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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 29 41
Rank change year-on-year +24 +12 +128
Permanent jobs citing AI 7,734 1,979 3,426
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 11.67% 6.93% 5.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 16.27% 7.57% 5.99%
Number of salaries quoted 1,597 855 1,245
10th Percentile £32,500 £25,000 £35,037
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £66,200 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.37% +10.33% -11.11%
75th Percentile £82,500 £78,750 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year - - -3.45%

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 47,522 26,139 57,227
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 71.71% 91.56% 83.84%
Number of salaries quoted 29,429 13,949 41,015
10th Percentile £29,625 £27,750 £27,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,114 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £59,773 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.38% +9.09% -10.57%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 +46 2,780 £65,000 - 556
North West +48 2,013 £70,000 -3.45% 303
Midlands +24 1,706 £52,500 -10.76% 278
South East +24 1,550 £60,000 -14.29% 671
West Midlands +26 1,329 £52,000 -9.57% 160
East of England +37 824 £59,450 -10.23% 227
Yorkshire +18 634 £65,000 +44.44% 146
South West +6 450 £60,000 +4.40% 218
East Midlands +26 388 £55,000 -12.00% 116
Scotland +7 241 £70,000 +55.56% 97
Wales +30 151 £53,171 -17.24% 60
North East +18 133 £59,000 +2.61% 108
Northern Ireland +10 70 £90,000 -10.00% 31
Channel Islands +2 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 55 (0.71%) SharePoint
2 50 (0.65%) Jupyter
3 34 (0.44%) CMS
4 31 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
4 31 (0.40%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.32%) Confluence
6 17 (0.22%) WordPress
7 16 (0.21%) Apache
8 8 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (0.091%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.065%) IIS
11 3 (0.039%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.039%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.026%) Apache Qpid
12 2 (0.026%) JBoss
12 2 (0.026%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.026%) WebSphere
13 1 (0.013%) CICS
13 1 (0.013%) Kinematics
13 1 (0.013%) SAS
Applications
1 1,202 (15.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 84 (1.09%) Chatbot
3 53 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
4 32 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.21%) UserZoom
6 9 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.078%) MS Visio
8 5 (0.065%) Photoshop
9 4 (0.052%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 3 (0.039%) Camtasia
10 3 (0.039%) Simulink
11 2 (0.026%) Weka
12 1 (0.013%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.013%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.013%) Notion
Business Applications
1 19 (0.25%) Cloudability
2 13 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (0.13%) NetSuite
4 9 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
5 8 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
6 4 (0.052%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.052%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 2 (0.026%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.026%) Oracle Assets
7 2 (0.026%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.026%) Sage 50
7 2 (0.026%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.013%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.013%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 1 (0.013%) Odoo
8 1 (0.013%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.013%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.013%) Sage 200
8 1 (0.013%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.013%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 3,713 (48.01%) Cloud Computing
2 1,952 (25.24%) Azure
3 1,529 (19.77%) Azure AI
4 1,320 (17.07%) Power Platform
5 418 (5.40%) AWS
6 182 (2.35%) SaaS
7 122 (1.58%) GCP
8 113 (1.46%) Azure DevOps
9 111 (1.44%) Adobe Analytics
10 105 (1.36%) GitHub
11 104 (1.34%) Microsoft 365
12 82 (1.06%) Snowflake
13 72 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
14 67 (0.87%) GitHub Copilot
15 65 (0.84%) Figma
16 59 (0.76%) Serverless
17 44 (0.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 44 (0.57%) Entra ID
18 41 (0.53%) dbt
18 41 (0.53%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 3,651 (47.21%) Internet
2 174 (2.25%) Broadband
3 36 (0.47%) Firewall
4 25 (0.32%) Unified Communications
5 20 (0.26%) DNS
6 19 (0.25%) Network Security
7 18 (0.23%) VPN
8 11 (0.14%) DHCP
9 10 (0.13%) TCP/IP
9 10 (0.13%) VoIP
10 8 (0.10%) MQTT
11 7 (0.091%) HTTP
11 7 (0.091%) Intranet
11 7 (0.091%) Telepresence
11 7 (0.091%) VLAN
11 7 (0.091%) WebEx
11 7 (0.091%) Wireless
12 6 (0.078%) DMZ
13 3 (0.039%) SAN
13 3 (0.039%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1,246 (16.11%) Power BI
2 1,191 (15.40%) Tableau
3 80 (1.03%) SQL Server
4 62 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (0.67%) MongoDB
6 49 (0.63%) Data Lake
6 49 (0.63%) Metadata
7 40 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
7 40 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
8 26 (0.34%) NoSQL
9 25 (0.32%) Looker
10 23 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
11 21 (0.27%) Big Data
12 16 (0.21%) Redis
13 15 (0.19%) MySQL
14 14 (0.18%) Amazon Redshift
14 14 (0.18%) Snowflake Schema
15 13 (0.17%) BigQuery
16 11 (0.14%) Relational Database
16 11 (0.14%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 67 (0.87%) Git
2 50 (0.65%) Visual Studio Code
3 48 (0.62%) JIRA
4 24 (0.31%) Jenkins
5 17 (0.22%) MLflow
5 17 (0.22%) Snyk
6 16 (0.21%) GitLab
6 16 (0.21%) Selenium
7 13 (0.17%) Claude Code
8 10 (0.13%) Cypress.io
8 10 (0.13%) Postman
9 9 (0.12%) IBM UrbanCode
9 9 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 9 (0.12%) Visual Studio
10 8 (0.10%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.091%) JUnit
12 5 (0.065%) Appium
12 5 (0.065%) JMeter
12 5 (0.065%) REST Assured
13 4 (0.052%) Maven
General
1 5,656 (73.13%) Social Skills
2 3,936 (50.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,718 (48.07%) Banking
4 515 (6.66%) Finance
5 357 (4.62%) Analytical Skills
6 261 (3.37%) Marketing
7 198 (2.56%) Games
8 151 (1.95%) Retail
9 125 (1.62%) Public Sector
10 107 (1.38%) Manufacturing
11 100 (1.29%) Legal
12 67 (0.87%) Law
13 50 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
13 50 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
14 37 (0.48%) Automotive
15 31 (0.40%) Electronics
15 31 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
16 30 (0.39%) Pharmaceutical
17 23 (0.30%) Telecoms
18 22 (0.28%) German Language
Job Titles
1 2,825 (36.53%) Lecturer
2 1,252 (16.19%) Analyst
3 1,148 (14.84%) Junior
4 1,145 (14.80%) Data Analyst
5 1,135 (14.68%) Junior Analyst
5 1,135 (14.68%) Junior Data Analyst
6 382 (4.94%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 379 (4.90%) Senior
8 340 (4.40%) Lead
9 242 (3.13%) Developer
10 175 (2.26%) Architect
11 133 (1.72%) Software Engineer
12 107 (1.38%) Data Engineer
13 83 (1.07%) Solutions Architect
14 65 (0.84%) Consultant
15 63 (0.81%) Designer
16 59 (0.76%) Python Engineer
17 57 (0.74%) Data Scientist
18 52 (0.67%) Sales Executive
19 50 (0.65%) Trainee
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (1.75%) .NET
2 98 (1.27%) React
3 81 (1.05%) HTML
4 67 (0.87%) scikit-learn
5 65 (0.84%) REST
6 64 (0.83%) CSS
7 59 (0.76%) Pandas
8 58 (0.75%) NumPy
9 56 (0.72%) Node.js
10 55 (0.71%) Hugging Face
11 52 (0.67%) Matplotlib
12 49 (0.63%) RESTful
12 49 (0.63%) Streamlit
13 42 (0.54%) AngularJS
13 42 (0.54%) TensorFlow
14 41 (0.53%) PyTorch
15 36 (0.47%) .NET Core
16 33 (0.43%) Vue
17 32 (0.41%) LangChain
18 31 (0.40%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 3,666 (47.40%) IoT
2 156 (2.02%) Social Media
3 134 (1.73%) Cloud Native
4 118 (1.53%) Robotics
5 117 (1.51%) Onboarding
6 98 (1.27%) Product Ownership
7 96 (1.24%) Algorithms
8 74 (0.96%) Blog
9 68 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
10 58 (0.75%) Low-Code
11 54 (0.70%) Distributed Systems
12 53 (0.69%) AI Agents
12 53 (0.69%) Life Science
12 53 (0.69%) Mobile App
13 52 (0.67%) Enterprise Software
14 48 (0.62%) Data Centre
15 44 (0.57%) Virtual Team
16 40 (0.52%) Management Information System
17 30 (0.39%) Public Cloud
18 23 (0.30%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 59 (0.76%) Windows
2 48 (0.62%) Linux
3 42 (0.54%) Android
4 36 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 24 (0.31%) Windows Server
6 18 (0.23%) Unix
7 10 (0.13%) VMS
8 5 (0.065%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.065%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.039%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.039%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.013%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.013%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.013%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,203 (54.34%) Machine Learning
2 3,836 (49.60%) Cybersecurity
3 3,800 (49.13%) User Experience
4 3,670 (47.45%) Web Development
5 1,290 (16.68%) Business Intelligence
6 579 (7.49%) Analytics
7 566 (7.32%) Agile
8 390 (5.04%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
8 390 (5.04%) Roadmaps
9 363 (4.69%) Problem-Solving
10 359 (4.64%) CI/CD
11 345 (4.46%) Software Engineering
12 322 (4.16%) Continuous Improvement
13 307 (3.97%) DevOps
14 281 (3.63%) Customer Experience
15 280 (3.62%) Decision-Making
16 253 (3.27%) LLM
17 231 (2.99%) Mentoring
18 218 (2.82%) Data Science
19 194 (2.51%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 2,032 (26.27%) Python
2 1,397 (18.06%) SQL
3 131 (1.69%) JavaScript
4 125 (1.62%) Java
5 124 (1.60%) C#
6 67 (0.87%) TypeScript
7 52 (0.67%) C++
8 33 (0.43%) PowerShell
9 31 (0.40%) R
10 28 (0.36%) Bash
11 21 (0.27%) C
11 21 (0.27%) Go
12 17 (0.22%) Apex Code
13 15 (0.19%) Kotlin
13 15 (0.19%) T-SQL
14 12 (0.16%) Scala
15 11 (0.14%) Rust
16 10 (0.13%) Bicep
16 10 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.12%) Swift
Qualifications
1 3,995 (51.66%) Degree
2 3,735 (48.29%) Master's Degree
3 3,703 (47.88%) PhD
4 3,651 (47.21%) Postgraduate
5 1,476 (19.08%) Azure Certification
6 136 (1.76%) Security Cleared
7 103 (1.33%) AWS Certification
8 82 (1.06%) SC Cleared
9 51 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
10 49 (0.63%) ACCA
10 49 (0.63%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 49 (0.63%) DV Cleared
11 47 (0.61%) DBS Check
12 44 (0.57%) CIMA
13 21 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 16 (0.21%) PMP
15 14 (0.18%) CISSP
16 10 (0.13%) Microsoft Certification
17 9 (0.12%) CISM
18 8 (0.10%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (2.51%) Accessibility
2 122 (1.58%) Data Quality
3 80 (1.03%) GDPR
4 76 (0.98%) QA
5 47 (0.61%) WCAG
6 43 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 33 (0.43%) GRC
8 25 (0.32%) NIST
9 17 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 17 (0.22%) GxP
9 17 (0.22%) PCI DSS
10 14 (0.18%) IFRS
11 13 (0.17%) SLA
12 12 (0.16%) GAAP
12 12 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 10 (0.13%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.12%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.12%) HIPAA
14 9 (0.12%) NCSC
14 9 (0.12%) PMO
System Software
1 92 (1.19%) Docker
2 46 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
3 41 (0.53%) Active Directory
4 8 (0.10%) Firmware
4 8 (0.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.10%) vSphere
5 3 (0.039%) Embedded Firmware
5 3 (0.039%) Kamailio
6 2 (0.026%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.013%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.013%) RACF
7 1 (0.013%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 103 (1.33%) Kubernetes
2 78 (1.01%) Terraform
3 21 (0.27%) Ansible
4 20 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
5 19 (0.25%) Grafana
6 17 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (0.17%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.10%) Proxmox
9 7 (0.091%) Cisco CUCM
10 6 (0.078%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.065%) Functional Safety
11 5 (0.065%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.052%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.052%) Podman
12 4 (0.052%) SolarWinds Orion
13 3 (0.039%) Argo
14 2 (0.026%) Puppet
15 1 (0.013%) HP Fortify
15 1 (0.013%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
15 1 (0.013%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,632 (21.10%) Microsoft
2 170 (2.20%) Adobe
3 105 (1.36%) Databricks
4 79 (1.02%) Google
5 73 (0.94%) Dell
6 60 (0.78%) Cisco
6 60 (0.78%) Salesforce
7 46 (0.59%) Apple
8 43 (0.56%) Oracle
9 37 (0.48%) ServiceNow
10 36 (0.47%) OpenAI
11 24 (0.31%) SAP
12 21 (0.27%) CrowdStrike
13 20 (0.26%) VMware
14 19 (0.25%) HubSpot
15 18 (0.23%) Tenable
16 17 (0.22%) Palo Alto
16 17 (0.22%) PayPal
17 12 (0.16%) Splunk
18 11 (0.14%) Red Hat