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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 46 74
Rank change year-on-year +43 +28 +91
Permanent jobs citing AI 7,098 1,574 1,854
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 14.60% 4.91% 3.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 19.05% 5.40% 4.26%
Number of salaries quoted 1,093 798 989
10th Percentile £24,656 £40,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £38,750 £52,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,450 £66,254 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.27% +6.01% -0.79%
75th Percentile £81,250 £82,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £97,290
UK median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +7.14% -

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 37,263 29,152 43,494
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 76.64% 90.99% 86.86%
Number of salaries quoted 21,972 13,277 33,192
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,250 £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 £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £83,750 £78,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -12.00%

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 19 February 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 19 February 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 +50 2,609 £60,000 -10.50% 519
North West +41 1,992 £61,418 -12.26% 319
Midlands +86 1,531 £55,000 -15.38% 217
South East +36 1,482 £50,000 -33.33% 647
West Midlands +84 1,252 £59,527 +3.53% 129
East of England +24 667 £55,000 -16.96% 186
Yorkshire +42 513 £62,500 +4.17% 142
South West +17 368 £62,500 -3.85% 196
Scotland +39 331 £70,000 +21.74% 173
East Midlands +71 290 £50,000 -23.08% 87
Wales +39 122 £51,585 +3.17% 51
North East +47 104 £55,000 -24.14% 59
Northern Ireland -6 55 £90,000 -5.26% 20
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 50 (0.70%) SharePoint
2 35 (0.49%) Jupyter
3 22 (0.31%) CMS
4 21 (0.30%) Confluence
5 16 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 12 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
7 10 (0.14%) WordPress
8 9 (0.13%) Apache Spark
9 8 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
10 7 (0.099%) Apache
11 5 (0.070%) IIS
11 5 (0.070%) Umbraco
12 4 (0.056%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.042%) Drupal
13 3 (0.042%) Joomla!
14 2 (0.028%) Apache Qpid
14 2 (0.028%) CICS
14 2 (0.028%) JBoss
14 2 (0.028%) Mendix
14 2 (0.028%) WebSphere
Applications
1 850 (11.98%) Chatbot
2 638 (8.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 60 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
4 24 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.085%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 4 (0.056%) Weka
8 3 (0.042%) Simulink
9 2 (0.028%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.028%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.028%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.028%) UserZoom
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 24 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
3 16 (0.23%) NetSuite
4 11 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
5 6 (0.085%) Shopify
6 3 (0.042%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.042%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.042%) SAP Business One
6 3 (0.042%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
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
8 1 (0.014%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.014%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.014%) Odoo
8 1 (0.014%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.014%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.014%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 3,694 (52.04%) Cloud Computing
2 985 (13.88%) Azure
3 755 (10.64%) Power Platform
4 567 (7.99%) Azure AI
5 277 (3.90%) AWS
6 160 (2.25%) SaaS
7 126 (1.78%) Azure DevOps
8 110 (1.55%) Microsoft 365
9 105 (1.48%) GitHub
10 84 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
11 71 (1.00%) GCP
12 62 (0.87%) Entra ID
13 54 (0.76%) Snowflake
14 47 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
15 44 (0.62%) Microsoft Copilot
15 44 (0.62%) Power Automate
16 31 (0.44%) Adobe Analytics
17 30 (0.42%) dbt
17 30 (0.42%) PowerApps
17 30 (0.42%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3,656 (51.51%) Internet
2 55 (0.77%) Broadband
3 32 (0.45%) Unified Communications
4 31 (0.44%) Firewall
5 24 (0.34%) VoIP
6 18 (0.25%) Network Security
7 15 (0.21%) VPN
8 14 (0.20%) Telepresence
8 14 (0.20%) WebEx
9 11 (0.15%) DNS
10 9 (0.13%) TCP/IP
11 8 (0.11%) VLAN
12 7 (0.099%) DMZ
12 7 (0.099%) HTTP
12 7 (0.099%) Wireshark
13 6 (0.085%) Intranet
14 5 (0.070%) DHCP
14 5 (0.070%) Modbus
15 4 (0.056%) Bluetooth
15 4 (0.056%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 673 (9.48%) Power BI
2 599 (8.44%) Tableau
3 60 (0.85%) SQL Server
4 50 (0.70%) Data Warehouse
5 46 (0.65%) Metadata
6 36 (0.51%) NoSQL
7 31 (0.44%) MongoDB
8 29 (0.41%) Data Lake
9 28 (0.39%) Big Data
10 21 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
10 21 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
11 18 (0.25%) Data Mining
12 17 (0.24%) Hadoop
13 16 (0.23%) Snowflake Schema
14 13 (0.18%) MySQL
14 13 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 10 (0.14%) Elasticsearch
15 10 (0.14%) Relational Database
16 9 (0.13%) Looker
16 9 (0.13%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 64 (0.90%) JIRA
2 57 (0.80%) Git
3 35 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
4 20 (0.28%) Jenkins
5 17 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.14%) Selenium
7 9 (0.13%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.099%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.085%) JUnit
10 5 (0.070%) Burp Suite
10 5 (0.070%) GitBook
10 5 (0.070%) GitLab
10 5 (0.070%) Octopus Deploy
10 5 (0.070%) TeamCity
11 4 (0.056%) JMeter
11 4 (0.056%) Metasploit
11 4 (0.056%) MLflow
12 3 (0.042%) Postman
12 3 (0.042%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.042%) Visual Website Optimizer
General
1 4,822 (67.93%) Social Skills
2 3,918 (55.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,691 (52.00%) Banking
4 708 (9.97%) Analytical Skills
5 545 (7.68%) Finance
6 237 (3.34%) Marketing
7 136 (1.92%) Retail
8 127 (1.79%) Public Sector
9 96 (1.35%) Legal
10 87 (1.23%) Law
11 84 (1.18%) Manufacturing
12 72 (1.01%) Games
13 48 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
13 48 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
14 36 (0.51%) Aviation
14 36 (0.51%) Telecoms
15 35 (0.49%) Aeronautics
15 35 (0.49%) Aerospace
15 35 (0.49%) Electronics
16 30 (0.42%) German Language
Job Titles
1 2,833 (39.91%) Lecturer
2 805 (11.34%) Trainer
3 630 (8.88%) Analyst
4 559 (7.88%) Data Analyst
5 548 (7.72%) Junior
6 541 (7.62%) Junior Analyst
6 541 (7.62%) Junior Data Analyst
7 230 (3.24%) Senior
8 205 (2.89%) Lead
9 183 (2.58%) Developer
10 112 (1.58%) Content Editor
11 90 (1.27%) Architect
12 81 (1.14%) Software Engineer
13 77 (1.08%) Research Scientist
14 72 (1.01%) Data Engineer
15 71 (1.00%) Business Manager
15 71 (1.00%) Customer Support Specialist
15 71 (1.00%) Support Specialist
16 64 (0.90%) Solutions Architect
17 57 (0.80%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (1.45%) .NET
2 78 (1.10%) React
3 63 (0.89%) HTML
4 59 (0.83%) REST
5 49 (0.69%) RESTful
5 49 (0.69%) scikit-learn
6 42 (0.59%) NumPy
7 41 (0.58%) Hugging Face
7 41 (0.58%) Pandas
8 39 (0.55%) CSS
9 37 (0.52%) Matplotlib
10 36 (0.51%) TensorFlow
11 35 (0.49%) AngularJS
12 34 (0.48%) Streamlit
13 33 (0.46%) PyTorch
14 29 (0.41%) SOAP
15 28 (0.39%) Node.js
16 27 (0.38%) Vue
16 27 (0.38%) XML
17 26 (0.37%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 3,675 (51.78%) IoT
2 136 (1.92%) Cloud Native
3 126 (1.78%) Robotics
4 114 (1.61%) Onboarding
5 106 (1.49%) Product Ownership
6 96 (1.35%) Algorithms
7 90 (1.27%) Blog
8 83 (1.17%) Molecular Biology
9 68 (0.96%) Life Science
10 56 (0.79%) Social Media
11 54 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
12 50 (0.70%) AI Agents
13 49 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
14 47 (0.66%) Analytical Mindset
15 43 (0.61%) Low-Code
16 34 (0.48%) Greenfield Project
17 30 (0.42%) Management Information System
17 30 (0.42%) Virtual Team
18 27 (0.38%) Distributed Systems
19 25 (0.35%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 53 (0.75%) Windows
2 40 (0.56%) Linux
3 28 (0.39%) Android
4 27 (0.38%) Apple iOS
5 24 (0.34%) Unix
6 19 (0.27%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.11%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.070%) VMS
9 4 (0.056%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.056%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (0.042%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.028%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.028%) zOS
12 1 (0.014%) Debian
12 1 (0.014%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,134 (58.24%) Machine Learning
2 3,797 (53.49%) Cybersecurity
3 3,779 (53.24%) User Experience
4 3,656 (51.51%) Web Development
5 853 (12.02%) Conversational UI
6 706 (9.95%) Business Intelligence
7 501 (7.06%) Analytics
8 496 (6.99%) Agile
9 350 (4.93%) Continuous Improvement
10 315 (4.44%) Problem-Solving
11 300 (4.23%) Chemistry
11 300 (4.23%) Decision-Making
12 298 (4.20%) Software Engineering
13 288 (4.06%) Roadmaps
14 284 (4.00%) DevOps
15 259 (3.65%) CI/CD
16 246 (3.47%) Customer Experience
17 206 (2.90%) Data Science
17 206 (2.90%) Project Management
18 200 (2.82%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 999 (14.07%) Python
2 792 (11.16%) SQL
3 116 (1.63%) JavaScript
4 107 (1.51%) Java
5 76 (1.07%) TypeScript
6 70 (0.99%) C#
7 50 (0.70%) PowerShell
8 38 (0.54%) C++
9 37 (0.52%) R
10 28 (0.39%) Bash
11 23 (0.32%) Apex Code
12 18 (0.25%) C
13 17 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 17 (0.24%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.23%) PL/SQL
15 15 (0.21%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.20%) Go
17 13 (0.18%) Rust
18 10 (0.14%) MATLAB
19 9 (0.13%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 4,873 (68.65%) Degree
2 4,155 (58.54%) Master's Degree
3 4,136 (58.27%) PhD
4 3,650 (51.42%) Postgraduate
5 559 (7.88%) Azure Certification
6 180 (2.54%) Security Cleared
7 146 (2.06%) SC Cleared
8 75 (1.06%) AWS Certification
9 51 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
10 40 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
11 35 (0.49%) DBS Check
12 34 (0.48%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 30 (0.42%) DV Cleared
14 23 (0.32%) PMP
15 16 (0.23%) Six Sigma Green Belt
16 12 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
17 10 (0.14%) ACCA
18 8 (0.11%) HNC
18 8 (0.11%) HND
19 7 (0.099%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (1.51%) Accessibility
2 77 (1.08%) Data Quality
3 60 (0.85%) QA
4 40 (0.56%) GxP
5 38 (0.54%) GDPR
6 37 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (0.28%) NIST
8 19 (0.27%) WCAG
9 18 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 14 (0.20%) PCI DSS
12 13 (0.18%) PMO
13 10 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
14 9 (0.13%) EU AI Act
15 8 (0.11%) CDISC
15 8 (0.11%) GRC
15 8 (0.11%) HL7
15 8 (0.11%) NCSC
16 7 (0.099%) ISO 9001
16 7 (0.099%) JSP 440
System Software
1 62 (0.87%) Docker
2 33 (0.46%) Active Directory
3 20 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
4 18 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
6 9 (0.13%) vSphere
7 4 (0.056%) Firmware
8 3 (0.042%) Kamailio
8 3 (0.042%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.028%) Ceph
9 2 (0.028%) Lustre
9 2 (0.028%) RACF
9 2 (0.028%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.014%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 98 (1.38%) Terraform
2 72 (1.01%) Kubernetes
3 35 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.20%) Ansible
5 14 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
6 9 (0.13%) Grafana
7 8 (0.11%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.099%) SCCM
9 6 (0.085%) Proxmox
9 6 (0.085%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.070%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.070%) Argo
11 4 (0.056%) Nessus
11 4 (0.056%) Nmap
11 4 (0.056%) SolarWinds Orion
12 3 (0.042%) Kubeflow
13 2 (0.028%) Control-M
13 2 (0.028%) HP Fortify
13 2 (0.028%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
Vendors
1 1,034 (14.57%) Microsoft
2 803 (11.31%) PayPal
3 77 (1.08%) Cisco
4 69 (0.97%) Adobe
5 66 (0.93%) Oracle
6 64 (0.90%) Dell
7 58 (0.82%) Databricks
8 52 (0.73%) Google
9 46 (0.65%) Salesforce
10 31 (0.44%) Blue Prism
11 24 (0.34%) Apple
12 22 (0.31%) HubSpot
12 22 (0.31%) SAP
13 21 (0.30%) OpenAI
13 21 (0.30%) VMware
14 14 (0.20%) Splunk
15 12 (0.17%) BT
16 11 (0.15%) Fortinet
17 9 (0.13%) Instagram
17 9 (0.13%) New Relic