AI Job Trends in the South East

AI
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring AI skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 34 91
Rank change year-on-year +29 +57 +35
Permanent jobs citing AI 1,417 547 292
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 13.48% 6.13% 3.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.86% 6.94% 3.44%
Number of salaries quoted 311 274 226
10th Percentile £24,570 £47,500 £43,750
25th Percentile £38,625 £59,063 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £77,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -35.06% +10.00% +12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £85,000 £84,688
90th Percentile £113,750 £100,000 £95,000
England median annual salary £72,500 £77,500 £72,500
% change year-on-year -6.45% +6.90% +3.57%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

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 in the South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,404 7,887 8,477
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 79.92% 88.33% 87.43%
Number of salaries quoted 5,035 3,709 6,062
10th Percentile £27,750 £32,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £59,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -15.25% +12.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £58,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +2.56% -6.40%

AI
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing AI relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

AI job vacancy trend in the South East

AI
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing AI.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing AI

AI
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing AI in the South East over the 6 months to 20 January 2026.

Salary histogram for AI in the South East

AI
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing AI within the South East region over the 6 months to 20 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
Thames Valley +25 410 £52,500 -30.00% 561
Surrey +31 398 £63,750 -17.21% 116
Hampshire +21 272 £50,000 -30.80% 118
Kent +58 209 £42,500 - 113
Buckinghamshire +73 202 £40,000 -36.00% 78
Berkshire +7 172 £63,750 -17.74% 413
Middlesex +7 51 - - 25
East Sussex +29 49 £45,000 -35.71% 83
Oxfordshire +18 36 £70,000 - 70
West Sussex +13 14 £70,000 -3.45% 86
Isle of Wight - 8 - - 75
Sussex - 3 £38,000 - 2
AI
England

AI
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 8 (0.56%) CMS
2 7 (0.49%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.42%) Confluence
4 5 (0.35%) IIS
5 4 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.28%) WordPress
6 3 (0.21%) Drupal
6 3 (0.21%) Joomla!
6 3 (0.21%) Umbraco
7 2 (0.14%) Apache Qpid
8 1 (0.071%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.071%) Kinematics
Applications
1 112 (7.90%) Chatbot
2 90 (6.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.42%) Photoshop
5 4 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
6 3 (0.21%) Notion
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.14%) S-PLUS
7 2 (0.14%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.071%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.071%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.071%) InDesign
8 1 (0.071%) Weka
Business Applications
1 10 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.64%) NetSuite
2 9 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.21%) Shopify
4 1 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.071%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 570 (40.23%) Cloud Computing
2 147 (10.37%) Azure
3 137 (9.67%) Power Platform
4 76 (5.36%) AWS
5 68 (4.80%) Azure AI
6 59 (4.16%) SaaS
7 34 (2.40%) GCP
8 29 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
9 17 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (1.13%) Microsoft Copilot
11 12 (0.85%) GitHub
11 12 (0.85%) Snowflake
12 11 (0.78%) ChatGPT
13 8 (0.56%) Power Automate
14 7 (0.49%) dbt
14 7 (0.49%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.42%) Amazon EKS
16 5 (0.35%) Adobe Creative Cloud
16 5 (0.35%) Azure Data Factory
16 5 (0.35%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 572 (40.37%) Internet
2 10 (0.71%) Unified Communications
3 7 (0.49%) Broadband
4 4 (0.28%) Firewall
4 4 (0.28%) Network Security
5 3 (0.21%) VoIP
5 3 (0.21%) VPN
5 3 (0.21%) WAN
6 2 (0.14%) 5G
6 2 (0.14%) 802.11
6 2 (0.14%) DMZ
6 2 (0.14%) InfiniBand
6 2 (0.14%) LAN
6 2 (0.14%) SAN
6 2 (0.14%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.14%) Wireless
6 2 (0.14%) WLAN
7 1 (0.071%) Modbus
7 1 (0.071%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.071%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (6.92%) Power BI
2 75 (5.29%) Tableau
3 16 (1.13%) Data Lake
4 15 (1.06%) Metadata
5 13 (0.92%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (0.71%) SQL Server
7 8 (0.56%) NoSQL
8 7 (0.49%) Data Mining
8 7 (0.49%) MySQL
9 6 (0.42%) Big Data
9 6 (0.42%) Hadoop
9 6 (0.42%) Looker
9 6 (0.42%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (0.21%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.21%) DTS
11 2 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.14%) PostgreSQL
11 2 (0.14%) Redis
11 2 (0.14%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 13 (0.92%) Git
2 12 (0.85%) JIRA
3 3 (0.21%) MLflow
3 3 (0.21%) Visual Website Optimizer
4 1 (0.071%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.071%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.071%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.071%) GitLab
4 1 (0.071%) Jasmine
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle APEX
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle Forms
4 1 (0.071%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.071%) Visual Studio
General
1 871 (61.47%) Social Skills
2 681 (48.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 574 (40.51%) Banking
4 176 (12.42%) Finance
5 165 (11.64%) Analytical Skills
6 119 (8.40%) Marketing
7 40 (2.82%) Pharmaceutical
8 38 (2.68%) Aviation
9 31 (2.19%) Aeronautics
10 27 (1.91%) Law
11 26 (1.83%) Retail
12 23 (1.62%) Electronics
13 22 (1.55%) Public Sector
14 20 (1.41%) Games
14 20 (1.41%) Legal
15 15 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
16 14 (0.99%) Manufacturing
17 10 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
18 7 (0.49%) Automotive
19 5 (0.35%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 469 (33.10%) Lecturer
2 111 (7.83%) Trainer
3 99 (6.99%) Analyst
4 79 (5.58%) Lead
5 76 (5.36%) Senior
6 74 (5.22%) Data Analyst
6 74 (5.22%) Developer
7 61 (4.30%) Junior
8 60 (4.23%) Junior Analyst
8 60 (4.23%) Junior Data Analyst
9 56 (3.95%) Business Manager
10 54 (3.81%) Business Systems Manager
10 54 (3.81%) Systems Manager
11 44 (3.11%) Sales Executive
12 43 (3.03%) Corporate Sales Executive
13 29 (2.05%) .NET Developer
14 25 (1.76%) Software Developer
15 24 (1.69%) Content Editor
16 23 (1.62%) Microsoft Specialist
16 23 (1.62%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (2.82%) .NET
2 18 (1.27%) React
3 15 (1.06%) REST
4 11 (0.78%) Blazor
4 11 (0.78%) WPF
5 10 (0.71%) AngularJS
5 10 (0.71%) FHIR
6 9 (0.64%) Vue
7 8 (0.56%) .NET Framework
7 8 (0.56%) WinForms
8 7 (0.49%) TensorFlow
9 6 (0.42%) scikit-learn
10 5 (0.35%) HTML
10 5 (0.35%) Node.js
10 5 (0.35%) Play Framework
11 4 (0.28%) .NET Core
11 4 (0.28%) CSS
11 4 (0.28%) Keras
11 4 (0.28%) LangChain
12 3 (0.21%) TypeORM
Miscellaneous
1 572 (40.37%) IoT
2 93 (6.56%) Robotics
3 56 (3.95%) Life Science
4 35 (2.47%) Blog
5 31 (2.19%) Greenfield Project
6 20 (1.41%) Onboarding
7 19 (1.34%) Algorithms
8 18 (1.27%) FMCG
9 15 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (0.85%) Enterprise Cloud
10 12 (0.85%) Social Media
11 11 (0.78%) Fibre Optics
12 10 (0.71%) Omics
13 9 (0.64%) Distributed Systems
13 9 (0.64%) Educational Technology
14 8 (0.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 8 (0.56%) Management Information System
15 7 (0.49%) Enterprise Software
15 7 (0.49%) Legacy Systems
15 7 (0.49%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 7 (0.49%) Linux
1 7 (0.49%) Windows
2 1 (0.071%) Android
2 1 (0.071%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.071%) Mac OS
2 1 (0.071%) Robot Operating System
2 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (50.88%) Machine Learning
2 596 (42.06%) Cybersecurity
3 591 (41.71%) User Experience
4 574 (40.51%) Web Development
5 164 (11.57%) Agile
6 153 (10.80%) Software Engineering
7 129 (9.10%) Analytics
8 126 (8.89%) Roadmaps
9 112 (7.90%) Conversational UI
10 105 (7.41%) Business Intelligence
11 95 (6.70%) IT Strategy
12 94 (6.63%) Customer Experience
13 93 (6.56%) Computer Science
14 87 (6.14%) Project Management
15 85 (6.00%) Data Science
16 74 (5.22%) Continuous Improvement
17 70 (4.94%) Decision-Making
18 69 (4.87%) Risk Management
19 68 (4.80%) Problem-Solving
20 65 (4.59%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 132 (9.32%) Python
2 124 (8.75%) SQL
3 43 (3.03%) JavaScript
4 34 (2.40%) TypeScript
5 18 (1.27%) C#
6 10 (0.71%) C++
6 10 (0.71%) Java
7 9 (0.64%) Rust
8 8 (0.56%) R
9 5 (0.35%) Bash
9 5 (0.35%) Scala
10 4 (0.28%) Go
11 3 (0.21%) C
11 3 (0.21%) Julia
11 3 (0.21%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.14%) PowerShell
13 1 (0.071%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.071%) Ruby
13 1 (0.071%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 863 (60.90%) Degree
2 684 (48.27%) Master's Degree
3 667 (47.07%) PhD
4 571 (40.30%) Postgraduate
5 76 (5.36%) Security Cleared
6 70 (4.94%) SC Cleared
7 63 (4.45%) Azure Certification
8 17 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (0.85%) HNC
10 11 (0.78%) HND
11 7 (0.49%) PMP
12 6 (0.42%) Six Sigma Black Belt
12 6 (0.42%) Six Sigma Green Belt
13 5 (0.35%) MBA
13 5 (0.35%) Six Sigma Master Black Belt
14 4 (0.28%) BPSS Clearance
14 4 (0.28%) DV Cleared
15 3 (0.21%) AAT
15 3 (0.21%) DBS Check
16 2 (0.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (2.82%) GxP
2 30 (2.12%) Accessibility
3 23 (1.62%) Data Quality
4 21 (1.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (1.41%) QA
6 12 (0.85%) PMO
7 10 (0.71%) CDISC
7 10 (0.71%) HL7
7 10 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 10 (0.71%) NIST
8 8 (0.56%) EU AI Act
9 7 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (0.49%) GDPR
9 7 (0.49%) SLA
10 6 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.35%) ISO 13485
11 5 (0.35%) ISO 9001
12 3 (0.21%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.14%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 23 (1.62%) Docker
2 4 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.14%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 1 (0.071%) Ceph
4 1 (0.071%) Kamailio
4 1 (0.071%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 19 (1.34%) Terraform
2 13 (0.92%) Kubernetes
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (0.35%) Ansible
5 2 (0.14%) Argo
5 2 (0.14%) Grafana
5 2 (0.14%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.14%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.071%) Jamf Pro
6 1 (0.071%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 231 (16.30%) Microsoft
2 110 (7.76%) PayPal
3 50 (3.53%) Cisco
4 48 (3.39%) Dell
5 30 (2.12%) Blue Prism
6 17 (1.20%) Adobe
7 16 (1.13%) Databricks
8 14 (0.99%) Google
8 14 (0.99%) Oracle
9 11 (0.78%) VMware
10 10 (0.71%) Salesforce
11 8 (0.56%) BT
12 6 (0.42%) Apple
12 6 (0.42%) OpenAI
13 5 (0.35%) HubSpot
13 5 (0.35%) Screaming Frog
14 4 (0.28%) Facebook
14 4 (0.28%) Instagram
14 4 (0.28%) Pardot
14 4 (0.28%) Sage