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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 57 72
Rank change year-on-year +54 +15 +93
Permanent jobs citing AI 6,811 1,527 1,350
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 15.90% 4.26% 3.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 20.32% 4.78% 4.38%
Number of salaries quoted 931 700 743
10th Percentile £24,570 £42,500 £36,600
25th Percentile £38,750 £52,375 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,450 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -15.07% +7.69% +5.69%
75th Percentile £82,500 £85,000 £84,056
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £96,539
UK median annual salary £71,500 £77,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year -7.14% +2.67% +7.14%

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 33,514 31,934 30,853
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 78.26% 89.14% 88.67%
Number of salaries quoted 19,384 14,336 22,978
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £33,500 £41,250 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £51,528
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +6.74% -6.31%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 16 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 16 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 +52 2,538 £62,500 -9.42% 607
North West +40 1,980 £60,709 -13.27% 266
Midlands +112 1,501 £60,000 -7.69% 376
South East +31 1,397 £50,000 -33.33% 1,273
West Midlands +94 1,244 £65,000 +13.04% 149
East of England +90 622 £50,000 -35.06% 534
Yorkshire +56 455 £72,500 +12.71% 243
Scotland +43 344 £68,750 +15.55% 133
South West +34 324 £62,500 - 434
East Midlands +87 267 £42,500 -44.81% 216
Wales +42 117 £55,000 -2.22% 177
North East +53 103 £55,000 -27.63% 100
Northern Ireland -8 42 £90,000 +1.41% 81
Channel Islands - 8 - - 1
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 50 (0.73%) SharePoint
2 23 (0.34%) Confluence
3 20 (0.29%) CMS
4 17 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 13 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.18%) WordPress
7 10 (0.15%) Apache Spark
8 9 (0.13%) Apache
9 8 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
10 6 (0.088%) 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%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.029%) CICS
13 2 (0.029%) JBoss
13 2 (0.029%) Kinematics
13 2 (0.029%) Mendix
13 2 (0.029%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1,002 (14.71%) Chatbot
2 368 (5.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 67 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
4 24 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.088%) Photoshop
6 5 (0.073%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
7 4 (0.059%) InDesign
7 4 (0.059%) Weka
8 3 (0.044%) Notion
8 3 (0.044%) Simulink
9 2 (0.029%) S-PLUS
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%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 28 (0.41%) 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%) Oracle Assets
6 3 (0.044%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.044%) SAP Business One
7 2 (0.029%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.029%) Oracle General Ledger
8 1 (0.015%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.015%) Integrated Workplace Management System
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%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 3,655 (53.66%) Cloud Computing
2 714 (10.48%) Azure
3 484 (7.11%) Power Platform
4 296 (4.35%) Azure AI
5 235 (3.45%) AWS
6 167 (2.45%) SaaS
7 136 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
8 103 (1.51%) GitHub
9 99 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
10 88 (1.29%) GitHub Copilot
11 76 (1.12%) GCP
12 59 (0.87%) Snowflake
13 52 (0.76%) Entra ID
14 44 (0.65%) Azure Data Factory
15 43 (0.63%) Power Automate
16 40 (0.59%) Microsoft Copilot
17 34 (0.50%) dbt
18 29 (0.43%) Serverless
19 27 (0.40%) PowerApps
20 25 (0.37%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 3,656 (53.68%) Internet
2 24 (0.35%) Unified Communications
3 21 (0.31%) VoIP
4 17 (0.25%) Firewall
5 14 (0.21%) Telepresence
5 14 (0.21%) WebEx
6 13 (0.19%) Network Security
7 11 (0.16%) Broadband
8 8 (0.12%) VPN
9 7 (0.10%) DNS
10 6 (0.088%) DMZ
10 6 (0.088%) Intranet
10 6 (0.088%) SAN
10 6 (0.088%) TCP/IP
11 5 (0.073%) Bluetooth
11 5 (0.073%) Modbus
11 5 (0.073%) VLAN
12 4 (0.059%) Intrusion Detection
12 4 (0.059%) Wireshark
12 4 (0.059%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 404 (5.93%) Power BI
2 336 (4.93%) Tableau
3 62 (0.91%) Data Warehouse
3 62 (0.91%) SQL Server
4 36 (0.53%) Metadata
5 35 (0.51%) MongoDB
6 34 (0.50%) NoSQL
7 32 (0.47%) Data Lake
8 25 (0.37%) Big Data
9 24 (0.35%) MySQL
10 20 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
11 18 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
12 17 (0.25%) Data Mining
12 17 (0.25%) Hadoop
12 17 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
13 14 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 12 (0.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 10 (0.15%) Looker
16 9 (0.13%) Elasticsearch
16 9 (0.13%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 74 (1.09%) JIRA
2 55 (0.81%) Git
3 23 (0.34%) Jenkins
4 18 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
5 9 (0.13%) Octopus Deploy
5 9 (0.13%) TeamCity
6 8 (0.12%) Visual Studio
7 6 (0.088%) JUnit
7 6 (0.088%) Selenium
8 5 (0.073%) Burp Suite
8 5 (0.073%) GitBook
9 4 (0.059%) Metasploit
9 4 (0.059%) MLflow
10 3 (0.044%) Cypress.io
10 3 (0.044%) GitLab
10 3 (0.044%) Visual Website Optimizer
11 2 (0.029%) Gradle
11 2 (0.029%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.029%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.029%) WebDriver
General
1 4,522 (66.39%) Social Skills
2 3,925 (57.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,682 (54.06%) Banking
4 746 (10.95%) Analytical Skills
5 514 (7.55%) Finance
6 231 (3.39%) Marketing
7 129 (1.89%) Public Sector
8 99 (1.45%) Retail
9 88 (1.29%) Law
10 83 (1.22%) Legal
11 51 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
12 43 (0.63%) Aviation
13 42 (0.62%) Manufacturing
14 40 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
15 35 (0.51%) Electronics
16 34 (0.50%) Aeronautics
17 33 (0.48%) Aerospace
18 32 (0.47%) Games
19 31 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
20 30 (0.44%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 2,833 (41.59%) Lecturer
2 986 (14.48%) Trainer
3 356 (5.23%) Analyst
4 288 (4.23%) Data Analyst
5 277 (4.07%) Junior
6 270 (3.96%) Junior Analyst
6 270 (3.96%) Junior Data Analyst
7 200 (2.94%) Senior
8 172 (2.53%) Developer
9 160 (2.35%) Lead
10 142 (2.08%) Content Editor
11 96 (1.41%) Architect
12 90 (1.32%) Customer Support Specialist
12 90 (1.32%) Support Specialist
13 79 (1.16%) Research Scientist
14 76 (1.12%) Software Engineer
15 68 (1.00%) Business Manager
16 65 (0.95%) Innovation Manager
17 60 (0.88%) Data Engineer
18 57 (0.84%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (1.47%) .NET
2 75 (1.10%) React
3 59 (0.87%) REST
4 52 (0.76%) HTML
4 52 (0.76%) RESTful
5 34 (0.50%) AngularJS
5 34 (0.50%) Node.js
6 30 (0.44%) CSS
7 29 (0.43%) TensorFlow
8 28 (0.41%) SOAP
9 27 (0.40%) Vue
9 27 (0.40%) XML
10 26 (0.38%) JSON
10 26 (0.38%) PyTorch
11 24 (0.35%) Blazor
11 24 (0.35%) Spring
12 22 (0.32%) Lightning Web Components
12 22 (0.32%) Regular Expression
12 22 (0.32%) Spring Boot
13 19 (0.28%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 3,670 (53.88%) IoT
2 128 (1.88%) Cloud Native
3 113 (1.66%) Robotics
4 106 (1.56%) Product Ownership
5 98 (1.44%) Onboarding
6 89 (1.31%) Molecular Biology
7 85 (1.25%) Blog
8 66 (0.97%) Life Science
9 52 (0.76%) AI Agents
10 50 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
11 48 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
12 47 (0.69%) Algorithms
13 46 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
14 37 (0.54%) Greenfield Project
14 37 (0.54%) Low-Code
15 31 (0.46%) Virtual Team
16 28 (0.41%) Data Centre
17 25 (0.37%) Linux Command Line
18 23 (0.34%) Social Media
19 22 (0.32%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 47 (0.69%) Windows
2 33 (0.48%) Linux
3 23 (0.34%) Unix
4 17 (0.25%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.18%) Android
6 7 (0.10%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.073%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.059%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.029%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.029%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.029%) VMS
9 2 (0.029%) zOS
10 1 (0.015%) Debian
10 1 (0.015%) OpenWrt
10 1 (0.015%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.015%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,090 (60.05%) Machine Learning
2 3,790 (55.65%) Cybersecurity
3 3,768 (55.32%) User Experience
4 3,656 (53.68%) Web Development
5 1,005 (14.76%) Conversational UI
6 456 (6.70%) Analytics
7 451 (6.62%) Agile
8 432 (6.34%) Business Intelligence
9 345 (5.07%) Continuous Improvement
10 343 (5.04%) Chemistry
11 291 (4.27%) Problem-Solving
12 282 (4.14%) Decision-Making
13 277 (4.07%) DevOps
14 271 (3.98%) Software Engineering
15 250 (3.67%) Roadmaps
16 232 (3.41%) Customer Experience
17 224 (3.29%) CI/CD
18 197 (2.89%) Content Writing
19 187 (2.75%) Coaching
20 186 (2.73%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 654 (9.60%) Python
2 520 (7.63%) SQL
3 109 (1.60%) JavaScript
4 97 (1.42%) Java
5 77 (1.13%) TypeScript
6 61 (0.90%) C#
7 49 (0.72%) PowerShell
8 35 (0.51%) R
9 34 (0.50%) C++
10 24 (0.35%) Bash
11 22 (0.32%) Apex Code
12 19 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 17 (0.25%) PL/SQL
13 17 (0.25%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.23%) C
14 16 (0.23%) T-SQL
15 12 (0.18%) Rust
16 10 (0.15%) Bicep
16 10 (0.15%) MATLAB
17 8 (0.12%) PHP
Qualifications
1 5,040 (74.00%) Degree
2 4,207 (61.77%) Master's Degree
3 4,190 (61.52%) PhD
4 3,650 (53.59%) Postgraduate
5 282 (4.14%) Azure Certification
6 170 (2.50%) Security Cleared
7 143 (2.10%) SC Cleared
8 53 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
9 40 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
10 31 (0.46%) AWS Certification
11 24 (0.35%) DV Cleared
12 22 (0.32%) DBS Check
12 22 (0.32%) PMP
13 17 (0.25%) Six Sigma Green Belt
14 13 (0.19%) HNC
15 12 (0.18%) HND
15 12 (0.18%) Microsoft Certification
16 11 (0.16%) ACCA
17 7 (0.10%) MBA
18 6 (0.088%) Six Sigma Black Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (1.07%) Data Quality
2 64 (0.94%) Accessibility
3 44 (0.65%) QA
4 42 (0.62%) GxP
5 29 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 26 (0.38%) GDPR
7 18 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
8 16 (0.23%) NIST
9 14 (0.21%) PMO
10 13 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 13 (0.19%) WCAG
11 11 (0.16%) SLA
12 10 (0.15%) CDISC
12 10 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (0.15%) HL7
13 8 (0.12%) EU AI Act
13 8 (0.12%) NCSC
13 8 (0.12%) PCI DSS
14 7 (0.10%) ISO 9001
15 6 (0.088%) JSP 440
System Software
1 66 (0.97%) Docker
2 29 (0.43%) Active Directory
3 21 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
4 18 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
6 9 (0.13%) vSphere
7 4 (0.059%) Firmware
7 4 (0.059%) 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
Systems Management
1 91 (1.34%) Terraform
2 55 (0.81%) Kubernetes
3 37 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (0.21%) Cisco CUCM
6 10 (0.15%) Ansible
7 8 (0.12%) SCCM
8 5 (0.073%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (0.059%) Nessus
9 4 (0.059%) Nmap
10 3 (0.044%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.044%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.029%) Argo
11 2 (0.029%) Control-M
11 2 (0.029%) HP Fortify
11 2 (0.029%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
12 1 (0.015%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.015%) Kubeflow
12 1 (0.015%) Kustomize
12 1 (0.015%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 986 (14.48%) PayPal
2 728 (10.69%) Microsoft
3 82 (1.20%) Cisco
4 67 (0.98%) Oracle
5 61 (0.90%) Dell
6 57 (0.84%) Adobe
7 52 (0.76%) Databricks
8 47 (0.69%) Salesforce
9 37 (0.54%) Google
10 36 (0.53%) Apple
11 32 (0.47%) Blue Prism
12 24 (0.35%) HubSpot
13 21 (0.31%) OpenAI
14 18 (0.26%) Palo Alto
14 18 (0.26%) SAP
15 17 (0.25%) VMware
16 14 (0.21%) Splunk
17 10 (0.15%) ServiceNow
18 8 (0.12%) Foundry
18 8 (0.12%) New Relic