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

6 months to
17 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 8 62
Rank change year-on-year -8 +54 +54
Permanent jobs citing AI 5,558 4,156 1,659
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 6.33% 12.19% 3.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.92% 14.02% 4.23%
Number of salaries quoted 3,221 743 810
10th Percentile £36,250 £29,550 £40,000
25th Percentile £48,250 £38,750 £50,000
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 £72,500 £70,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +3.57% -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
17 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 62,278 29,646 39,237
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.96% 86.96% 79.59%
Number of salaries quoted 43,616 16,222 19,605
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £46,750 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -12.62% -0.72%
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 17 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 17 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 -9 1,644 £66,000 +10.00% 1,528
South East -8 1,258 £62,500 +13.64% 1,361
North West +3 1,010 £67,249 +12.08% 926
Midlands -14 825 £62,500 - 642
South West -3 635 £67,500 +12.50% 472
West Midlands -8 543 £62,500 +4.17% 427
East of England +18 532 £60,100 +20.20% 619
Yorkshire -12 384 £65,000 -10.34% 433
Scotland -8 298 £80,000 +18.52% 641
East Midlands -21 282 £61,250 -5.77% 215
North East -9 250 £66,000 +168.62% 171
Wales -4 225 £65,500 +19.09% 124
Northern Ireland +3 152 £74,830 -0.23% 311
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
1Analytics18.1%1,005
2Agile17.9%996
3Continuous Improvement17.4%968
4Machine Learning16.9%939
5Software Engineering16.4%914
6Problem-Solving15.5%860
7CI/CD13.6%754
8Decision-Making13.2%733
9Stakeholder Management12.8%714
10Roadmaps11.5%639
11DevOps11.3%626
12Mentoring10.7%593
13Cybersecurity10.0%556
14Business Intelligence9.7%541
15LLM8.3%463
16Full-Stack Development8.1%449
17Coaching7.8%436
18Stakeholder Engagement7.6%422
19Generative AI6.9%383
20Data Science6.6%366