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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 33 61
Rank change year-on-year +28 +28 +102
Permanent jobs citing AI 7,171 1,605 2,480
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 13.39% 5.85% 4.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.84% 6.35% 4.88%
Number of salaries quoted 1,201 832 1,123
10th Percentile £27,500 £25,313 £35,850
25th Percentile £38,750 £47,173 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,497 £66,206 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.64% +10.34% -7.69%
75th Percentile £80,000 £79,250 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year -3.45% +3.57% -

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 40,198 25,262 50,797
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 75.05% 92.09% 85.68%
Number of salaries quoted 23,968 13,537 37,874
10th Percentile £28,250 £29,750 £27,300
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%
75th Percentile £66,500 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,750 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%

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 18 March 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 18 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
North of England +39 2,652 £61,250 -4.11% 459
North West +32 1,974 £61,418 -13.80% 222
Midlands +76 1,576 £52,500 -19.23% 219
South East +34 1,420 £50,000 -33.33% 671
West Midlands +67 1,276 £55,000 -8.33% 115
East of England +18 734 £55,000 -16.95% 216
Yorkshire +36 565 £62,500 +38.89% 175
South West +11 381 £60,000 - 201
East Midlands +57 311 £50,000 -23.08% 104
Scotland +22 277 £70,000 +55.56% 106
Wales +34 121 £47,500 -24.00% 63
North East +42 113 £55,000 -24.14% 64
Northern Ireland 0 62 £90,000 -5.26% 23
Channel Islands - 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 52 (0.73%) SharePoint
2 50 (0.70%) Jupyter
3 27 (0.38%) CMS
4 23 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (0.32%) Apache Spark
5 19 (0.26%) Confluence
6 15 (0.21%) Apache
7 14 (0.20%) WordPress
8 10 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.070%) IIS
9 5 (0.070%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.070%) Umbraco
10 3 (0.042%) Apache Solr
10 3 (0.042%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.042%) Drupal
10 3 (0.042%) Joomla!
11 2 (0.028%) Apache Qpid
11 2 (0.028%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.028%) JBoss
11 2 (0.028%) WebSphere
Applications
1 836 (11.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 685 (9.55%) Chatbot
3 55 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
4 30 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.14%) UserZoom
6 8 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.084%) MS Visio
7 6 (0.084%) Photoshop
8 5 (0.070%) Adobe Illustrator
9 4 (0.056%) Weka
10 2 (0.028%) Camtasia
11 1 (0.014%) Acrobat
11 1 (0.014%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 1 (0.014%) InDesign
11 1 (0.014%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.21%) NetSuite
3 13 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
4 11 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.056%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.056%) Shopify
5 4 (0.056%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.042%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.042%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.042%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.028%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.028%) Maximo
7 2 (0.028%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.028%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.028%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.014%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.014%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 1 (0.014%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.014%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.014%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 3,711 (51.75%) Cloud Computing
2 1,180 (16.46%) Azure
3 943 (13.15%) Power Platform
4 792 (11.04%) Azure AI
5 320 (4.46%) AWS
6 169 (2.36%) SaaS
7 103 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
8 100 (1.39%) Azure DevOps
9 98 (1.37%) GitHub
10 79 (1.10%) Adobe Analytics
11 76 (1.06%) GitHub Copilot
12 70 (0.98%) GCP
13 55 (0.77%) Microsoft Copilot
14 50 (0.70%) Snowflake
15 47 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
16 45 (0.63%) Power Automate
17 43 (0.60%) Entra ID
18 40 (0.56%) Figma
19 33 (0.46%) Serverless
20 31 (0.43%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 3,649 (50.89%) Internet
2 135 (1.88%) Broadband
3 32 (0.45%) Unified Communications
4 29 (0.40%) Firewall
5 18 (0.25%) VoIP
6 17 (0.24%) VPN
7 14 (0.20%) DNS
7 14 (0.20%) Telepresence
7 14 (0.20%) WebEx
8 12 (0.17%) Network Security
9 9 (0.13%) TCP/IP
10 8 (0.11%) DHCP
11 6 (0.084%) DMZ
11 6 (0.084%) HTTP
12 5 (0.070%) Intranet
12 5 (0.070%) VLAN
13 4 (0.056%) RTP
13 4 (0.056%) Wireshark
14 3 (0.042%) Modbus
15 2 (0.028%) InfiniBand
Database & Business Intelligence
1 866 (12.08%) Power BI
2 806 (11.24%) Tableau
3 54 (0.75%) SQL Server
4 44 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
5 42 (0.59%) Metadata
6 36 (0.50%) Data Lake
6 36 (0.50%) MongoDB
7 30 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
8 28 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
9 26 (0.36%) NoSQL
10 18 (0.25%) Big Data
11 17 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 16 (0.22%) Looker
13 15 (0.21%) Data Mining
14 14 (0.20%) MySQL
15 13 (0.18%) Snowflake Schema
15 13 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 11 (0.15%) Spark SQL
17 10 (0.14%) Hadoop
17 10 (0.14%) Redis
Development Applications
1 60 (0.84%) Git
2 50 (0.70%) Visual Studio Code
3 49 (0.68%) JIRA
4 19 (0.26%) Jenkins
5 15 (0.21%) Selenium
6 11 (0.15%) Cypress.io
6 11 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
7 10 (0.14%) MLflow
8 9 (0.13%) IBM UrbanCode
8 9 (0.13%) Visual Studio
9 8 (0.11%) GitLab
9 8 (0.11%) Postman
10 7 (0.098%) JMeter
11 6 (0.084%) Claude Code
11 6 (0.084%) REST Assured
12 5 (0.070%) Appium
12 5 (0.070%) GitBook
12 5 (0.070%) JUnit
13 4 (0.056%) SpecFlow
14 3 (0.042%) SonarQube
General
1 4,955 (69.10%) Social Skills
2 3,902 (54.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,699 (51.58%) Banking
4 534 (7.45%) Analytical Skills
5 504 (7.03%) Finance
6 225 (3.14%) Marketing
7 158 (2.20%) Retail
8 151 (2.11%) Games
9 124 (1.73%) Public Sector
10 119 (1.66%) Legal
11 101 (1.41%) Manufacturing
12 82 (1.14%) Law
13 47 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
14 40 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
15 39 (0.54%) Influencing Skills
16 37 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
17 35 (0.49%) Telecoms
18 32 (0.45%) Aeronautics
19 30 (0.42%) German Language
20 23 (0.32%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 2,829 (39.45%) Lecturer
2 832 (11.60%) Analyst
3 768 (10.71%) Junior
4 764 (10.65%) Data Analyst
5 757 (10.56%) Junior Analyst
5 757 (10.56%) Junior Data Analyst
6 627 (8.74%) Trainer
7 252 (3.51%) Senior
8 249 (3.47%) Lead
9 187 (2.61%) Developer
10 99 (1.38%) Architect
11 94 (1.31%) Content Editor
12 82 (1.14%) Software Engineer
13 71 (0.99%) Data Engineer
14 70 (0.98%) Research Scientist
15 68 (0.95%) Customer Support Specialist
15 68 (0.95%) Support Specialist
16 66 (0.92%) Consultant
17 65 (0.91%) Solutions Architect
18 56 (0.78%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (1.34%) .NET
2 81 (1.13%) React
3 74 (1.03%) HTML
4 67 (0.93%) scikit-learn
5 61 (0.85%) REST
6 60 (0.84%) Pandas
7 57 (0.79%) NumPy
8 54 (0.75%) Hugging Face
9 52 (0.73%) Matplotlib
10 49 (0.68%) Streamlit
11 48 (0.67%) CSS
12 44 (0.61%) RESTful
13 42 (0.59%) TensorFlow
14 40 (0.56%) PyTorch
15 39 (0.54%) Node.js
16 36 (0.50%) AngularJS
17 31 (0.43%) PySpark
18 28 (0.39%) XML
19 27 (0.38%) JSON
19 27 (0.38%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 3,669 (51.16%) IoT
2 123 (1.72%) Onboarding
3 122 (1.70%) Cloud Native
3 122 (1.70%) Social Media
4 108 (1.51%) Robotics
5 100 (1.39%) Algorithms
6 96 (1.34%) Blog
7 93 (1.30%) Product Ownership
8 67 (0.93%) Molecular Biology
9 60 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
10 58 (0.81%) Life Science
11 48 (0.67%) Low-Code
12 47 (0.66%) AI Agents
12 47 (0.66%) Mobile App
13 39 (0.54%) Enterprise Software
14 29 (0.40%) Distributed Systems
15 28 (0.39%) Management Information System
15 28 (0.39%) Virtual Team
16 27 (0.38%) Linux Command Line
17 24 (0.33%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 52 (0.73%) Windows
2 47 (0.66%) Android
3 40 (0.56%) Apple iOS
3 40 (0.56%) Linux
4 24 (0.33%) Unix
5 21 (0.29%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.070%) VMS
6 5 (0.070%) Windows Server 2016
7 4 (0.056%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.042%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.028%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.028%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.028%) zOS
10 1 (0.014%) OpenWrt
10 1 (0.014%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,137 (57.69%) Machine Learning
2 3,791 (52.87%) Cybersecurity
3 3,774 (52.63%) User Experience
4 3,659 (51.02%) Web Development
5 903 (12.59%) Business Intelligence
6 691 (9.64%) Conversational UI
7 518 (7.22%) Agile
8 505 (7.04%) Analytics
9 327 (4.56%) Continuous Improvement
9 327 (4.56%) Problem-Solving
10 315 (4.39%) Roadmaps
11 286 (3.99%) CI/CD
12 280 (3.90%) Decision-Making
13 273 (3.81%) Software Engineering
14 270 (3.77%) Customer Experience
15 255 (3.56%) DevOps
16 228 (3.18%) LLM
17 217 (3.03%) Data Science
18 199 (2.78%) Mentoring
19 194 (2.71%) Chemistry
Programming Languages
1 1,241 (17.31%) Python
2 992 (13.83%) SQL
3 112 (1.56%) Java
3 112 (1.56%) JavaScript
4 88 (1.23%) C#
5 65 (0.91%) TypeScript
6 33 (0.46%) R
7 32 (0.45%) C++
8 29 (0.40%) PowerShell
9 21 (0.29%) Apex Code
10 19 (0.26%) Bash
10 19 (0.26%) Go
11 18 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.22%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.20%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.15%) Rust
14 11 (0.15%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.14%) PL/SQL
15 10 (0.14%) Scala
16 9 (0.13%) C
Qualifications
1 4,628 (64.54%) Degree
2 4,023 (56.10%) Master's Degree
3 4,006 (55.86%) PhD
4 3,652 (50.93%) Postgraduate
5 776 (10.82%) Azure Certification
6 117 (1.63%) Security Cleared
7 90 (1.26%) AWS Certification
8 74 (1.03%) SC Cleared
9 49 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 39 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
11 36 (0.50%) DBS Check
12 35 (0.49%) DV Cleared
13 25 (0.35%) PMP
14 14 (0.20%) ACCA
15 13 (0.18%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.15%) Six Sigma Green Belt
17 9 (0.13%) BPSS Clearance
17 9 (0.13%) CIMA
18 7 (0.098%) CISM
18 7 (0.098%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (2.26%) Accessibility
2 95 (1.32%) Data Quality
3 68 (0.95%) QA
4 48 (0.67%) GDPR
5 43 (0.60%) WCAG
6 33 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 28 (0.39%) GxP
8 20 (0.28%) NIST
9 17 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.21%) PMO
11 14 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 12 (0.17%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.15%) GRC
14 10 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
15 9 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 9 (0.13%) EU AI Act
16 8 (0.11%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.084%) JSP 440
17 6 (0.084%) NCSC
17 6 (0.084%) SLA
System Software
1 73 (1.02%) Docker
2 34 (0.47%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
3 11 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.11%) vSphere
5 7 (0.098%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.042%) Kamailio
7 2 (0.028%) Ceph
7 2 (0.028%) Lustre
7 2 (0.028%) RACF
7 2 (0.028%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 2 (0.028%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.014%) Firmware
8 1 (0.014%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 76 (1.06%) Kubernetes
2 71 (0.99%) Terraform
3 25 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (0.28%) Ansible
4 20 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
6 11 (0.15%) Grafana
7 8 (0.11%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.098%) Proxmox
9 6 (0.084%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.056%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (0.056%) SolarWinds Orion
11 3 (0.042%) Argo
11 3 (0.042%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.042%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.028%) Control-M
12 2 (0.028%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
12 2 (0.028%) SCCM
13 1 (0.014%) Nessus
13 1 (0.014%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,216 (16.96%) Microsoft
2 623 (8.69%) PayPal
3 117 (1.63%) Adobe
4 72 (1.00%) Databricks
5 66 (0.92%) Cisco
6 65 (0.91%) Dell
7 61 (0.85%) Oracle
8 57 (0.79%) Google
9 39 (0.54%) Salesforce
10 24 (0.33%) Apple
11 22 (0.31%) VMware
12 20 (0.28%) OpenAI
13 19 (0.26%) SAP
14 15 (0.21%) ServiceNow
15 12 (0.17%) Blue Prism
15 12 (0.17%) BT
15 12 (0.17%) HubSpot
15 12 (0.17%) Red Hat
15 12 (0.17%) Splunk
16 11 (0.15%) Wrike