AI Job Trends in the UK excluding London

AI
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring AI skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 31 41
Rank change year-on-year +26 +10 +126
Permanent jobs citing AI 7,708 1,817 3,423
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 11.68% 6.53% 5.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.28% 7.14% 6.00%
Number of salaries quoted 1,571 852 1,240
10th Percentile £31,250 £25,000 £35,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £66,200 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.37% +10.33% -11.11%
75th Percentile £82,500 £78,750 £80,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year - - -3.55%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 47,360 25,446 57,080
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.78% 91.42% 83.84%
Number of salaries quoted 29,266 13,925 40,909
10th Percentile £29,250 £27,750 £27,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,250 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,114 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £59,450 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.92% +9.09% -10.57%

AI
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing AI relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

AI job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

AI
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing AI.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing AI

AI
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing AI in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 5 May 2026.

Salary histogram for AI in the UK excluding London

AI
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing AI within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 5 May 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
North of England +45 2,769 £65,000 - 768
North West +48 2,008 £70,000 -5.08% 499
Midlands +34 1,698 £52,500 -8.82% 305
South East +30 1,552 £60,000 -14.29% 731
West Midlands +32 1,323 £52,250 -9.13% 160
East of England +35 820 £59,450 -10.23% 316
Yorkshire +22 632 £65,000 +44.44% 166
South West +7 449 £60,000 +2.13% 250
East Midlands +35 386 £52,500 -16.00% 144
Scotland +8 240 £70,000 +55.56% 90
Wales +29 148 £53,171 -17.24% 46
North East +19 129 £55,000 -4.35% 103
Northern Ireland +8 70 £90,000 -10.00% 25
Channel Islands +2 8 - -
AI
UK

AI
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 54 (0.70%) SharePoint
2 50 (0.65%) Jupyter
3 34 (0.44%) CMS
4 31 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
4 31 (0.40%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.32%) Confluence
6 17 (0.22%) WordPress
7 16 (0.21%) Apache
8 8 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.091%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.065%) IIS
11 3 (0.039%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.039%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.026%) Apache Qpid
12 2 (0.026%) JBoss
12 2 (0.026%) WebSphere
13 1 (0.013%) CICS
13 1 (0.013%) Kinematics
13 1 (0.013%) SAS
13 1 (0.013%) WildFly
Applications
1 1,200 (15.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 84 (1.09%) Chatbot
3 51 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
4 32 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.21%) UserZoom
6 9 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.078%) MS Visio
8 5 (0.065%) Photoshop
9 4 (0.052%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 3 (0.039%) Camtasia
11 2 (0.026%) Simulink
11 2 (0.026%) Weka
12 1 (0.013%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.013%) Notion
Business Applications
1 19 (0.25%) Cloudability
2 12 (0.16%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.13%) NetSuite
4 8 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
4 8 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.052%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.052%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.026%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.026%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.026%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.026%) Sage 50
6 2 (0.026%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.013%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.013%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 1 (0.013%) Odoo
7 1 (0.013%) Oracle Cash Management
7 1 (0.013%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.013%) Sage 200
7 1 (0.013%) SAP Business One
7 1 (0.013%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 3,714 (48.18%) Cloud Computing
2 1,931 (25.05%) Azure
3 1,524 (19.77%) Azure AI
4 1,314 (17.05%) Power Platform
5 405 (5.25%) AWS
6 185 (2.40%) SaaS
7 114 (1.48%) GCP
8 111 (1.44%) Adobe Analytics
9 107 (1.39%) Azure DevOps
10 100 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
11 99 (1.28%) GitHub
12 82 (1.06%) Snowflake
13 72 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
14 65 (0.84%) Figma
15 64 (0.83%) GitHub Copilot
16 58 (0.75%) Serverless
17 44 (0.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 44 (0.57%) Entra ID
18 41 (0.53%) Power Automate
19 40 (0.52%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 3,650 (47.35%) Internet
2 174 (2.26%) Broadband
3 35 (0.45%) Firewall
4 25 (0.32%) Unified Communications
5 19 (0.25%) DNS
6 17 (0.22%) Network Security
6 17 (0.22%) VPN
7 11 (0.14%) DHCP
8 10 (0.13%) TCP/IP
8 10 (0.13%) VoIP
9 7 (0.091%) HTTP
9 7 (0.091%) Intranet
9 7 (0.091%) MQTT
9 7 (0.091%) Telepresence
9 7 (0.091%) VLAN
9 7 (0.091%) WebEx
9 7 (0.091%) Wireless
10 6 (0.078%) DMZ
11 3 (0.039%) SAN
11 3 (0.039%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1,242 (16.11%) Power BI
2 1,191 (15.45%) Tableau
3 78 (1.01%) SQL Server
4 62 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (0.65%) Data Lake
6 49 (0.64%) Metadata
7 45 (0.58%) MongoDB
8 38 (0.49%) PostgreSQL
9 33 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
10 26 (0.34%) Looker
10 26 (0.34%) NoSQL
11 23 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
12 21 (0.27%) Big Data
13 16 (0.21%) Redis
14 15 (0.19%) MySQL
15 14 (0.18%) Amazon Redshift
15 14 (0.18%) Snowflake Schema
16 13 (0.17%) BigQuery
17 11 (0.14%) Spark SQL
18 10 (0.13%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 64 (0.83%) Git
2 50 (0.65%) Visual Studio Code
3 49 (0.64%) JIRA
4 24 (0.31%) Jenkins
5 17 (0.22%) MLflow
5 17 (0.22%) Snyk
6 16 (0.21%) Selenium
7 15 (0.19%) GitLab
8 12 (0.16%) Claude Code
9 10 (0.13%) Cypress.io
10 9 (0.12%) IBM UrbanCode
10 9 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
10 9 (0.12%) Postman
10 9 (0.12%) Visual Studio
11 8 (0.10%) SpecFlow
12 5 (0.065%) Appium
12 5 (0.065%) JMeter
12 5 (0.065%) REST Assured
13 4 (0.052%) JUnit
14 3 (0.039%) Maven
General
1 5,647 (73.26%) Social Skills
2 3,942 (51.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,719 (48.25%) Banking
4 515 (6.68%) Finance
5 359 (4.66%) Analytical Skills
6 264 (3.43%) Marketing
7 197 (2.56%) Games
8 152 (1.97%) Retail
9 129 (1.67%) Public Sector
10 106 (1.38%) Manufacturing
11 103 (1.34%) Legal
12 71 (0.92%) Law
13 49 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
13 49 (0.64%) Organisational Skills
14 38 (0.49%) Automotive
15 32 (0.42%) Pharmaceutical
16 31 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
17 30 (0.39%) Electronics
18 23 (0.30%) Telecoms
19 22 (0.29%) German Language
Job Titles
1 2,825 (36.65%) Lecturer
2 1,251 (16.23%) Analyst
3 1,147 (14.88%) Junior
4 1,146 (14.87%) Data Analyst
5 1,135 (14.72%) Junior Analyst
5 1,135 (14.72%) Junior Data Analyst
6 379 (4.92%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 371 (4.81%) Senior
8 333 (4.32%) Lead
9 228 (2.96%) Developer
10 172 (2.23%) Architect
11 131 (1.70%) Software Engineer
12 104 (1.35%) Data Engineer
13 82 (1.06%) Solutions Architect
14 66 (0.86%) Consultant
15 63 (0.82%) Designer
16 59 (0.77%) Python Engineer
17 57 (0.74%) Data Scientist
18 51 (0.66%) Sales Executive
19 50 (0.65%) Trainee
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (1.65%) .NET
2 92 (1.19%) React
3 76 (0.99%) HTML
4 68 (0.88%) scikit-learn
5 64 (0.83%) REST
6 60 (0.78%) Pandas
7 59 (0.77%) NumPy
8 58 (0.75%) CSS
9 55 (0.71%) Hugging Face
10 54 (0.70%) Node.js
11 52 (0.67%) Matplotlib
12 49 (0.64%) Streamlit
13 45 (0.58%) RESTful
14 43 (0.56%) TensorFlow
15 42 (0.54%) AngularJS
15 42 (0.54%) PyTorch
16 33 (0.43%) Vue
17 31 (0.40%) PySpark
18 30 (0.39%) .NET Core
18 30 (0.39%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 3,667 (47.57%) IoT
2 156 (2.02%) Social Media
3 134 (1.74%) Cloud Native
4 120 (1.56%) Robotics
5 116 (1.50%) Onboarding
6 96 (1.25%) Algorithms
6 96 (1.25%) Product Ownership
7 80 (1.04%) Blog
8 69 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
9 56 (0.73%) Low-Code
10 53 (0.69%) AI Agents
10 53 (0.69%) Life Science
11 52 (0.67%) Mobile App
12 51 (0.66%) Enterprise Software
13 50 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
14 48 (0.62%) Data Centre
15 44 (0.57%) Virtual Team
16 38 (0.49%) Management Information System
17 29 (0.38%) Public Cloud
18 21 (0.27%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 57 (0.74%) Windows
2 46 (0.60%) Linux
3 41 (0.53%) Android
4 35 (0.45%) Apple iOS
5 23 (0.30%) Windows Server
6 18 (0.23%) Unix
7 10 (0.13%) VMS
8 5 (0.065%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.039%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.026%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.013%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.013%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.013%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,190 (54.36%) Machine Learning
2 3,838 (49.79%) Cybersecurity
3 3,800 (49.30%) User Experience
4 3,669 (47.60%) Web Development
5 1,286 (16.68%) Business Intelligence
6 577 (7.49%) Analytics
7 558 (7.24%) Agile
8 394 (5.11%) Roadmaps
9 389 (5.05%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
10 355 (4.61%) Problem-Solving
11 347 (4.50%) CI/CD
12 342 (4.44%) Software Engineering
13 317 (4.11%) Continuous Improvement
14 298 (3.87%) DevOps
15 280 (3.63%) Customer Experience
16 279 (3.62%) Decision-Making
17 247 (3.20%) LLM
18 227 (2.94%) Mentoring
19 220 (2.85%) Data Science
20 199 (2.58%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 2,025 (26.27%) Python
2 1,384 (17.96%) SQL
3 122 (1.58%) JavaScript
4 120 (1.56%) Java
5 114 (1.48%) C#
6 63 (0.82%) TypeScript
7 52 (0.67%) C++
8 32 (0.42%) PowerShell
8 32 (0.42%) R
9 26 (0.34%) Bash
10 21 (0.27%) Go
11 20 (0.26%) C
12 17 (0.22%) Apex Code
13 16 (0.21%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.19%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.16%) Rust
15 12 (0.16%) Scala
16 9 (0.12%) PHP
16 9 (0.12%) Shell Script
16 9 (0.12%) Swift
Qualifications
1 4,001 (51.91%) Degree
2 3,738 (48.50%) Master's Degree
3 3,706 (48.08%) PhD
4 3,652 (47.38%) Postgraduate
5 1,476 (19.15%) Azure Certification
6 133 (1.73%) Security Cleared
7 103 (1.34%) AWS Certification
8 79 (1.02%) SC Cleared
9 51 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
10 49 (0.64%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 49 (0.64%) DV Cleared
11 46 (0.60%) ACCA
12 45 (0.58%) DBS Check
13 41 (0.53%) CIMA
14 21 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 19 (0.25%) PMP
16 13 (0.17%) CISSP
17 10 (0.13%) Microsoft Certification
18 9 (0.12%) CISM
19 8 (0.10%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 192 (2.49%) Accessibility
2 119 (1.54%) Data Quality
3 80 (1.04%) GDPR
4 73 (0.95%) QA
5 47 (0.61%) WCAG
6 42 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 33 (0.43%) GRC
8 24 (0.31%) NIST
9 19 (0.25%) GxP
10 17 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 17 (0.22%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.18%) IFRS
12 12 (0.16%) GAAP
12 12 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 12 (0.16%) SLA
13 10 (0.13%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.12%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.12%) HIPAA
14 9 (0.12%) NCSC
14 9 (0.12%) PMO
System Software
1 85 (1.10%) Docker
2 46 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
3 41 (0.53%) Active Directory
4 8 (0.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.10%) vSphere
5 7 (0.091%) Firmware
6 3 (0.039%) Kamailio
7 2 (0.026%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.026%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.013%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.013%) RACF
8 1 (0.013%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 94 (1.22%) Kubernetes
2 75 (0.97%) Terraform
3 21 (0.27%) Ansible
4 20 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
5 19 (0.25%) Grafana
6 18 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.17%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.10%) Proxmox
9 7 (0.091%) Cisco CUCM
10 6 (0.078%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.065%) Functional Safety
11 5 (0.065%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.052%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.052%) Podman
12 4 (0.052%) SolarWinds Orion
13 3 (0.039%) Argo
14 2 (0.026%) Puppet
15 1 (0.013%) HP Fortify
15 1 (0.013%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
15 1 (0.013%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,617 (20.98%) Microsoft
2 169 (2.19%) Adobe
3 105 (1.36%) Databricks
4 77 (1.00%) Google
5 72 (0.93%) Dell
6 60 (0.78%) Salesforce
7 59 (0.77%) Cisco
8 45 (0.58%) Apple
9 39 (0.51%) Oracle
10 37 (0.48%) ServiceNow
11 36 (0.47%) OpenAI
12 23 (0.30%) SAP
13 21 (0.27%) CrowdStrike
14 20 (0.26%) VMware
15 19 (0.25%) HubSpot
16 18 (0.23%) PayPal
16 18 (0.23%) Tenable
17 17 (0.22%) Palo Alto
18 11 (0.14%) Hootsuite
18 11 (0.14%) Wrike