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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 34 62
Rank change year-on-year +29 +28 +103
Permanent jobs citing AI 7,185 1,596 2,387
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 13.44% 5.78% 4.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 17.88% 6.27% 4.72%
Number of salaries quoted 1,196 841 1,121
10th Percentile £27,500 £25,313 £35,750
25th Percentile £38,750 £47,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,998 £66,212 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.41% +10.35% -7.69%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £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 40,184 25,459 50,615
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 75.18% 92.14% 85.72%
Number of salaries quoted 23,968 13,634 37,852
10th Percentile £28,250 £29,750 £27,250
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% -9.09%
75th Percentile £66,250 £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% -11.78%

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 16 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 16 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 +42 2,656 £60,000 -7.69% 459
North West +36 1,975 £61,418 -15.29% 229
Midlands +75 1,581 £52,500 -19.23% 217
South East +34 1,424 £50,000 -33.33% 702
West Midlands +69 1,279 £55,000 -8.33% 107
East of England +20 730 £55,000 -16.95% 219
Yorkshire +35 569 £62,500 +38.89% 170
South West +7 381 £60,000 -2.04% 214
East Midlands +60 313 £50,000 -23.08% 110
Scotland +17 283 £70,000 +55.56% 110
Wales +35 121 £47,500 -24.00% 64
North East +39 112 £55,000 -24.14% 62
Northern Ireland -3 61 £90,000 -10.00% 24
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 53 (0.74%) SharePoint
2 50 (0.70%) Jupyter
3 27 (0.38%) CMS
4 23 (0.32%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.26%) Confluence
7 15 (0.21%) Apache
8 14 (0.19%) WordPress
9 11 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.084%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.070%) IIS
11 5 (0.070%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.042%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.042%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.042%) Drupal
12 3 (0.042%) Joomla!
13 2 (0.028%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.028%) CICS
13 2 (0.028%) JBoss
13 2 (0.028%) WebSphere
Applications
1 835 (11.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 700 (9.74%) Chatbot
3 54 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (0.40%) 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 1 (0.014%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.014%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.014%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.014%) InDesign
10 1 (0.014%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.21%) NetSuite
3 14 (0.19%) 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%) Integrated Workplace Management System
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%) Odoo
8 1 (0.014%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.014%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 3,710 (51.64%) Cloud Computing
2 1,185 (16.49%) Azure
3 947 (13.18%) Power Platform
4 792 (11.02%) Azure AI
5 316 (4.40%) AWS
6 169 (2.35%) SaaS
7 105 (1.46%) Azure DevOps
7 105 (1.46%) Microsoft 365
8 100 (1.39%) GitHub
9 79 (1.10%) Adobe Analytics
9 79 (1.10%) GitHub Copilot
10 70 (0.97%) GCP
11 53 (0.74%) Microsoft Copilot
12 52 (0.72%) Snowflake
13 47 (0.65%) Azure Data Factory
14 46 (0.64%) Entra ID
15 45 (0.63%) Power Automate
16 40 (0.56%) Figma
17 32 (0.45%) dbt
18 31 (0.43%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 3,649 (50.79%) Internet
2 135 (1.88%) Broadband
3 32 (0.45%) Unified Communications
4 29 (0.40%) Firewall
5 19 (0.26%) VoIP
6 17 (0.24%) VPN
7 14 (0.19%) Telepresence
7 14 (0.19%) WebEx
8 13 (0.18%) DNS
9 12 (0.17%) Network Security
10 9 (0.13%) TCP/IP
11 7 (0.097%) DHCP
12 6 (0.084%) DMZ
12 6 (0.084%) HTTP
13 5 (0.070%) VLAN
14 4 (0.056%) Intranet
14 4 (0.056%) RTP
14 4 (0.056%) Wireshark
15 3 (0.042%) Modbus
16 2 (0.028%) InfiniBand
Database & Business Intelligence
1 867 (12.07%) Power BI
2 807 (11.23%) Tableau
3 53 (0.74%) SQL Server
4 44 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
5 42 (0.58%) Metadata
6 36 (0.50%) MongoDB
7 35 (0.49%) Data Lake
8 30 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
9 28 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
10 26 (0.36%) NoSQL
11 18 (0.25%) Big Data
12 17 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (0.21%) Data Mining
13 15 (0.21%) Looker
14 14 (0.19%) MySQL
14 14 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
15 13 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 10 (0.14%) Hadoop
16 10 (0.14%) Redis
16 10 (0.14%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 61 (0.85%) Git
2 51 (0.71%) JIRA
3 50 (0.70%) Visual Studio Code
4 20 (0.28%) Jenkins
5 15 (0.21%) Selenium
6 12 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
7 11 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 10 (0.14%) MLflow
9 9 (0.13%) IBM UrbanCode
9 9 (0.13%) Visual Studio
10 7 (0.097%) GitLab
10 7 (0.097%) JMeter
10 7 (0.097%) Postman
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 3 (0.042%) LoadRunner
13 3 (0.042%) SpecFlow
General
1 4,958 (69.00%) Social Skills
2 3,906 (54.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,698 (51.47%) Banking
4 533 (7.42%) Analytical Skills
5 514 (7.15%) Finance
6 226 (3.15%) Marketing
7 158 (2.20%) Retail
8 151 (2.10%) Games
9 124 (1.73%) Public Sector
10 119 (1.66%) Legal
11 101 (1.41%) Manufacturing
12 81 (1.13%) Law
13 47 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
14 40 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
15 39 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
16 36 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
17 35 (0.49%) Telecoms
18 32 (0.45%) Aeronautics
19 30 (0.42%) German Language
20 22 (0.31%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 2,829 (39.37%) Lecturer
2 833 (11.59%) Analyst
3 768 (10.69%) Junior
4 763 (10.62%) Data Analyst
5 757 (10.54%) Junior Analyst
5 757 (10.54%) Junior Data Analyst
6 640 (8.91%) Trainer
7 252 (3.51%) Senior
8 248 (3.45%) Lead
9 187 (2.60%) Developer
10 99 (1.38%) Architect
11 94 (1.31%) Content Editor
12 80 (1.11%) Software Engineer
13 77 (1.07%) Research Scientist
14 71 (0.99%) Data Engineer
15 68 (0.95%) Customer Support Specialist
15 68 (0.95%) Support Specialist
16 65 (0.90%) Consultant
16 65 (0.90%) Solutions Architect
17 55 (0.77%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (1.32%) .NET
2 81 (1.13%) React
3 74 (1.03%) HTML
4 67 (0.93%) scikit-learn
5 60 (0.84%) Pandas
5 60 (0.84%) REST
6 57 (0.79%) NumPy
7 54 (0.75%) Hugging Face
8 52 (0.72%) Matplotlib
9 49 (0.68%) Streamlit
10 48 (0.67%) CSS
11 45 (0.63%) RESTful
12 42 (0.58%) TensorFlow
13 40 (0.56%) PyTorch
14 38 (0.53%) Node.js
15 35 (0.49%) AngularJS
16 30 (0.42%) PySpark
17 28 (0.39%) SOAP
17 28 (0.39%) XML
18 27 (0.38%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 3,670 (51.08%) IoT
2 123 (1.71%) Cloud Native
2 123 (1.71%) Onboarding
3 122 (1.70%) Social Media
4 108 (1.50%) Robotics
5 100 (1.39%) Algorithms
6 97 (1.35%) Product Ownership
7 96 (1.34%) Blog
8 81 (1.13%) Molecular Biology
9 60 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
10 58 (0.81%) Life Science
11 49 (0.68%) Low-Code
12 48 (0.67%) AI Agents
13 47 (0.65%) Mobile App
14 40 (0.56%) Enterprise Software
15 28 (0.39%) 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%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 52 (0.72%) Windows
2 47 (0.65%) Android
3 40 (0.56%) Apple iOS
3 40 (0.56%) Linux
4 24 (0.33%) Unix
5 20 (0.28%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.070%) VMS
7 4 (0.056%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.056%) Windows Server 2016
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
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,138 (57.59%) Machine Learning
2 3,792 (52.78%) Cybersecurity
3 3,778 (52.58%) User Experience
4 3,659 (50.93%) Web Development
5 905 (12.60%) Business Intelligence
6 706 (9.83%) Conversational UI
7 529 (7.36%) Agile
8 510 (7.10%) Analytics
9 334 (4.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 325 (4.52%) Problem-Solving
11 323 (4.50%) Roadmaps
12 286 (3.98%) CI/CD
13 280 (3.90%) Decision-Making
14 270 (3.76%) Software Engineering
15 269 (3.74%) Customer Experience
16 262 (3.65%) DevOps
17 229 (3.19%) LLM
18 215 (2.99%) Data Science
19 198 (2.76%) Mentoring
20 194 (2.70%) Chemistry
Programming Languages
1 1,240 (17.26%) Python
2 995 (13.85%) SQL
3 113 (1.57%) Java
4 111 (1.54%) JavaScript
5 86 (1.20%) C#
6 64 (0.89%) TypeScript
7 32 (0.45%) PowerShell
7 32 (0.45%) R
8 30 (0.42%) C++
9 22 (0.31%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.29%) Bash
11 19 (0.26%) Go
12 18 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (0.22%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.19%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.17%) Shell Script
16 11 (0.15%) PL/SQL
16 11 (0.15%) Rust
17 10 (0.14%) Scala
18 9 (0.13%) Swift
Qualifications
1 4,643 (64.62%) Degree
2 4,038 (56.20%) Master's Degree
3 4,020 (55.95%) PhD
4 3,653 (50.84%) Postgraduate
5 776 (10.80%) Azure Certification
6 119 (1.66%) Security Cleared
7 90 (1.25%) AWS Certification
8 76 (1.06%) SC Cleared
9 49 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 39 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
11 35 (0.49%) DBS Check
11 35 (0.49%) DV Cleared
12 25 (0.35%) PMP
13 13 (0.18%) ACCA
14 12 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
14 12 (0.17%) Six Sigma Green Belt
15 9 (0.13%) BPSS Clearance
16 8 (0.11%) CIMA
17 7 (0.097%) CISM
17 7 (0.097%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (2.28%) Accessibility
2 94 (1.31%) Data Quality
3 70 (0.97%) QA
4 47 (0.65%) 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 (0.19%) 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 70 (0.97%) Docker
2 34 (0.47%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.11%) vSphere
7 3 (0.042%) Kamailio
8 2 (0.028%) Ceph
8 2 (0.028%) Lustre
8 2 (0.028%) RACF
8 2 (0.028%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (0.028%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.014%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 76 (1.06%) Kubernetes
2 74 (1.03%) Terraform
3 27 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
5 19 (0.26%) Ansible
6 14 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
7 12 (0.17%) Grafana
8 8 (0.11%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.097%) Proxmox
10 6 (0.084%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.056%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.056%) Argo
11 4 (0.056%) SolarWinds Orion
12 3 (0.042%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.042%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.042%) SCCM
13 2 (0.028%) Control-M
13 2 (0.028%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
14 1 (0.014%) Nessus
14 1 (0.014%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,223 (17.02%) Microsoft
2 637 (8.87%) PayPal
3 117 (1.63%) Adobe
4 71 (0.99%) Databricks
5 66 (0.92%) Cisco
6 65 (0.90%) Dell
7 62 (0.86%) Oracle
8 57 (0.79%) Google
9 41 (0.57%) Salesforce
10 24 (0.33%) Apple
11 21 (0.29%) VMware
12 20 (0.28%) OpenAI
13 19 (0.26%) SAP
14 16 (0.22%) Blue Prism
14 16 (0.22%) ServiceNow
15 13 (0.18%) HubSpot
16 12 (0.17%) BT
16 12 (0.17%) Red Hat
16 12 (0.17%) Splunk
17 11 (0.15%) Hootsuite