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

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 36 58
Rank change year-on-year +32 +22 +63
Permanent jobs citing AI 10,026 2,626 3,442
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 13.60% 6.01% 4.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.42% 6.43% 4.69%
Number of salaries quoted 2,600 1,390 1,854
10th Percentile £33,750 £37,500 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,414 £57,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £72,500 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.45% +3.57% -
75th Percentile £93,750 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £110,000 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £58,932 £66,219 £60,000
% change year-on-year -11.01% +10.37% -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 57,551 40,867 73,360
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.05% 93.60% 87.39%
Number of salaries quoted 34,815 22,139 55,867
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £39,860 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.41%
75th Percentile £76,299 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £94,006
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 13 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 13 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 +32 9,189 £70,000 -6.67% 2,952
UK excluding London +30 7,164 £58,932 -11.01% 1,844
North of England +40 2,654 £61,418 -5.51% 450
Work from Home +31 2,449 £67,500 +1.89% 1,356
London +32 2,378 £80,939 -12.50% 1,596
North West +35 1,978 £61,418 -15.29% 233
Midlands +78 1,575 £55,000 -15.38% 203
South East +33 1,429 £50,000 -33.33% 657
West Midlands +71 1,278 £55,000 -8.33% 105
East of England +21 720 £55,000 -16.95% 185
Yorkshire +35 565 £62,500 +36.61% 167
South West +12 381 £60,000 -5.88% 199
East Midlands +58 308 £50,000 -23.08% 96
Scotland +19 278 £70,000 +55.56% 107
Wales +40 121 £47,500 -24.00% 56
North East +41 111 £55,000 -24.14% 52
Northern Ireland +2 60 £90,000 -10.00% 23
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 93 (0.93%) SharePoint
2 92 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
3 89 (0.89%) Apache Spark
4 65 (0.65%) Jupyter
5 53 (0.53%) Confluence
6 52 (0.52%) CMS
7 38 (0.38%) Apache
8 30 (0.30%) ArcGIS
9 28 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
10 22 (0.22%) WordPress
11 20 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
12 17 (0.17%) Appian
13 13 (0.13%) JBoss
13 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
14 12 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 8 (0.080%) SAS
16 5 (0.050%) Apache Pulsar
16 5 (0.050%) Apache Solr
16 5 (0.050%) IIS
16 5 (0.050%) Umbraco
Applications
1 896 (8.94%) Chatbot
2 845 (8.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 87 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
4 49 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 22 (0.22%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.15%) UserZoom
8 11 (0.11%) Maya
9 7 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
10 6 (0.060%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.060%) Microsoft Project
10 6 (0.060%) Photoshop
11 5 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.040%) Camtasia
12 4 (0.040%) CapCut
12 4 (0.040%) Weka
13 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
13 3 (0.030%) Sketch
14 1 (0.010%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 39 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.18%) NetSuite
3 16 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
4 14 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
5 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
6 10 (0.100%) Workday HCM
7 8 (0.080%) Distributed Ledger
7 8 (0.080%) Endur
7 8 (0.080%) Shopify
8 7 (0.070%) Oracle EBS
8 7 (0.070%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.040%) Dynamics AX
9 4 (0.040%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.040%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 3 (0.030%) Oracle Assets
11 2 (0.020%) Dynamics GP
11 2 (0.020%) Oracle Cash Management
11 2 (0.020%) SAP Business One
11 2 (0.020%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,149 (41.38%) Cloud Computing
2 1,781 (17.76%) Azure
3 1,130 (11.27%) Power Platform
4 826 (8.24%) Azure AI
5 781 (7.79%) AWS
6 456 (4.55%) SaaS
7 324 (3.23%) GCP
8 214 (2.13%) GitHub
9 197 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
10 179 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
11 136 (1.36%) Snowflake
12 119 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
13 114 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
14 111 (1.11%) Adobe Analytics
15 110 (1.10%) GitHub Copilot
16 107 (1.07%) Serverless
17 102 (1.02%) Power Automate
18 100 (1.00%) Entra ID
19 82 (0.82%) Figma
20 74 (0.74%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 4,055 (40.44%) Internet
2 170 (1.70%) Broadband
3 54 (0.54%) Firewall
4 32 (0.32%) Unified Communications
5 29 (0.29%) Network Security
6 28 (0.28%) VPN
7 21 (0.21%) VoIP
8 20 (0.20%) WAN
9 18 (0.18%) HTTP
9 18 (0.18%) TCP/IP
10 16 (0.16%) DNS
11 14 (0.14%) Telepresence
11 14 (0.14%) WebEx
12 12 (0.12%) DHCP
13 11 (0.11%) VLAN
14 10 (0.100%) Wi-Fi
15 8 (0.080%) SD-WAN
16 6 (0.060%) DMZ
16 6 (0.060%) RTP
16 6 (0.060%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 983 (9.80%) Power BI
2 864 (8.62%) Tableau
3 162 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
4 116 (1.16%) Data Lake
5 101 (1.01%) SQL Server
6 90 (0.90%) Metadata
7 85 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
8 80 (0.80%) NoSQL
9 77 (0.77%) MongoDB
10 67 (0.67%) Big Data
11 51 (0.51%) BigQuery
12 41 (0.41%) Looker
13 39 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
14 38 (0.38%) MySQL
15 37 (0.37%) Pinecone
16 32 (0.32%) Apache Hive
16 32 (0.32%) Azure SQL Database
16 32 (0.32%) GIS
16 32 (0.32%) Relational Database
17 31 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 161 (1.61%) Git
2 101 (1.01%) JIRA
3 62 (0.62%) MLflow
4 58 (0.58%) Visual Studio Code
5 45 (0.45%) Jenkins
6 33 (0.33%) GitLab
7 25 (0.25%) IBM UrbanCode
8 23 (0.23%) Selenium
9 22 (0.22%) Cypress.io
10 20 (0.20%) Claude Code
11 15 (0.15%) Postman
12 14 (0.14%) TeamCity
13 13 (0.13%) Octopus Deploy
14 12 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
14 12 (0.12%) Visual Studio
15 10 (0.100%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.090%) SpecFlow
16 9 (0.090%) Storybook
17 8 (0.080%) JMeter
17 8 (0.080%) Vite
General
1 5,916 (59.01%) Social Skills
2 4,478 (44.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,255 (42.44%) Banking
4 1,187 (11.84%) Finance
5 921 (9.19%) Analytical Skills
6 403 (4.02%) Marketing
7 312 (3.11%) Public Sector
8 306 (3.05%) Legal
9 263 (2.62%) Retail
10 262 (2.61%) Law
11 235 (2.34%) Games
12 172 (1.72%) Manufacturing
13 115 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
14 106 (1.06%) Telecoms
15 97 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
16 85 (0.85%) Financial Institution
17 84 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
18 83 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
19 50 (0.50%) Electronics
20 48 (0.48%) German Language
Job Titles
1 3,162 (31.54%) Lecturer
2 939 (9.37%) Analyst
3 812 (8.10%) Trainer
4 788 (7.86%) Data Analyst
5 741 (7.39%) Junior
6 735 (7.33%) Senior
7 717 (7.15%) Junior Analyst
7 717 (7.15%) Junior Data Analyst
8 509 (5.08%) Lead
9 426 (4.25%) Developer
10 306 (3.05%) Architect
11 268 (2.67%) Consultant
12 189 (1.89%) Software Engineer
13 158 (1.58%) Data Engineer
14 139 (1.39%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 135 (1.35%) Solutions Architect
16 102 (1.02%) Content Editor
16 102 (1.02%) Data Scientist
17 91 (0.91%) Senior Manager
18 88 (0.88%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (2.43%) React
2 171 (1.71%) PyTorch
3 168 (1.68%) .NET
4 157 (1.57%) REST
5 135 (1.35%) TensorFlow
6 123 (1.23%) HTML
6 123 (1.23%) Node.js
7 122 (1.22%) RESTful
8 113 (1.13%) scikit-learn
9 103 (1.03%) Pandas
10 95 (0.95%) CSS
10 95 (0.95%) LangChain
11 93 (0.93%) Hugging Face
12 88 (0.88%) Kafka
13 84 (0.84%) FastAPI
14 77 (0.77%) NumPy
15 75 (0.75%) Django
16 67 (0.67%) AngularJS
17 63 (0.63%) Spring
18 62 (0.62%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 4,081 (40.70%) IoT
2 286 (2.85%) Cloud Native
3 203 (2.02%) Onboarding
4 184 (1.84%) Algorithms
5 169 (1.69%) AI Agents
6 167 (1.67%) Product Ownership
7 162 (1.62%) Social Media
8 142 (1.42%) Robotics
9 138 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
10 128 (1.28%) Blog
11 102 (1.02%) Distributed Systems
12 100 (1.00%) Management Information System
13 99 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
14 91 (0.91%) Low-Code
15 89 (0.89%) Molecular Biology
16 88 (0.88%) Life Science
17 82 (0.82%) Mobile App
18 64 (0.64%) Public Cloud
19 62 (0.62%) Virtual Team
20 61 (0.61%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 89 (0.89%) Windows
2 88 (0.88%) Android
2 88 (0.88%) Linux
3 60 (0.60%) Unix
4 59 (0.59%) Apple iOS
5 29 (0.29%) Windows Server
6 16 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.090%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.050%) VMS
9 4 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
9 4 (0.040%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (0.030%) Kali Linux
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 5,113 (51.00%) Machine Learning
2 4,322 (43.11%) User Experience
3 4,321 (43.10%) Cybersecurity
4 4,072 (40.61%) Web Development
5 1,191 (11.88%) Analytics
6 1,134 (11.31%) Business Intelligence
7 953 (9.51%) Conversational UI
8 950 (9.48%) Agile
9 727 (7.25%) Problem-Solving
10 707 (7.05%) Roadmaps
11 652 (6.50%) CI/CD
12 611 (6.09%) Decision-Making
13 595 (5.93%) Continuous Improvement
14 574 (5.73%) Software Engineering
15 551 (5.50%) DevOps
16 523 (5.22%) LLM
17 520 (5.19%) Data Science
18 515 (5.14%) Generative AI
19 466 (4.65%) Mentoring
20 402 (4.01%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 1,924 (19.19%) Python
2 1,325 (13.22%) SQL
3 248 (2.47%) JavaScript
4 242 (2.41%) Java
5 229 (2.28%) TypeScript
6 174 (1.74%) C#
7 81 (0.81%) C++
8 72 (0.72%) PowerShell
9 66 (0.66%) Bash
9 66 (0.66%) Go
10 54 (0.54%) R
11 41 (0.41%) Kotlin
12 37 (0.37%) PHP
13 32 (0.32%) Rust
14 26 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 24 (0.24%) Scala
16 22 (0.22%) Apex Code
17 18 (0.18%) C
17 18 (0.18%) Swift
18 15 (0.15%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 5,667 (56.52%) Degree
2 4,638 (46.26%) Master's Degree
3 4,584 (45.72%) PhD
4 4,052 (40.41%) Postgraduate
5 771 (7.69%) Azure Certification
6 312 (3.11%) Security Cleared
7 216 (2.15%) SC Cleared
8 185 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
9 117 (1.17%) AWS Certification
10 96 (0.96%) DV Cleared
11 71 (0.71%) DBS Check
12 54 (0.54%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 51 (0.51%) PMP
14 50 (0.50%) CISSP
15 44 (0.44%) ACCA
16 39 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
17 36 (0.36%) PMI Certification
18 32 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
19 31 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
20 29 (0.29%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 288 (2.87%) Accessibility
2 253 (2.52%) Data Quality
3 156 (1.56%) QA
4 142 (1.42%) GDPR
5 71 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 48 (0.48%) WCAG
7 45 (0.45%) EU AI Act
8 37 (0.37%) HIPAA
8 37 (0.37%) NIST
9 36 (0.36%) GRC
9 36 (0.36%) IFRS
10 32 (0.32%) GxP
11 25 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
12 24 (0.24%) PMO
12 24 (0.24%) Solvency II
13 23 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
14 22 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 22 (0.22%) SLA
15 21 (0.21%) PSD2
16 17 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 259 (2.58%) Docker
2 81 (0.81%) Active Directory
3 15 (0.15%) Firmware
3 15 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 11 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.100%) vSphere
7 4 (0.040%) Lustre
7 4 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.030%) Kamailio
8 3 (0.030%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.020%) Ceph
9 2 (0.020%) GPFS
9 2 (0.020%) RACF
10 1 (0.010%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.010%) NFS
10 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 249 (2.48%) Kubernetes
2 218 (2.17%) Terraform
3 59 (0.59%) Ansible
4 42 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
5 41 (0.41%) Prometheus
6 38 (0.38%) Grafana
7 37 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
8 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
9 9 (0.090%) Argo
10 7 (0.070%) Proxmox
10 7 (0.070%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.060%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.040%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.040%) Control-M
12 4 (0.040%) RSA Archer
12 4 (0.040%) SolarWinds Orion
13 3 (0.030%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
13 3 (0.030%) HP Fortify
13 3 (0.030%) SCCM
14 2 (0.020%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
Vendors
1 1,538 (15.34%) Microsoft
2 803 (8.01%) PayPal
3 202 (2.01%) Databricks
4 189 (1.89%) Google
5 166 (1.66%) Adobe
6 115 (1.15%) OpenAI
7 114 (1.14%) Dell
8 109 (1.09%) Oracle
9 94 (0.94%) Salesforce
10 83 (0.83%) Cisco
11 71 (0.71%) SAP
12 55 (0.55%) Foundry
13 54 (0.54%) Palantir
14 47 (0.47%) Alteryx
15 43 (0.43%) ServiceNow
16 33 (0.33%) Bloomberg
17 31 (0.31%) Apple
17 31 (0.31%) Red Hat
18 30 (0.30%) Fortinet
18 30 (0.30%) Informatica