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 21 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 7 63
Rank change year-on-year -10 +56 +55
Permanent jobs citing AI 5,546 4,128 1,615
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 6.28% 12.07% 3.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.85% 13.92% 4.16%
Number of salaries quoted 3,262 753 802
10th Percentile £36,013 £28,200 £40,000
25th Percentile £47,795 £38,750 £50,030
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -11.11% +3.74%
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £73,500 £70,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.67% -

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.

6 months to
21 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 62,679 29,662 38,855
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.99% 86.70% 79.71%
Number of salaries quoted 43,792 16,334 19,342
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,733 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £46,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year +19.57% -14.81% +1.41%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £82,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £54,793 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.50% -8.68% -

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 21 October 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 21 October 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 -10 1,640 £66,000 +10.00% 389
South East -10 1,264 £62,500 +13.64% 431
North West +3 1,020 £67,249 +12.08% 212
Midlands -14 819 £62,500 -1.96% 186
South West -3 629 £67,500 +12.50% 238
West Midlands -9 541 £62,500 +4.17% 125
East of England +16 531 £60,100 +26.53% 120
Yorkshire -13 372 £65,000 -10.34% 116
Scotland -6 299 £77,513 +13.37% 91
East Midlands -24 278 £62,500 -3.85% 61
North East -11 248 £66,000 +168.62% 64
Wales -5 220 £66,000 +20.00% 34
Northern Ireland +6 153 £73,665 -1.78% 18
AI
UK

AI Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

RankSkillShareJob Ads
1Analytics18.4%1,020
2Agile18.1%1,004
3Continuous Improvement17.7%979
4Machine Learning17.2%952
5Software Engineering16.8%934
6Problem-Solving15.7%869
7CI/CD13.7%761
8Decision-Making13.5%747
9Stakeholder Management13.3%736
10Roadmaps11.6%645
11DevOps11.5%638
12Mentoring10.7%596
13Cybersecurity10.1%560
14Business Intelligence8.9%494
15Full-Stack Development8.5%469
15LLM8.5%469
17Coaching8.1%450
18Stakeholder Engagement7.7%429
19Generative AI7.1%396
20CRM6.8%376