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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 41 68
Rank change year-on-year +37 +27 +55
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,775 2,641 3,022
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 14.18% 5.49% 4.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.95% 5.92% 4.53%
Number of salaries quoted 2,449 1,338 1,699
10th Percentile £33,750 £45,000 £42,500
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 £97,500 £92,500
90th Percentile £115,000 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,450 £66,254 £62,500
% change year-on-year -10.27% +6.01% -2.39%

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 54,457 44,608 66,712
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.02% 92.69% 88.37%
Number of salaries quoted 32,644 22,001 51,499
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,797 £29,429
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,750 £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 £76,000 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.97%

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 23 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 23 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 +37 8,944 £70,000 -6.67% 2,315
UK excluding London +40 7,031 £59,450 -10.27% 1,557
North of England +49 2,592 £60,000 -10.81% 338
Work from Home +35 2,503 £67,500 +1.85% 1,225
London +33 2,287 £80,939 -11.06% 1,204
North West +42 1,978 £61,418 -10.66% 187
Midlands +88 1,523 £55,000 -13.73% 184
South East +36 1,473 £50,000 -33.33% 593
West Midlands +78 1,249 £55,000 -4.35% 106
East of England +25 671 £55,000 -16.96% 158
Yorkshire +41 512 £61,250 -2.00% 102
South West +18 363 £62,500 -3.85% 169
Scotland +33 299 £70,000 +21.74% 89
East Midlands +70 285 £50,000 -23.08% 75
Wales +41 118 £50,335 +0.67% 41
North East +42 102 £55,000 -24.14% 50
Northern Ireland -9 55 £90,000 -5.26% 11
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 90 (0.92%) SharePoint
2 61 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
3 58 (0.59%) Jupyter
4 54 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 46 (0.47%) Confluence
6 44 (0.45%) CMS
7 25 (0.26%) ArcGIS
8 24 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
9 22 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
10 18 (0.18%) WordPress
11 17 (0.17%) Appian
11 17 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 16 (0.16%) Apache
13 13 (0.13%) JBoss
13 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
14 7 (0.072%) SAS
15 6 (0.061%) Apache Solr
16 5 (0.051%) Apache Pulsar
16 5 (0.051%) IIS
16 5 (0.051%) Umbraco
Applications
1 959 (9.81%) Chatbot
2 700 (7.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 89 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
4 43 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.17%) Maya
6 16 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.10%) MS Visio
8 6 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
9 5 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
9 5 (0.051%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.051%) UserZoom
10 4 (0.041%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 4 (0.041%) Weka
11 3 (0.031%) Adobe Illustrator
11 3 (0.031%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.031%) Simulink
11 3 (0.031%) Sketch
12 1 (0.010%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.010%) CapCut
12 1 (0.010%) Notion
Business Applications
1 42 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.19%) NetSuite
3 18 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
4 13 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
5 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
6 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
7 8 (0.082%) Distributed Ledger
7 8 (0.082%) Endur
7 8 (0.082%) Shopify
8 7 (0.072%) Oracle EBS
8 7 (0.072%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.041%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.031%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.031%) SAP Business One
10 3 (0.031%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 2 (0.020%) Dynamics AX
11 2 (0.020%) Integrated Workplace Management System
11 2 (0.020%) Maximo
11 2 (0.020%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 4,148 (42.43%) Cloud Computing
2 1,632 (16.70%) Azure
3 981 (10.04%) Power Platform
4 737 (7.54%) AWS
5 656 (6.71%) Azure AI
6 437 (4.47%) SaaS
7 326 (3.34%) GCP
8 222 (2.27%) GitHub
9 194 (1.98%) Microsoft 365
10 191 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
11 125 (1.28%) Snowflake
12 111 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
13 110 (1.13%) GitHub Copilot
14 106 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
15 104 (1.06%) Entra ID
15 104 (1.06%) Serverless
16 97 (0.99%) Power Automate
17 68 (0.70%) PaaS
18 66 (0.68%) dbt
19 63 (0.64%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4,059 (41.52%) Internet
2 94 (0.96%) Broadband
3 52 (0.53%) Firewall
4 32 (0.33%) Network Security
4 32 (0.33%) Unified Communications
5 26 (0.27%) VoIP
6 25 (0.26%) VPN
7 19 (0.19%) HTTP
8 18 (0.18%) WAN
9 17 (0.17%) TCP/IP
10 16 (0.16%) DNS
11 14 (0.14%) Telepresence
11 14 (0.14%) VLAN
11 14 (0.14%) WebEx
12 13 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.12%) DHCP
14 8 (0.082%) Wireshark
15 7 (0.072%) DMZ
15 7 (0.072%) Intranet
15 7 (0.072%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 823 (8.42%) Power BI
2 682 (6.98%) Tableau
3 150 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
4 102 (1.04%) SQL Server
5 96 (0.98%) NoSQL
6 93 (0.95%) Data Lake
7 92 (0.94%) Metadata
8 78 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
9 74 (0.76%) MongoDB
10 72 (0.74%) Big Data
11 42 (0.43%) BigQuery
12 37 (0.38%) Pinecone
13 36 (0.37%) MySQL
14 34 (0.35%) Relational Database
15 31 (0.32%) Hadoop
15 31 (0.32%) Looker
16 30 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
17 29 (0.30%) GIS
18 28 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 27 (0.28%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 129 (1.32%) Git
2 109 (1.12%) JIRA
3 55 (0.56%) MLflow
4 50 (0.51%) Visual Studio Code
5 45 (0.46%) Jenkins
6 31 (0.32%) GitLab
7 19 (0.19%) Cypress.io
8 18 (0.18%) Selenium
9 16 (0.16%) Octopus Deploy
9 16 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
9 16 (0.16%) TeamCity
10 12 (0.12%) Postman
10 12 (0.12%) Visual Studio
11 10 (0.10%) Claude Code
12 9 (0.092%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.092%) Storybook
13 8 (0.082%) Subversion
14 7 (0.072%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.072%) SpecFlow
14 7 (0.072%) WebDriver
General
1 5,785 (59.18%) Social Skills
2 4,485 (45.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,231 (43.28%) Banking
4 1,212 (12.40%) Finance
5 1,029 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
6 400 (4.09%) Marketing
7 304 (3.11%) Public Sector
8 282 (2.88%) Legal
9 276 (2.82%) Law
10 249 (2.55%) Retail
11 171 (1.75%) Games
12 162 (1.66%) Manufacturing
13 111 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
14 106 (1.08%) Telecoms
15 92 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
16 86 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
17 85 (0.87%) Financial Institution
18 74 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
19 60 (0.61%) Electronics
20 48 (0.49%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 3,161 (32.34%) Lecturer
2 880 (9.00%) Trainer
3 770 (7.88%) Analyst
4 705 (7.21%) Senior
5 634 (6.49%) Data Analyst
6 572 (5.85%) Junior
7 552 (5.65%) Junior Analyst
7 552 (5.65%) Junior Data Analyst
8 456 (4.66%) Lead
9 422 (4.32%) Developer
10 290 (2.97%) Architect
11 244 (2.50%) Consultant
12 186 (1.90%) Software Engineer
13 158 (1.62%) Data Engineer
14 131 (1.34%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 124 (1.27%) Solutions Architect
16 102 (1.04%) Content Editor
17 99 (1.01%) Data Scientist
18 96 (0.98%) Senior Manager
19 88 (0.90%) Research Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 235 (2.40%) React
2 179 (1.83%) .NET
3 168 (1.72%) REST
4 162 (1.66%) PyTorch
5 129 (1.32%) TensorFlow
6 118 (1.21%) RESTful
7 108 (1.10%) HTML
8 106 (1.08%) Node.js
9 101 (1.03%) scikit-learn
10 94 (0.96%) Hugging Face
11 86 (0.88%) LangChain
12 85 (0.87%) Pandas
13 80 (0.82%) CSS
14 79 (0.81%) FastAPI
15 77 (0.79%) Kafka
16 74 (0.76%) Django
17 71 (0.73%) NumPy
18 69 (0.71%) AngularJS
19 61 (0.62%) Spring
20 57 (0.58%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 4,084 (41.78%) IoT
2 275 (2.81%) Cloud Native
3 185 (1.89%) Algorithms
4 184 (1.88%) Onboarding
5 172 (1.76%) Product Ownership
6 158 (1.62%) Robotics
7 156 (1.60%) AI Agents
8 132 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
9 122 (1.25%) Blog
10 110 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
11 104 (1.06%) Management Information System
12 100 (1.02%) Social Media
13 99 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
14 95 (0.97%) Life Science
15 90 (0.92%) Low-Code
16 89 (0.91%) Molecular Biology
17 71 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
18 66 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
19 63 (0.64%) Virtual Team
20 62 (0.63%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 87 (0.89%) Windows
2 83 (0.85%) Linux
3 69 (0.71%) Android
4 59 (0.60%) Unix
5 46 (0.47%) Apple iOS
6 29 (0.30%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.17%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.092%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.051%) Kali Linux
9 5 (0.051%) VMS
10 4 (0.041%) Robot Operating System
10 4 (0.041%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.031%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.020%) Mac OS X
12 2 (0.020%) zOS
13 1 (0.010%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.010%) Solaris
13 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,090 (52.07%) Machine Learning
2 4,333 (44.33%) Cybersecurity
3 4,313 (44.12%) User Experience
4 4,070 (41.64%) Web Development
5 1,108 (11.34%) Analytics
6 1,004 (10.27%) Conversational UI
7 961 (9.83%) Business Intelligence
8 914 (9.35%) Agile
9 726 (7.43%) Problem-Solving
10 671 (6.86%) Roadmaps
11 598 (6.12%) Decision-Making
12 594 (6.08%) CI/CD
13 584 (5.97%) Software Engineering
14 568 (5.81%) Continuous Improvement
15 562 (5.75%) DevOps
16 506 (5.18%) Data Science
17 497 (5.08%) LLM
18 489 (5.00%) Generative AI
19 434 (4.44%) Mentoring
20 432 (4.42%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 1,701 (17.40%) Python
2 1,144 (11.70%) SQL
3 254 (2.60%) JavaScript
4 239 (2.45%) TypeScript
5 227 (2.32%) Java
6 161 (1.65%) C#
7 85 (0.87%) C++
8 82 (0.84%) PowerShell
9 69 (0.71%) Bash
10 65 (0.66%) Go
11 58 (0.59%) R
12 38 (0.39%) PHP
13 34 (0.35%) Rust
14 29 (0.30%) Kotlin
15 27 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 24 (0.25%) Scala
17 23 (0.24%) Apex Code
17 23 (0.24%) C
18 20 (0.20%) PL/SQL
19 16 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 5,785 (59.18%) Degree
2 4,723 (48.32%) Master's Degree
3 4,659 (47.66%) PhD
4 4,050 (41.43%) Postgraduate
5 602 (6.16%) Azure Certification
6 340 (3.48%) Security Cleared
7 254 (2.60%) SC Cleared
8 190 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
9 111 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 87 (0.89%) DV Cleared
11 68 (0.70%) DBS Check
12 52 (0.53%) CISSP
13 49 (0.50%) PMP
14 48 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
15 47 (0.48%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 41 (0.42%) ACCA
17 35 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
18 34 (0.35%) PMI Certification
19 31 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
19 31 (0.32%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (2.29%) Data Quality
2 214 (2.19%) Accessibility
3 147 (1.50%) QA
4 130 (1.33%) GDPR
5 78 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 43 (0.44%) EU AI Act
7 40 (0.41%) GxP
8 38 (0.39%) NIST
9 35 (0.36%) IFRS
10 30 (0.31%) GRC
11 25 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
11 25 (0.26%) HIPAA
12 23 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.23%) PMO
13 22 (0.23%) Solvency II
13 22 (0.23%) WCAG
14 21 (0.21%) PSD2
15 19 (0.19%) SLA
16 18 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 18 (0.18%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 249 (2.55%) Docker
2 78 (0.80%) Active Directory
3 21 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.16%) Firmware
5 16 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
6 12 (0.12%) vSphere
7 5 (0.051%) Lustre
8 4 (0.041%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 3 (0.031%) GPFS
9 3 (0.031%) Kamailio
9 3 (0.031%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.020%) Ceph
10 2 (0.020%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.020%) NFS
10 2 (0.020%) RACF
11 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 245 (2.51%) Kubernetes
2 233 (2.38%) Terraform
3 51 (0.52%) Ansible
4 46 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
5 42 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.40%) Prometheus
7 35 (0.36%) Grafana
8 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
9 10 (0.10%) Argo
10 7 (0.072%) Kubeflow
10 7 (0.072%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.061%) Proxmox
11 6 (0.061%) SCCM
12 5 (0.051%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.041%) Nessus
13 4 (0.041%) Nmap
13 4 (0.041%) RSA Archer
13 4 (0.041%) SolarWinds Orion
14 3 (0.031%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
14 3 (0.031%) Control-M
Vendors
1 1,385 (14.17%) Microsoft
2 874 (8.94%) PayPal
3 189 (1.93%) Google
4 174 (1.78%) Databricks
5 115 (1.18%) OpenAI
6 114 (1.17%) Adobe
7 98 (1.00%) Salesforce
8 97 (0.99%) Oracle
9 95 (0.97%) Dell
10 93 (0.95%) Cisco
11 72 (0.74%) SAP
12 47 (0.48%) Alteryx
12 47 (0.48%) Blue Prism
12 47 (0.48%) Foundry
12 47 (0.48%) Palantir
13 38 (0.39%) HubSpot
14 35 (0.36%) Fortinet
14 35 (0.36%) ServiceNow
15 34 (0.35%) Bloomberg
16 32 (0.33%) Apple