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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 38 65
Rank change year-on-year +35 +27 +94
Permanent jobs citing AI 7,125 1,592 2,298
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 13.80% 5.63% 3.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.33% 6.09% 4.61%
Number of salaries quoted 1,142 828 1,131
10th Percentile £27,500 £25,313 £36,250
25th Percentile £38,750 £49,118 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,498 £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 £97,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £73,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -4.11% +4.29% -

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 38,875 26,140 49,821
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 75.30% 92.40% 86.11%
Number of salaries quoted 23,086 13,467 37,484
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% -9.09%
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% -11.78%

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 9 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 9 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 +41 2,635 £60,000 -7.69% 574
North West +33 1,976 £61,418 -15.29% 296
Midlands +78 1,554 £55,000 -15.38% 324
South East +34 1,437 £50,000 -33.33% 964
West Midlands +72 1,266 £55,000 -8.33% 168
East of England +21 712 £55,000 -16.95% 429
Yorkshire +41 549 £58,750 +28.42% 222
South West +17 383 £62,500 -3.85% 339
East Midlands +66 299 £50,000 -23.08% 147
Scotland +21 282 £70,000 +55.56% 138
Wales +37 121 £47,500 -24.00% 76
North East +42 110 £55,000 -26.42% 60
Northern Ireland -1 58 £90,000 -10.00% 31
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 49 (0.69%) SharePoint
2 46 (0.65%) Jupyter
3 23 (0.32%) CMS
4 21 (0.29%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.22%) Confluence
7 14 (0.20%) Apache
8 13 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 12 (0.17%) WordPress
10 9 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.070%) IIS
11 5 (0.070%) 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%) Apache Qpid
13 2 (0.028%) CICS
13 2 (0.028%) Mendix
13 2 (0.028%) WebSphere
Applications
1 783 (10.99%) Chatbot
2 727 (10.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 57 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.084%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.070%) Photoshop
8 4 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
8 4 (0.056%) UserZoom
8 4 (0.056%) Weka
9 3 (0.042%) 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 19 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
3 15 (0.21%) NetSuite
4 11 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.056%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.056%) Shopify
5 4 (0.056%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.042%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.042%) Oracle Receivables
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
7 2 (0.028%) SAP S/4HANA
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 3,705 (52.00%) Cloud Computing
2 1,060 (14.88%) Azure
3 842 (11.82%) Power Platform
4 675 (9.47%) Azure AI
5 294 (4.13%) AWS
6 162 (2.27%) SaaS
7 107 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
8 103 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
9 99 (1.39%) GitHub
10 78 (1.09%) GitHub Copilot
11 65 (0.91%) GCP
12 64 (0.90%) Adobe Analytics
13 52 (0.73%) Snowflake
14 50 (0.70%) Microsoft Copilot
15 49 (0.69%) Entra ID
16 47 (0.66%) Azure Data Factory
17 44 (0.62%) Power Automate
18 38 (0.53%) Figma
19 34 (0.48%) Serverless
20 31 (0.44%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 3,654 (51.28%) Internet
2 104 (1.46%) Broadband
3 32 (0.45%) Unified Communications
4 31 (0.44%) Firewall
5 21 (0.29%) VoIP
6 17 (0.24%) VPN
7 16 (0.22%) Network Security
8 14 (0.20%) Telepresence
8 14 (0.20%) WebEx
9 11 (0.15%) DNS
10 10 (0.14%) TCP/IP
11 8 (0.11%) VLAN
12 7 (0.098%) Wireshark
13 6 (0.084%) DMZ
13 6 (0.084%) HTTP
13 6 (0.084%) Modbus
14 5 (0.070%) DHCP
15 4 (0.056%) Intranet
15 4 (0.056%) Intrusion Detection
15 4 (0.056%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 759 (10.65%) Power BI
2 699 (9.81%) Tableau
3 53 (0.74%) SQL Server
4 44 (0.62%) Metadata
5 42 (0.59%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (0.48%) Data Lake
7 27 (0.38%) NoSQL
7 27 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
8 26 (0.36%) MongoDB
9 21 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
9 21 (0.29%) Big Data
10 15 (0.21%) Elasticsearch
11 14 (0.20%) Data Mining
11 14 (0.20%) MySQL
11 14 (0.20%) Snowflake Schema
12 13 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 12 (0.17%) Looker
14 10 (0.14%) Redis
14 10 (0.14%) Relational Database
14 10 (0.14%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 64 (0.90%) Git
2 52 (0.73%) JIRA
3 46 (0.65%) Visual Studio Code
4 21 (0.29%) Jenkins
5 14 (0.20%) Oracle Forms
6 10 (0.14%) Selenium
7 9 (0.13%) IBM UrbanCode
7 9 (0.13%) Visual Studio
8 8 (0.11%) Cypress.io
8 8 (0.11%) GitLab
9 7 (0.098%) MLflow
10 5 (0.070%) Burp Suite
10 5 (0.070%) GitBook
10 5 (0.070%) JMeter
10 5 (0.070%) Postman
11 4 (0.056%) Claude Code
11 4 (0.056%) JUnit
11 4 (0.056%) Metasploit
11 4 (0.056%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.042%) Visual Website Optimizer
General
1 4,862 (68.24%) Social Skills
2 3,905 (54.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,699 (51.92%) Banking
4 622 (8.73%) Analytical Skills
5 517 (7.26%) Finance
6 216 (3.03%) Marketing
7 155 (2.18%) Retail
8 127 (1.78%) Games
9 122 (1.71%) Public Sector
10 113 (1.59%) Legal
11 103 (1.45%) Manufacturing
12 80 (1.12%) Law
13 49 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
14 41 (0.58%) Pharmaceutical
15 37 (0.52%) Telecoms
16 35 (0.49%) Aeronautics
16 35 (0.49%) Aerospace
16 35 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
17 34 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
18 30 (0.42%) German Language
Job Titles
1 2,832 (39.75%) Lecturer
2 729 (10.23%) Trainer
3 726 (10.19%) Analyst
4 657 (9.22%) Junior
5 655 (9.19%) Data Analyst
6 649 (9.11%) Junior Analyst
6 649 (9.11%) Junior Data Analyst
7 244 (3.42%) Senior
8 232 (3.26%) Lead
9 176 (2.47%) Developer
10 97 (1.36%) Architect
11 94 (1.32%) Content Editor
12 80 (1.12%) Software Engineer
13 77 (1.08%) Research Scientist
14 68 (0.95%) Customer Support Specialist
14 68 (0.95%) Support Specialist
15 66 (0.93%) Solutions Architect
16 65 (0.91%) Data Engineer
17 63 (0.88%) Consultant
18 56 (0.79%) Business Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (1.29%) .NET
2 73 (1.02%) React
3 64 (0.90%) HTML
4 62 (0.87%) scikit-learn
5 57 (0.80%) REST
6 55 (0.77%) Pandas
7 52 (0.73%) NumPy
8 49 (0.69%) Hugging Face
9 48 (0.67%) Matplotlib
10 45 (0.63%) Streamlit
11 43 (0.60%) RESTful
12 41 (0.58%) TensorFlow
13 40 (0.56%) CSS
14 38 (0.53%) PyTorch
15 36 (0.51%) AngularJS
16 32 (0.45%) Node.js
17 29 (0.41%) SOAP
18 28 (0.39%) PySpark
19 27 (0.38%) Vue
19 27 (0.38%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 3,676 (51.59%) IoT
2 121 (1.70%) Cloud Native
3 119 (1.67%) Onboarding
4 113 (1.59%) Robotics
5 105 (1.47%) Algorithms
6 102 (1.43%) Social Media
7 95 (1.33%) Blog
8 94 (1.32%) Product Ownership
9 81 (1.14%) Molecular Biology
10 60 (0.84%) Life Science
11 55 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
12 48 (0.67%) AI Agents
13 44 (0.62%) Low-Code
14 43 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (0.58%) Mobile App
16 29 (0.41%) Management Information System
17 28 (0.39%) Greenfield Project
18 27 (0.38%) Analytical Mindset
18 27 (0.38%) Virtual Team
19 26 (0.36%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 50 (0.70%) Windows
2 44 (0.62%) Android
3 42 (0.59%) Linux
4 39 (0.55%) Apple iOS
5 24 (0.34%) Unix
6 18 (0.25%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.098%) 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%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,121 (57.84%) Machine Learning
2 3,793 (53.24%) Cybersecurity
3 3,775 (52.98%) User Experience
4 3,658 (51.34%) Web Development
5 796 (11.17%) Business Intelligence
6 789 (11.07%) Conversational UI
7 514 (7.21%) Agile
8 496 (6.96%) Analytics
9 319 (4.48%) Problem-Solving
10 317 (4.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 306 (4.29%) Roadmaps
12 283 (3.97%) Chemistry
13 279 (3.92%) Software Engineering
14 273 (3.83%) CI/CD
15 272 (3.82%) Decision-Making
16 260 (3.65%) DevOps
17 250 (3.51%) Customer Experience
18 217 (3.05%) Data Science
19 216 (3.03%) LLM
20 200 (2.81%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 1,133 (15.90%) Python
2 883 (12.39%) SQL
3 111 (1.56%) Java
3 111 (1.56%) JavaScript
4 77 (1.08%) C#
5 67 (0.94%) TypeScript
6 40 (0.56%) C++
7 36 (0.51%) PowerShell
8 34 (0.48%) R
9 23 (0.32%) Apex Code
9 23 (0.32%) Bash
10 18 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 16 (0.22%) C
11 16 (0.22%) Go
12 15 (0.21%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.20%) Rust
13 14 (0.20%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.18%) PL/SQL
15 11 (0.15%) Swift
16 10 (0.14%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 4,764 (66.86%) Degree
2 4,128 (57.94%) Master's Degree
3 4,112 (57.71%) PhD
4 3,653 (51.27%) Postgraduate
5 667 (9.36%) Azure Certification
6 158 (2.22%) Security Cleared
7 116 (1.63%) SC Cleared
8 86 (1.21%) AWS Certification
9 45 (0.63%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 45 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
10 40 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
11 35 (0.49%) DBS Check
12 34 (0.48%) DV Cleared
13 24 (0.34%) PMP
14 12 (0.17%) ACCA
14 12 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
14 12 (0.17%) Six Sigma Green Belt
15 7 (0.098%) CIMA
16 6 (0.084%) CISM
16 6 (0.084%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (2.09%) Accessibility
2 86 (1.21%) Data Quality
3 62 (0.87%) QA
4 43 (0.60%) GDPR
5 35 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 34 (0.48%) WCAG
7 30 (0.42%) GxP
8 20 (0.28%) NIST
9 17 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
10 14 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 14 (0.20%) PMO
11 12 (0.17%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
13 10 (0.14%) GRC
14 9 (0.13%) EU AI Act
15 8 (0.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 8 (0.11%) HIPAA
16 7 (0.098%) NCSC
17 6 (0.084%) JSP 440
17 6 (0.084%) SLA
System Software
1 63 (0.88%) Docker
2 32 (0.45%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
6 8 (0.11%) vSphere
7 4 (0.056%) 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 81 (1.14%) Terraform
2 71 (1.00%) Kubernetes
3 29 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
5 19 (0.27%) Ansible
6 14 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
7 10 (0.14%) Grafana
8 8 (0.11%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.098%) Proxmox
10 6 (0.084%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.056%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.056%) Argo
11 4 (0.056%) Nessus
11 4 (0.056%) Nmap
11 4 (0.056%) SCCM
11 4 (0.056%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.028%) Control-M
12 2 (0.028%) HP Fortify
12 2 (0.028%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.028%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
Vendors
1 1,111 (15.59%) Microsoft
2 726 (10.19%) PayPal
3 102 (1.43%) Adobe
4 72 (1.01%) Cisco
5 68 (0.95%) Dell
6 64 (0.90%) Databricks
7 63 (0.88%) Oracle
8 55 (0.77%) Google
9 39 (0.55%) Salesforce
10 24 (0.34%) Apple
11 23 (0.32%) Blue Prism
12 21 (0.29%) VMware
13 20 (0.28%) OpenAI
14 18 (0.25%) SAP
15 15 (0.21%) Red Hat
16 14 (0.20%) HubSpot
16 14 (0.20%) ServiceNow
16 14 (0.20%) Splunk
17 12 (0.17%) BT
18 11 (0.15%) Hootsuite