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

6 months to
22 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 7 64
Rank change year-on-year -10 +57 +52
Permanent jobs citing AI 5,572 4,135 1,602
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 6.29% 12.07% 3.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.85% 13.95% 4.11%
Number of salaries quoted 3,269 756 804
10th Percentile £36,101 £28,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £47,930 £38,750 £50,090
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 £74,000 £70,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +5.71% -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
22 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 62,943 29,638 38,940
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.04% 86.54% 79.76%
Number of salaries quoted 43,909 16,312 19,420
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £46,500 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.28% -13.89% +1.66%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £82,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -

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 22 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 22 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 1,649 £66,000 +14.78% 1,619
South East -10 1,275 £62,500 +13.64% 1,419
North West +3 1,025 £67,500 +12.50% 981
Midlands -16 820 £62,500 -3.85% 640
South West -3 634 £67,500 +12.50% 509
West Midlands -8 541 £62,500 +4.17% 437
East of England +18 531 £60,100 +26.53% 648
Yorkshire -12 376 £65,000 -10.34% 431
Scotland -6 299 £80,000 +17.00% 694
East Midlands -25 279 £61,250 -5.77% 203
North East -11 248 £66,000 +168.62% 210
Wales -5 220 £66,000 +20.00% 128
Northern Ireland +8 155 £72,500 -3.33% 305
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%1,026
2Agile18.1%1,006
3Continuous Improvement17.6%979
4Machine Learning17.1%953
5Software Engineering17.0%946
6Problem-Solving15.7%873
7CI/CD13.6%760
8Decision-Making13.6%758
9Stakeholder Management13.3%740
10Roadmaps11.6%649
11DevOps11.4%636
12Mentoring10.7%598
13Cybersecurity10.1%565
14Business Intelligence9.0%500
15Full-Stack Development8.5%473
15LLM8.5%473
17Coaching8.1%450
18Stakeholder Engagement7.7%428
19Generative AI7.1%396
20CRM6.8%379