 606 (6.13%) Junior Data Analyst
8 483 (4.89%) Lead
9 417 (4.22%) Developer
10 290 (2.93%) Architect
11 253 (2.56%) Consultant
12 189 (1.91%) Software Engineer
13 158 (1.60%) Data Engineer
14 131 (1.33%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 125 (1.26%) Solutions Architect
16 103 (1.04%) Data Scientist
17 102 (1.03%) Content Editor
18 92 (0.93%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 92 (0.93%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (2.39%) React
2 177 (1.79%) .NET
3 165 (1.67%) PyTorch
4 163 (1.65%) REST
5 129 (1.31%) TensorFlow
6 121 (1.22%) RESTful
7 112 (1.13%) Node.js
8 108 (1.09%) HTML
9 103 (1.04%) scikit-learn
10 100 (1.01%) Pandas
11 95 (0.96%) Hugging Face
12 86 (0.87%) LangChain
13 84 (0.85%) FastAPI
14 82 (0.83%) CSS
15 79 (0.80%) Django
16 77 (0.78%) Kafka
17 74 (0.75%) NumPy
18 70 (0.71%) AngularJS
19 63 (0.64%) Spring
20 58 (0.59%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 4,085 (41.34%) IoT
2 271 (2.74%) Cloud Native
3 190 (1.92%) Onboarding
4 188 (1.90%) Algorithms
5 164 (1.66%) Product Ownership
6 160 (1.62%) AI Agents
7 147 (1.49%) Robotics
8 134 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
9 133 (1.35%) Social Media
10 126 (1.28%) Blog
11 107 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
12 103 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
13 100 (1.01%) Management Information System
14 92 (0.93%) Life Science
15 90 (0.91%) Low-Code
16 89 (0.90%) Molecular Biology
17 73 (0.74%) Mobile App
18 71 (0.72%) Greenfield Project
19 64 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
20 62 (0.63%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 86 (0.87%) Linux
1 86 (0.87%) Windows
2 83 (0.84%) Android
3 60 (0.61%) Unix
4 56 (0.57%) Apple iOS
5 28 (0.28%) Windows Server
6 18 (0.18%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.091%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.051%) VMS
9 4 (0.040%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
9 4 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (0.030%) OpenWrt
11 2 (0.020%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.020%) zOS
12 1 (0.010%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.010%) Solaris
12 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,094 (51.55%) Machine Learning
2 4,329 (43.81%) Cybersecurity
3 4,316 (43.68%) User Experience
4 4,071 (41.20%) Web Development
5 1,146 (11.60%) Analytics
6 1,018 (10.30%) Business Intelligence
7 992 (10.04%) Conversational UI
8 960 (9.71%) Agile
9 722 (7.31%) Problem-Solving
10 701 (7.09%) Roadmaps
11 636 (6.44%) CI/CD
12 600 (6.07%) Decision-Making
13 582 (5.89%) Software Engineering
14 567 (5.74%) Continuous Improvement
15 550 (5.57%) DevOps
16 516 (5.22%) LLM
17 506 (5.12%) Data Science
18 493 (4.99%) Generative AI
19 453 (4.58%) Mentoring
20 430 (4.35%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 1,792 (18.13%) Python
2 1,214 (12.28%) SQL
3 250 (2.53%) JavaScript
4 238 (2.41%) Java
4 238 (2.41%) TypeScript
5 165 (1.67%) C#
6 85 (0.86%) C++
7 77 (0.78%) PowerShell
8 67 (0.68%) Bash
9 64 (0.65%) Go
10 55 (0.56%) R
11 38 (0.38%) PHP
12 35 (0.35%) Kotlin
12 35 (0.35%) Rust
13 27 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 24 (0.24%) Scala
15 23 (0.23%) Apex Code
16 22 (0.22%) C
17 18 (0.18%) PL/SQL
18 16 (0.16%) Swift
Qualifications
1 5,749 (58.18%) Degree
2 4,698 (47.54%) Master's Degree
3 4,638 (46.93%) PhD
4 4,051 (40.99%) Postgraduate
5 657 (6.65%) Azure Certification
6 339 (3.43%) Security Cleared
7 250 (2.53%) SC Cleared
8 191 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
9 114 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 89 (0.90%) DV Cleared
11 67 (0.68%) DBS Check
12 51 (0.52%) CISSP
13 50 (0.51%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 50 (0.51%) PMP
14 47 (0.48%) BPSS Clearance
15 43 (0.44%) ACCA
16 35 (0.35%) PMI Certification
17 34 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
18 32 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
19 31 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (2.58%) Accessibility
2 244 (2.47%) Data Quality
3 149 (1.51%) QA
4 136 (1.38%) GDPR
5 77 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 44 (0.45%) EU AI Act
7 43 (0.44%) WCAG
8 38 (0.38%) GxP
8 38 (0.38%) NIST
9 36 (0.36%) HIPAA
10 35 (0.35%) IFRS
11 30 (0.30%) GRC
12 24 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
12 24 (0.24%) 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
1 259 (2.62%) Docker
2 78 (0.79%) Active Directory
3 19 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (0.16%) Firmware
5 15 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
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
1 249 (2.52%) Kubernetes
2 229 (2.32%) Terraform
3 54 (0.55%) Ansible
4 44 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
5 40 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 40 (0.40%) Prometheus
6 36 (0.36%) Grafana
7 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
8 10 (0.10%) Argo
9 7 (0.071%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.061%) Proxmox
11 5 (0.051%) Kubeflow
11 5 (0.051%) SCCM
12 4 (0.040%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.040%) Nessus
12 4 (0.040%) Nmap
12 4 (0.040%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.040%) SolarWinds Orion
13 3 (0.030%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
13 3 (0.030%) Control-M
Vendors
1 1,432 (14.49%) Microsoft
2 856 (8.66%) PayPal
3 188 (1.90%) Google
4 179 (1.81%) Databricks
5 142 (1.44%) Adobe
6 116 (1.17%) Oracle
7 115 (1.16%) OpenAI
8 101 (1.02%) Dell
9 96 (0.97%) Salesforce
10 92 (0.93%) Cisco
11 71 (0.72%) SAP
12 48 (0.49%) Alteryx
13 47 (0.48%) Foundry
13 47 (0.48%) Palantir
14 44 (0.45%) Blue Prism
15 38 (0.38%) ServiceNow
16 34 (0.34%) Bloomberg
16 34 (0.34%) HubSpot
17 33 (0.33%) Fortinet
18 31 (0.31%) Red Hat