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 24 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 57 73
Rank change year-on-year +54 +16 +86
Permanent jobs citing AI 6,891 1,517 1,583
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 15.58% 4.27% 3.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 20.04% 4.77% 4.27%
Number of salaries quoted 959 706 886
10th Percentile £24,570 £42,500 £36,250
25th Percentile £38,750 £52,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,450 £70,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -15.07% +12.00% +0.67%
75th Percentile £82,500 £85,000 £83,980
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £96,539
UK median annual salary £71,750 £77,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -

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 34,385 31,801 37,110
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 77.75% 89.59% 87.69%
Number of salaries quoted 19,923 14,193 28,143
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £34,000 £41,250 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £79,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%

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 24 January 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 24 January 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 +55 2,556 £62,500 -8.42% 779
North West +44 1,988 £61,418 -10.99% 337
Midlands +96 1,514 £59,764 -8.06% 521
South East +33 1,419 £50,000 -35.06% 1,603
West Midlands +95 1,252 £61,250 +6.52% 196
East of England +64 638 £53,750 -18.87% 713
Yorkshire +58 463 £72,500 +11.54% 321
South West +37 336 £62,500 - 575
Scotland +38 335 £66,250 +13.25% 176
East Midlands +83 272 £41,250 -43.10% 314
Wales +41 121 £54,085 -3.85% 230
North East +54 105 £55,000 -27.63% 125
Northern Ireland -6 47 £90,000 +1.41% 101
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 (0.74%) SharePoint
2 22 (0.32%) Confluence
3 20 (0.29%) CMS
4 17 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 13 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.16%) WordPress
7 10 (0.15%) Apache Spark
8 9 (0.13%) Apache
9 8 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
10 6 (0.087%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.073%) IIS
11 5 (0.073%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.044%) Drupal
12 3 (0.044%) Joomla!
13 2 (0.029%) Apache Qpid
13 2 (0.029%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.029%) CICS
13 2 (0.029%) JBoss
13 2 (0.029%) Kinematics
13 2 (0.029%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1,002 (14.54%) Chatbot
2 423 (6.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 68 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
4 25 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.087%) Photoshop
6 5 (0.073%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.058%) Adobe Premiere
7 4 (0.058%) InDesign
7 4 (0.058%) Weka
8 3 (0.044%) Notion
8 3 (0.044%) Simulink
9 2 (0.029%) MS Visio
9 2 (0.029%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.015%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.015%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.015%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.015%) Microsoft Project
10 1 (0.015%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 30 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
3 15 (0.22%) NetSuite
4 11 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
5 7 (0.10%) Shopify
6 3 (0.044%) Dynamics GP
6 3 (0.044%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.044%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.044%) SAP Business One
7 2 (0.029%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 2 (0.029%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.029%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.015%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.015%) FIS Private Capital Suite
8 1 (0.015%) Maximo
8 1 (0.015%) Odoo
8 1 (0.015%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.015%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.015%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.015%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 3,658 (53.08%) Cloud Computing
2 772 (11.20%) Azure
3 541 (7.85%) Power Platform
4 350 (5.08%) Azure AI
5 233 (3.38%) AWS
6 166 (2.41%) SaaS
7 137 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
8 108 (1.57%) GitHub
9 103 (1.49%) Microsoft 365
10 89 (1.29%) GitHub Copilot
11 71 (1.03%) GCP
12 59 (0.86%) Snowflake
13 55 (0.80%) Entra ID
14 45 (0.65%) Azure Data Factory
15 44 (0.64%) Power Automate
16 41 (0.59%) Microsoft Copilot
17 34 (0.49%) dbt
18 32 (0.46%) Serverless
19 30 (0.44%) PowerApps
20 27 (0.39%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 3,656 (53.05%) Internet
2 27 (0.39%) Unified Communications
3 22 (0.32%) Firewall
3 22 (0.32%) VoIP
4 18 (0.26%) Network Security
5 14 (0.20%) Telepresence
5 14 (0.20%) WebEx
6 12 (0.17%) Broadband
7 11 (0.16%) VPN
8 8 (0.12%) DNS
9 7 (0.10%) DMZ
9 7 (0.10%) TCP/IP
10 6 (0.087%) Intranet
10 6 (0.087%) SAN
10 6 (0.087%) VLAN
11 5 (0.073%) HTTP
11 5 (0.073%) Modbus
11 5 (0.073%) Wireshark
12 4 (0.058%) Bluetooth
12 4 (0.058%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 459 (6.66%) Power BI
2 388 (5.63%) Tableau
3 63 (0.91%) SQL Server
4 56 (0.81%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (0.54%) Metadata
6 33 (0.48%) Data Lake
6 33 (0.48%) MongoDB
7 31 (0.45%) NoSQL
8 25 (0.36%) Big Data
9 21 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
10 18 (0.26%) MySQL
10 18 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
11 17 (0.25%) Data Mining
11 17 (0.25%) Hadoop
12 15 (0.22%) PostgreSQL
13 14 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 11 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 10 (0.15%) Elasticsearch
15 10 (0.15%) Looker
16 9 (0.13%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 72 (1.04%) JIRA
2 60 (0.87%) Git
3 20 (0.29%) Jenkins
4 18 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
5 9 (0.13%) Visual Studio
6 8 (0.12%) Octopus Deploy
6 8 (0.12%) TeamCity
7 7 (0.10%) Selenium
8 6 (0.087%) JUnit
9 5 (0.073%) Burp Suite
9 5 (0.073%) GitBook
10 4 (0.058%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.058%) GitLab
10 4 (0.058%) Metasploit
10 4 (0.058%) MLflow
11 3 (0.044%) Visual Website Optimizer
12 2 (0.029%) Gradle
12 2 (0.029%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.029%) SpecFlow
12 2 (0.029%) WebDriver
General
1 4,575 (66.39%) Social Skills
2 3,923 (56.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,683 (53.45%) Banking
4 735 (10.67%) Analytical Skills
5 517 (7.50%) Finance
6 223 (3.24%) Marketing
7 132 (1.92%) Public Sector
8 101 (1.47%) Retail
9 87 (1.26%) Legal
10 82 (1.19%) Law
11 50 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
12 46 (0.67%) Manufacturing
13 42 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
14 40 (0.58%) Aviation
15 37 (0.54%) Electronics
16 35 (0.51%) Aeronautics
17 34 (0.49%) Aerospace
18 31 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
18 31 (0.45%) Telecoms
19 30 (0.44%) German Language
Job Titles
1 2,834 (41.13%) Lecturer
2 986 (14.31%) Trainer
3 412 (5.98%) Analyst
4 342 (4.96%) Data Analyst
5 332 (4.82%) Junior
6 324 (4.70%) Junior Analyst
6 324 (4.70%) Junior Data Analyst
7 205 (2.97%) Senior
8 175 (2.54%) Developer
9 167 (2.42%) Lead
10 142 (2.06%) Content Editor
11 90 (1.31%) Customer Support Specialist
11 90 (1.31%) Support Specialist
12 85 (1.23%) Architect
13 79 (1.15%) Research Scientist
14 73 (1.06%) Software Engineer
15 68 (0.99%) Business Manager
16 65 (0.94%) Data Engineer
17 59 (0.86%) Solutions Architect
18 56 (0.81%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (1.51%) .NET
2 77 (1.12%) React
3 62 (0.90%) REST
4 55 (0.80%) HTML
5 50 (0.73%) RESTful
6 36 (0.52%) AngularJS
7 35 (0.51%) Node.js
8 33 (0.48%) CSS
9 31 (0.45%) TensorFlow
10 29 (0.42%) SOAP
10 29 (0.42%) Vue
11 28 (0.41%) PyTorch
12 27 (0.39%) XML
13 26 (0.38%) JSON
14 25 (0.36%) Spring
15 24 (0.35%) Blazor
15 24 (0.35%) Lightning Web Components
16 23 (0.33%) Spring Boot
17 22 (0.32%) Regular Expression
18 21 (0.30%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 3,670 (53.26%) IoT
2 133 (1.93%) Cloud Native
3 118 (1.71%) Robotics
4 109 (1.58%) Product Ownership
5 99 (1.44%) Onboarding
6 89 (1.29%) Molecular Biology
7 86 (1.25%) Blog
8 67 (0.97%) Life Science
9 51 (0.74%) AI Agents
9 51 (0.74%) Algorithms
10 49 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
11 48 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
11 48 (0.70%) Self-Motivation
12 37 (0.54%) Low-Code
13 36 (0.52%) Greenfield Project
14 31 (0.45%) Virtual Team
15 30 (0.44%) Data Centre
16 26 (0.38%) Social Media
17 25 (0.36%) Linux Command Line
17 25 (0.36%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 50 (0.73%) Windows
2 37 (0.54%) Linux
3 23 (0.33%) Unix
4 19 (0.28%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.20%) Android
6 9 (0.13%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.087%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.058%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.044%) VMS
10 2 (0.029%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.029%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.029%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.029%) zOS
11 1 (0.015%) Debian
11 1 (0.015%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.015%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,096 (59.44%) Machine Learning
2 3,790 (55.00%) Cybersecurity
3 3,773 (54.75%) User Experience
4 3,656 (53.05%) Web Development
5 1,005 (14.58%) Conversational UI
6 486 (7.05%) Business Intelligence
7 457 (6.63%) Agile
8 448 (6.50%) Analytics
9 343 (4.98%) Chemistry
10 325 (4.72%) Continuous Improvement
11 303 (4.40%) Problem-Solving
12 283 (4.11%) DevOps
13 279 (4.05%) Software Engineering
14 273 (3.96%) Decision-Making
15 244 (3.54%) Roadmaps
16 232 (3.37%) CI/CD
17 216 (3.13%) Customer Experience
18 197 (2.86%) Content Writing
19 191 (2.77%) Computer Science
20 187 (2.71%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 723 (10.49%) Python
2 575 (8.34%) SQL
3 116 (1.68%) JavaScript
4 97 (1.41%) Java
5 76 (1.10%) TypeScript
6 64 (0.93%) C#
7 49 (0.71%) PowerShell
8 35 (0.51%) C++
8 35 (0.51%) R
9 27 (0.39%) Bash
10 23 (0.33%) Apex Code
11 19 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 17 (0.25%) C
12 17 (0.25%) PL/SQL
12 17 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.23%) T-SQL
14 13 (0.19%) Rust
15 10 (0.15%) Bicep
15 10 (0.15%) Go
15 10 (0.15%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 5,054 (73.34%) Degree
2 4,209 (61.08%) Master's Degree
3 4,191 (60.82%) PhD
4 3,650 (52.97%) Postgraduate
5 337 (4.89%) Azure Certification
6 171 (2.48%) Security Cleared
7 142 (2.06%) SC Cleared
8 58 (0.84%) Computer Science Degree
9 40 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
10 35 (0.51%) AWS Certification
11 29 (0.42%) DBS Check
12 25 (0.36%) DV Cleared
13 22 (0.32%) PMP
14 16 (0.23%) Six Sigma Green Belt
15 13 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.16%) ACCA
16 11 (0.16%) HNC
16 11 (0.16%) HND
17 7 (0.10%) MBA
18 5 (0.073%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (1.02%) Data Quality
2 68 (0.99%) Accessibility
3 48 (0.70%) QA
4 42 (0.61%) GxP
5 34 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 30 (0.44%) GDPR
7 18 (0.26%) NIST
8 17 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
9 16 (0.23%) WCAG
10 15 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 14 (0.20%) PMO
12 10 (0.15%) CDISC
12 10 (0.15%) HL7
12 10 (0.15%) PCI DSS
13 9 (0.13%) EU AI Act
13 9 (0.13%) NCSC
13 9 (0.13%) SLA
14 8 (0.12%) Cyber Essentials
14 8 (0.12%) GRC
15 7 (0.10%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 61 (0.89%) Docker
2 30 (0.44%) Active Directory
3 20 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
4 19 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
6 10 (0.15%) vSphere
7 4 (0.058%) Firmware
7 4 (0.058%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.044%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.044%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.029%) Ceph
9 2 (0.029%) Lustre
9 2 (0.029%) RACF
10 1 (0.015%) Kamailio
Systems Management
1 95 (1.38%) Terraform
2 59 (0.86%) Kubernetes
3 36 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
6 13 (0.19%) Ansible
7 8 (0.12%) SCCM
8 6 (0.087%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 5 (0.073%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.058%) Grafana
10 4 (0.058%) Nessus
10 4 (0.058%) Nmap
10 4 (0.058%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.044%) Argo
11 3 (0.044%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.029%) Control-M
12 2 (0.029%) HP Fortify
12 2 (0.029%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.029%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
12 2 (0.029%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 986 (14.31%) PayPal
2 785 (11.39%) Microsoft
3 81 (1.18%) Cisco
4 67 (0.97%) Oracle
5 61 (0.89%) Dell
6 54 (0.78%) Databricks
7 53 (0.77%) Adobe
8 50 (0.73%) Salesforce
9 39 (0.57%) Google
10 32 (0.46%) Blue Prism
11 30 (0.44%) Apple
12 24 (0.35%) HubSpot
13 22 (0.32%) OpenAI
14 21 (0.30%) VMware
15 18 (0.26%) SAP
16 14 (0.20%) Splunk
17 12 (0.17%) Palo Alto
18 11 (0.16%) Fortinet
19 9 (0.13%) BT
19 9 (0.13%) ServiceNow