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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 35 64
Rank change year-on-year +30 +29 +101
Permanent jobs citing AI 7,218 1,603 2,314
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 13.71% 5.71% 3.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.18% 6.19% 4.64%
Number of salaries quoted 1,185 830 1,127
10th Percentile £27,500 £25,313 £36,250
25th Percentile £38,750 £48,750 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,497 £66,219 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.66% +10.37% -7.69%
75th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £82,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £98,500
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 39,696 25,888 49,913
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 75.38% 92.28% 85.96%
Number of salaries quoted 23,605 13,407 37,515
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £27,000
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 £66,250 £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% -11.31%

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 12 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 12 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 2,675 £60,000 -7.69% 441
North West +37 1,989 £61,418 -15.29% 234
Midlands +77 1,581 £55,000 -15.38% 196
South East +33 1,443 £50,000 -33.33% 681
West Midlands +75 1,282 £55,000 -10.20% 107
East of England +21 724 £55,000 -16.95% 220
Yorkshire +38 572 £61,250 +33.88% 160
South West +16 389 £60,000 -4.00% 199
East Midlands +57 310 £50,000 -23.08% 87
Scotland +18 281 £70,000 +55.56% 101
Wales +39 123 £47,500 -24.00% 51
North East +48 114 £55,000 -24.14% 50
Northern Ireland +3 60 £90,000 -10.00% 22
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 51 (0.71%) SharePoint
2 50 (0.69%) Jupyter
3 27 (0.37%) CMS
4 21 (0.29%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.25%) Confluence
7 14 (0.19%) WordPress
8 13 (0.18%) Apache
9 11 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.097%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.069%) IIS
11 5 (0.069%) 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
1 789 (10.93%) Chatbot
2 781 (10.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 56 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (0.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.083%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.083%) Photoshop
7 5 (0.069%) Adobe Illustrator
7 5 (0.069%) UserZoom
8 4 (0.055%) Weka
9 2 (0.028%) Simulink
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 (0.055%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.055%) Shopify
5 4 (0.055%) 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%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.014%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.014%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 3,709 (51.39%) Cloud Computing
2 1,121 (15.53%) Azure
3 894 (12.39%) Power Platform
4 734 (10.17%) Azure AI
5 307 (4.25%) AWS
6 168 (2.33%) SaaS
7 106 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
8 103 (1.43%) Microsoft 365
9 99 (1.37%) GitHub
10 78 (1.08%) GitHub Copilot
11 67 (0.93%) Adobe Analytics
11 67 (0.93%) GCP
12 51 (0.71%) Microsoft Copilot
12 51 (0.71%) Snowflake
13 47 (0.65%) Azure Data Factory
14 45 (0.62%) Entra ID
14 45 (0.62%) Power Automate
15 40 (0.55%) Figma
16 31 (0.43%) PowerApps
16 31 (0.43%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3,652 (50.60%) Internet
2 113 (1.57%) Broadband
3 32 (0.44%) Unified Communications
4 31 (0.43%) Firewall
5 19 (0.26%) VoIP
6 17 (0.24%) VPN
7 14 (0.19%) Network Security
7 14 (0.19%) Telepresence
7 14 (0.19%) WebEx
8 12 (0.17%) DNS
9 10 (0.14%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.097%) VLAN
11 6 (0.083%) DHCP
11 6 (0.083%) DMZ
11 6 (0.083%) HTTP
11 6 (0.083%) Wireshark
12 5 (0.069%) Modbus
13 4 (0.055%) Intranet
13 4 (0.055%) RTP
14 3 (0.042%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 811 (11.24%) Power BI
2 751 (10.40%) Tableau
3 54 (0.75%) SQL Server
4 44 (0.61%) Metadata
5 42 (0.58%) Data Warehouse
6 35 (0.48%) Data Lake
7 31 (0.43%) MongoDB
8 28 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
9 27 (0.37%) Azure SQL Database
10 26 (0.36%) NoSQL
11 20 (0.28%) Big Data
12 15 (0.21%) Elasticsearch
13 14 (0.19%) Data Mining
13 14 (0.19%) MySQL
14 13 (0.18%) Looker
14 13 (0.18%) Snowflake Schema
14 13 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 10 (0.14%) Redis
15 10 (0.14%) Relational Database
15 10 (0.14%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 61 (0.85%) Git
2 50 (0.69%) JIRA
2 50 (0.69%) Visual Studio Code
3 20 (0.28%) Jenkins
4 15 (0.21%) Selenium
5 12 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
6 11 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.12%) IBM UrbanCode
7 9 (0.12%) Visual Studio
8 8 (0.11%) GitLab
9 7 (0.097%) JMeter
9 7 (0.097%) MLflow
9 7 (0.097%) Postman
10 6 (0.083%) Claude Code
10 6 (0.083%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.069%) Appium
11 5 (0.069%) Burp Suite
11 5 (0.069%) GitBook
11 5 (0.069%) JUnit
12 3 (0.042%) LoadRunner
General
1 4,912 (68.05%) Social Skills
2 3,910 (54.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,699 (51.25%) Banking
4 622 (8.62%) Analytical Skills
5 521 (7.22%) Finance
6 227 (3.14%) Marketing
7 160 (2.22%) Retail
8 136 (1.88%) Games
9 122 (1.69%) Public Sector
10 117 (1.62%) Legal
11 106 (1.47%) Manufacturing
12 81 (1.12%) Law
13 48 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
14 40 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
15 38 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
16 37 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
16 37 (0.51%) Telecoms
17 34 (0.47%) Aeronautics
18 30 (0.42%) Aerospace
18 30 (0.42%) German Language
Job Titles
1 2,832 (39.24%) Lecturer
2 779 (10.79%) Analyst
3 729 (10.10%) Trainer
4 714 (9.89%) Junior
5 709 (9.82%) Data Analyst
6 703 (9.74%) Junior Analyst
6 703 (9.74%) Junior Data Analyst
7 248 (3.44%) Senior
8 241 (3.34%) Lead
9 189 (2.62%) Developer
10 98 (1.36%) Architect
11 94 (1.30%) Content Editor
12 80 (1.11%) Software Engineer
13 77 (1.07%) Research Scientist
14 68 (0.94%) Customer Support Specialist
14 68 (0.94%) Support Specialist
15 66 (0.91%) Data Engineer
16 65 (0.90%) Consultant
17 64 (0.89%) Solutions Architect
18 54 (0.75%) Business Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (1.39%) .NET
2 80 (1.11%) React
3 73 (1.01%) HTML
4 66 (0.91%) scikit-learn
5 59 (0.82%) Pandas
6 56 (0.78%) NumPy
6 56 (0.78%) REST
7 53 (0.73%) Hugging Face
8 52 (0.72%) Matplotlib
9 49 (0.68%) Streamlit
10 47 (0.65%) CSS
11 44 (0.61%) RESTful
12 41 (0.57%) TensorFlow
13 38 (0.53%) PyTorch
14 37 (0.51%) Node.js
15 36 (0.50%) AngularJS
16 29 (0.40%) PySpark
17 28 (0.39%) SOAP
18 27 (0.37%) Vue
18 27 (0.37%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 3,674 (50.90%) IoT
2 123 (1.70%) Onboarding
3 118 (1.63%) Cloud Native
4 114 (1.58%) Robotics
5 111 (1.54%) Social Media
6 106 (1.47%) Algorithms
7 96 (1.33%) Blog
8 93 (1.29%) Product Ownership
9 81 (1.12%) Molecular Biology
10 61 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
11 59 (0.82%) Life Science
12 47 (0.65%) AI Agents
12 47 (0.65%) Mobile App
13 45 (0.62%) Low-Code
14 40 (0.55%) Enterprise Software
15 29 (0.40%) Management Information System
16 28 (0.39%) Distributed Systems
16 28 (0.39%) Virtual Team
17 27 (0.37%) Linux Command Line
18 26 (0.36%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 51 (0.71%) Windows
2 49 (0.68%) Android
3 44 (0.61%) Linux
4 40 (0.55%) Apple iOS
5 24 (0.33%) Unix
6 19 (0.26%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.083%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.069%) VMS
9 4 (0.055%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.055%) 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%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,128 (57.19%) Machine Learning
2 3,793 (52.55%) Cybersecurity
3 3,775 (52.30%) User Experience
4 3,659 (50.69%) Web Development
5 848 (11.75%) Business Intelligence
6 795 (11.01%) Conversational UI
7 518 (7.18%) Agile
8 499 (6.91%) Analytics
9 327 (4.53%) Problem-Solving
10 324 (4.49%) Continuous Improvement
11 311 (4.31%) Roadmaps
12 283 (3.92%) Chemistry
12 283 (3.92%) CI/CD
13 281 (3.89%) Software Engineering
14 277 (3.84%) Decision-Making
15 261 (3.62%) DevOps
16 256 (3.55%) Customer Experience
17 226 (3.13%) LLM
18 218 (3.02%) Data Science
19 196 (2.72%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 1,186 (16.43%) Python
2 939 (13.01%) SQL
3 117 (1.62%) JavaScript
4 113 (1.57%) Java
5 85 (1.18%) C#
6 68 (0.94%) TypeScript
7 38 (0.53%) C++
8 33 (0.46%) PowerShell
8 33 (0.46%) R
9 22 (0.30%) Apex Code
10 21 (0.29%) Bash
11 18 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (0.22%) C
12 16 (0.22%) Go
13 15 (0.21%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.19%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.18%) Rust
16 12 (0.17%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.15%) PL/SQL
17 11 (0.15%) Swift
Qualifications
1 4,757 (65.90%) Degree
2 4,129 (57.20%) Master's Degree
3 4,112 (56.97%) PhD
4 3,653 (50.61%) Postgraduate
5 721 (9.99%) Azure Certification
6 145 (2.01%) Security Cleared
7 104 (1.44%) SC Cleared
8 90 (1.25%) AWS Certification
9 49 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 43 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
11 35 (0.48%) DBS Check
12 34 (0.47%) DV Cleared
13 30 (0.42%) BPSS Clearance
14 24 (0.33%) PMP
15 13 (0.18%) ACCA
16 12 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
16 12 (0.17%) Six Sigma Green Belt
17 8 (0.11%) CIMA
18 6 (0.083%) CISSP
18 6 (0.083%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (2.09%) Accessibility
2 90 (1.25%) Data Quality
3 68 (0.94%) QA
4 44 (0.61%) GDPR
5 36 (0.50%) WCAG
6 33 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 30 (0.42%) GxP
8 20 (0.28%) NIST
9 17 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
10 14 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 14 (0.19%) PMO
11 12 (0.17%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.15%) GRC
13 10 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
14 9 (0.12%) EU AI Act
15 8 (0.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 8 (0.11%) HIPAA
16 7 (0.097%) NCSC
17 6 (0.083%) JSP 440
17 6 (0.083%) SLA
System Software
1 67 (0.93%) Docker
2 32 (0.44%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.11%) vSphere
7 4 (0.055%) Firmware
8 3 (0.042%) Kamailio
9 2 (0.028%) Ceph
9 2 (0.028%) Lustre
9 2 (0.028%) RACF
9 2 (0.028%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.028%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 74 (1.03%) Kubernetes
1 74 (1.03%) Terraform
2 27 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
3 21 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
4 19 (0.26%) Ansible
5 14 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
6 11 (0.15%) Grafana
7 8 (0.11%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.097%) Proxmox
9 6 (0.083%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.055%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (0.055%) Argo
10 4 (0.055%) SolarWinds Orion
11 3 (0.042%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.042%) Nessus
11 3 (0.042%) Nmap
11 3 (0.042%) SCCM
12 2 (0.028%) Control-M
12 2 (0.028%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.028%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
Vendors
1 1,174 (16.26%) Microsoft
2 726 (10.06%) PayPal
3 105 (1.45%) Adobe
4 72 (1.00%) Cisco
5 68 (0.94%) Dell
6 67 (0.93%) Databricks
7 62 (0.86%) Oracle
8 54 (0.75%) Google
9 40 (0.55%) Salesforce
10 24 (0.33%) Apple
11 21 (0.29%) VMware
12 20 (0.28%) OpenAI
13 19 (0.26%) SAP
14 18 (0.25%) Blue Prism
15 16 (0.22%) ServiceNow
16 14 (0.19%) Red Hat
16 14 (0.19%) Splunk
17 13 (0.18%) HubSpot
18 12 (0.17%) BT
19 11 (0.15%) Hootsuite