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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 11 43
Rank change year-on-year -4 +32 +96
Permanent jobs citing AI 5,378 3,526 2,676
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 6.86% 10.16% 4.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.75% 11.66% 5.73%
Number of salaries quoted 2,829 719 1,002
10th Percentile £36,250 £24,750 £38,775
25th Percentile £48,250 £35,375 £47,841
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £57,500 £63,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -8.73% -9.28%
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,125 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,474 £95,000
UK median annual salary £72,500 £70,000 £72,500
% change year-on-year +3.57% -3.45% -3.33%

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 55,169 30,250 46,713
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.33% 87.19% 78.32%
Number of salaries quoted 38,899 16,486 28,866
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,507
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

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 August 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 August 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 +5 1,590 £66,000 +14.78% 459
South East -4 1,189 £62,500 +26.90% 698
North West +18 835 £70,000 +16.67% 254
Midlands -9 835 £59,250 -1.25% 223
South West +8 613 £67,500 +22.73% 292
West Midlands -5 556 £60,000 - 145
East of England +27 534 £60,000 +9.09% 178
Yorkshire -8 499 £65,000 +48.57% 146
East Midlands -17 279 £52,500 -19.23% 76
Scotland -4 276 £70,000 +7.69% 92
North East +1 256 £65,000 +90.24% 64
Wales +8 205 £65,000 +18.18% 40
Northern Ireland +10 159 £74,830 -14.48% 20
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
1 139 (2.58%) SharePoint
2 51 (0.95%) CMS
3 50 (0.93%) Apache
4 46 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
5 45 (0.84%) Confluence
6 44 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
7 41 (0.76%) Apache Spark
8 35 (0.65%) WordPress
9 19 (0.35%) Jupyter
10 7 (0.13%) IIS
10 7 (0.13%) nginx
10 7 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.093%) SAS
13 4 (0.074%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.074%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.074%) Headless CMS
14 2 (0.037%) Apache Solr
14 2 (0.037%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 743 (13.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 64 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
3 56 (1.04%) Chatbot
4 33 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 22 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
7 17 (0.32%) Photoshop
8 16 (0.30%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 14 (0.26%) Adobe After Effects
9 14 (0.26%) InDesign
9 14 (0.26%) UserZoom
10 13 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
11 10 (0.19%) Simulink
12 8 (0.15%) LaTeX
13 7 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
14 3 (0.056%) Stateflow
15 2 (0.037%) Adobe Premiere
15 2 (0.037%) Camtasia
15 2 (0.037%) Elementor
15 2 (0.037%) Trello
Business Applications
1 73 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 28 (0.52%) Dynamics GP
3 24 (0.45%) Cloudability
4 13 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
5 12 (0.22%) NetSuite
6 10 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
7 8 (0.15%) Sage 50
7 8 (0.15%) Shopify
8 5 (0.093%) Sage 200
9 3 (0.056%) Dynamics AX
9 3 (0.056%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.056%) Magento
9 3 (0.056%) Q-Pulse
10 2 (0.037%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 2 (0.037%) SAP Business One
10 2 (0.037%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.037%) Workday HCM
11 1 (0.019%) Oracle Assets
11 1 (0.019%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 1 (0.019%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 1,988 (36.97%) Azure
2 1,155 (21.48%) Azure AI
3 961 (17.87%) Power Platform
4 709 (13.18%) AWS
5 356 (6.62%) SaaS
6 268 (4.98%) GCP
7 252 (4.69%) GitHub
8 251 (4.67%) Microsoft 365
9 231 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
10 191 (3.55%) Microsoft Copilot
11 150 (2.79%) Serverless
12 131 (2.44%) Entra ID
13 117 (2.18%) GitHub Copilot
14 115 (2.14%) Power Automate
15 111 (2.06%) Snowflake
16 107 (1.99%) Anthropic Claude
17 75 (1.39%) Adobe Analytics
17 75 (1.39%) PowerApps
18 68 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
19 67 (1.25%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 140 (2.60%) Broadband
2 58 (1.08%) Firewall
3 47 (0.87%) Internet
4 44 (0.82%) DNS
5 38 (0.71%) VPN
6 35 (0.65%) Network Security
7 18 (0.33%) TCP/IP
8 17 (0.32%) MQTT
9 15 (0.28%) DHCP
9 15 (0.28%) VLAN
10 14 (0.26%) WAN
11 13 (0.24%) VoIP
12 11 (0.20%) LAN
13 10 (0.19%) BGP
13 10 (0.19%) Wireless
14 9 (0.17%) CTI
15 8 (0.15%) HTTP
15 8 (0.15%) OSPF
16 6 (0.11%) DMZ
16 6 (0.11%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 815 (15.15%) Power BI
2 668 (12.42%) Tableau
3 206 (3.83%) MongoDB
4 181 (3.37%) Azure SQL Database
5 150 (2.79%) SQL Server
6 93 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
7 83 (1.54%) PostgreSQL
8 77 (1.43%) Data Lake
9 66 (1.23%) Metadata
10 59 (1.10%) Relational Database
11 54 (1.00%) NoSQL
12 45 (0.84%) Big Data
13 40 (0.74%) Redis
14 37 (0.69%) DynamoDB
15 35 (0.65%) MySQL
16 34 (0.63%) BigQuery
17 33 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
18 23 (0.43%) Pinecone
19 22 (0.41%) Looker
20 20 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 172 (3.20%) Git
2 85 (1.58%) JIRA
3 57 (1.06%) Jenkins
4 56 (1.04%) GitLab
5 41 (0.76%) Claude Code
6 24 (0.45%) JUnit
7 22 (0.41%) Snyk
8 21 (0.39%) Maven
8 21 (0.39%) Selenium
9 19 (0.35%) MLflow
9 19 (0.35%) Postman
10 18 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
11 12 (0.22%) Cypress.io
12 11 (0.20%) IBM UrbanCode
12 11 (0.20%) Spock
13 10 (0.19%) Mockito
14 8 (0.15%) JMeter
15 7 (0.13%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.11%) Eclipse
16 6 (0.11%) SonarQube
General
1 2,019 (37.54%) Social Skills
2 863 (16.05%) Finance
3 571 (10.62%) Analytical Skills
4 442 (8.22%) Marketing
5 433 (8.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 303 (5.63%) Legal
7 272 (5.06%) Public Sector
8 185 (3.44%) Law
9 182 (3.38%) Retail
10 174 (3.24%) Games
11 154 (2.86%) Manufacturing
12 143 (2.66%) Influencing Skills
13 132 (2.45%) Organisational Skills
14 106 (1.97%) Banking
15 65 (1.21%) Advertising
16 53 (0.99%) Aerospace
17 43 (0.80%) Automotive
18 41 (0.76%) Electronics
18 41 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
19 39 (0.73%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 833 (15.49%) Analyst
2 821 (15.27%) Senior
3 632 (11.75%) Junior
4 629 (11.70%) Developer
5 627 (11.66%) Data Analyst
6 596 (11.08%) Junior Analyst
7 594 (11.04%) Junior Data Analyst
8 486 (9.04%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 468 (8.70%) Lead
10 412 (7.66%) Architect
11 347 (6.45%) Software Engineer
12 216 (4.02%) Data Engineer
13 190 (3.53%) .NET Developer
14 164 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
15 150 (2.79%) Senior Manager
16 130 (2.42%) Senior Developer
17 125 (2.32%) Consultant
18 110 (2.05%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
19 105 (1.95%) Data Scientist
20 103 (1.92%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 338 (6.28%) .NET
2 274 (5.09%) React
3 208 (3.87%) Terraform
4 184 (3.42%) CSS
5 180 (3.35%) ASP.NET
6 177 (3.29%) HTML
7 175 (3.25%) ASP.NET Core
8 162 (3.01%) .NET Core
9 153 (2.84%) ML.NET
10 144 (2.68%) Node.js
11 130 (2.42%) REST
12 123 (2.29%) RESTful
13 117 (2.18%) Blazor
14 69 (1.28%) Vue
15 61 (1.13%) Kafka
16 59 (1.10%) LangChain
17 57 (1.06%) AngularJS
17 57 (1.06%) Spring
18 56 (1.04%) PyTorch
19 50 (0.93%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 250 (4.65%) Cloud Native
2 214 (3.98%) AI Agents
3 168 (3.12%) Social Media
4 161 (2.99%) Onboarding
5 142 (2.64%) Product Ownership
6 129 (2.40%) Self-Motivation
7 116 (2.16%) Distributed Systems
8 101 (1.88%) Robotics
9 100 (1.86%) Management Information System
10 88 (1.64%) Marketing Technology
11 85 (1.58%) Blog
12 83 (1.54%) Algorithms
13 74 (1.38%) Cyber Threat
14 71 (1.32%) Data Centre
15 69 (1.28%) Low-Code
16 65 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
17 63 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
18 54 (1.00%) Mobile App
19 47 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
20 46 (0.86%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 148 (2.75%) Windows
2 143 (2.66%) Linux
3 52 (0.97%) Windows Server
4 45 (0.84%) Android
5 21 (0.39%) Apple iOS
6 20 (0.37%) VMS
7 15 (0.28%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.19%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.15%) Debian
9 8 (0.15%) Unix
10 5 (0.093%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.093%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.056%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.056%) Gentoo
11 3 (0.056%) Solaris
12 2 (0.037%) CentOS
13 1 (0.019%) AIX
13 1 (0.019%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.019%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.019%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 938 (17.44%) Agile
2 921 (17.13%) Business Intelligence
3 900 (16.73%) Machine Learning
4 867 (16.12%) Analytics
5 704 (13.09%) Software Engineering
6 697 (12.96%) CI/CD
7 691 (12.85%) Continuous Improvement
8 651 (12.10%) Problem-Solving
9 584 (10.86%) Decision-Making
10 565 (10.51%) Roadmaps
11 551 (10.25%) DevOps
12 498 (9.26%) Mentoring
13 439 (8.16%) Cybersecurity
14 412 (7.66%) LLM
15 403 (7.49%) Full-Stack Development
16 387 (7.20%) Stakeholder Management
17 386 (7.18%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
18 317 (5.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 316 (5.88%) Data Science
20 306 (5.69%) Customer Experience
Programming Languages
1 1,765 (32.82%) Python
2 1,250 (23.24%) SQL
3 414 (7.70%) C#
4 374 (6.95%) JavaScript
5 227 (4.22%) TypeScript
6 204 (3.79%) Java
7 146 (2.71%) C++
8 94 (1.75%) PowerShell
9 66 (1.23%) Bash
10 46 (0.86%) C
11 41 (0.76%) Go
11 41 (0.76%) Rust
12 37 (0.69%) Bicep
13 28 (0.52%) PHP
13 28 (0.52%) R
14 26 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 23 (0.43%) Scala
16 21 (0.39%) Ruby
17 20 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
18 17 (0.32%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 959 (17.83%) Azure Certification
2 437 (8.13%) Degree
3 363 (6.75%) Security Cleared
4 231 (4.30%) SC Cleared
5 139 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 122 (2.27%) DV Cleared
7 87 (1.62%) CISSP
8 79 (1.47%) Master's Degree
9 76 (1.41%) CISM
10 66 (1.23%) AWS Certification
11 62 (1.15%) A+ Certification
11 62 (1.15%) ACCA
12 61 (1.13%) CIMA
13 60 (1.12%) Network+ Certification
14 47 (0.87%) PhD
15 39 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 38 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
17 36 (0.67%) BPSS Clearance
18 32 (0.60%) DBS Check
19 14 (0.26%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 231 (4.30%) Data Quality
2 218 (4.05%) Accessibility
3 142 (2.64%) QA
4 134 (2.49%) GDPR
5 87 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 60 (1.12%) SLA
7 56 (1.04%) GRC
8 45 (0.84%) NIST
9 43 (0.80%) WCAG
10 35 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
11 26 (0.48%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 24 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 21 (0.39%) NCSC
14 19 (0.35%) PCI DSS
15 15 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 11 (0.20%) PMO
17 10 (0.19%) IFRS
18 9 (0.17%) ISO 9001
18 9 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 8 (0.15%) GAAP
System Software
1 290 (5.39%) Docker
2 125 (2.32%) Active Directory
3 52 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
4 41 (0.76%) VMware Infrastructure
5 24 (0.45%) Firmware
6 18 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 17 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 15 (0.28%) vSphere
9 11 (0.20%) Embedded Firmware
10 8 (0.15%) Ceph
11 3 (0.056%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.037%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 276 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 114 (2.12%) Microsoft Intune
3 45 (0.84%) Ansible
4 39 (0.73%) Grafana
5 37 (0.69%) Prometheus
6 17 (0.32%) Podman
7 16 (0.30%) Puppet
8 10 (0.19%) Argo
8 10 (0.19%) Istio
9 7 (0.13%) Check_MK
10 6 (0.11%) Kubeflow
11 5 (0.093%) Functional Safety
11 5 (0.093%) Nagios
11 5 (0.093%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.074%) Proxmox
12 4 (0.074%) Single Sign-On
13 3 (0.056%) cPanel
13 3 (0.056%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.056%) linkerd
13 3 (0.056%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,563 (29.06%) Microsoft
2 205 (3.81%) Google
3 146 (2.71%) Databricks
4 144 (2.68%) Adobe
5 103 (1.92%) OpenAI
6 81 (1.51%) Cisco
7 68 (1.26%) Dell
8 67 (1.25%) Oracle
9 65 (1.21%) ServiceNow
10 60 (1.12%) CyberArk
11 59 (1.10%) Salesforce
12 58 (1.08%) Apple
13 46 (0.86%) VMware
14 41 (0.76%) Facebook
15 39 (0.73%) YouTube
16 35 (0.65%) Sage
16 35 (0.65%) SAP
17 34 (0.63%) HubSpot
18 29 (0.54%) Foundry
19 27 (0.50%) Splunk