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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 8 56
Rank change year-on-year -8 +48 +65
Permanent jobs citing AI 5,554 4,311 1,839
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 6.42% 12.46% 3.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.10% 14.27% 4.38%
Number of salaries quoted 3,113 730 858
10th Percentile £36,151 £27,270 £40,000
25th Percentile £48,250 £38,750 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -7.69% -3.70%
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £108,875 £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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 61,006 30,204 42,028
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 70.54% 87.28% 79.23%
Number of salaries quoted 42,966 16,026 21,678
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £70,000 £64,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £58,465
% change year-on-year +9.09% -5.93% -2.56%

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 2 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 2 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 -7 1,645 £66,000 +10.00% 2,068
South East -8 1,251 £62,500 +19.05% 2,053
North West +9 986 £67,500 +4.69% 1,282
Midlands -13 827 £62,500 +4.17% 906
South West -1 643 £69,056 +15.09% 984
West Midlands -8 560 £62,500 +4.58% 601
East of England +16 518 £61,300 +6.61% 809
Yorkshire -11 408 £65,000 -11.86% 592
Scotland -8 299 £85,000 +28.30% 1,034
East Midlands -23 267 £52,500 -19.23% 305
North East -11 251 £66,000 +155.47% 201
Wales -1 236 £66,000 +20.00% 144
Northern Ireland +3 152 £74,830 -3.45% 384
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
1 182 (3.28%) SharePoint
2 65 (1.17%) CMS
3 64 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (0.92%) Confluence
5 45 (0.81%) Apache
6 39 (0.70%) WordPress
7 27 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
8 26 (0.47%) Apache Spark
9 14 (0.25%) Jupyter
10 12 (0.22%) IIS
11 10 (0.18%) nginx
12 7 (0.13%) OpenStack
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.13%) SAS
13 6 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
14 4 (0.072%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.072%) Headless CMS
15 2 (0.036%) Apache Solr
15 2 (0.036%) Palantir Foundry
15 2 (0.036%) R Markdown
Applications
1 455 (8.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 88 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
3 47 (0.85%) Chatbot
4 45 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 25 (0.45%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.43%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 18 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
8 16 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
9 15 (0.27%) Adobe After Effects
9 15 (0.27%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.27%) Simulink
10 14 (0.25%) InDesign
11 9 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
12 8 (0.14%) LaTeX
13 4 (0.072%) Mathematica
13 4 (0.072%) Stateflow
14 3 (0.054%) Elementor
14 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
14 3 (0.054%) Trello
15 2 (0.036%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 85 (1.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 28 (0.50%) Dynamics GP
3 24 (0.43%) Cloudability
4 22 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
5 12 (0.22%) NetSuite
5 12 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
6 10 (0.18%) Shopify
7 8 (0.14%) Sage 50
8 6 (0.11%) Sage 200
9 5 (0.090%) SAP PSCD
10 3 (0.054%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.054%) Magento
10 3 (0.054%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.054%) Q-Pulse
10 3 (0.054%) Salesforce CRM
11 2 (0.036%) Eloqua
11 2 (0.036%) FastStats
11 2 (0.036%) FastStats PeopleStage
11 2 (0.036%) SAP Business One
11 2 (0.036%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,559 (28.07%) Azure
2 735 (13.23%) AWS
3 648 (11.67%) Azure AI
4 644 (11.60%) Power Platform
5 443 (7.98%) SaaS
6 314 (5.65%) Microsoft 365
7 288 (5.19%) GitHub
8 286 (5.15%) GCP
9 239 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
10 230 (4.14%) Microsoft Copilot
11 155 (2.79%) Entra ID
11 155 (2.79%) Power Automate
12 151 (2.72%) Serverless
13 124 (2.23%) GitHub Copilot
14 120 (2.16%) Anthropic Claude
15 108 (1.94%) Google Ads
16 92 (1.66%) PowerApps
17 86 (1.55%) Snowflake
18 78 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
19 69 (1.24%) Meta Ads
Communications & Networking
1 78 (1.40%) Firewall
2 58 (1.04%) Internet
3 55 (0.99%) VPN
4 53 (0.95%) DNS
5 49 (0.88%) Broadband
6 43 (0.77%) Network Security
7 20 (0.36%) WAN
8 19 (0.34%) DHCP
8 19 (0.34%) VLAN
9 18 (0.32%) TCP/IP
10 16 (0.29%) MQTT
10 16 (0.29%) Wireless
11 15 (0.27%) 5G
11 15 (0.27%) LAN
12 13 (0.23%) VoIP
13 12 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
14 10 (0.18%) BGP
14 10 (0.18%) HTTP
15 9 (0.16%) CTI
15 9 (0.16%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 496 (8.93%) Power BI
2 284 (5.11%) Tableau
3 199 (3.58%) MongoDB
4 172 (3.10%) Azure SQL Database
5 162 (2.92%) SQL Server
6 96 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
7 79 (1.42%) Metadata
8 75 (1.35%) Relational Database
9 71 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
10 68 (1.22%) Big Data
11 66 (1.19%) Data Lake
12 63 (1.13%) NoSQL
13 43 (0.77%) MySQL
14 42 (0.76%) Redis
15 38 (0.68%) DynamoDB
16 34 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
17 30 (0.54%) BigQuery
18 27 (0.49%) Pinecone
19 26 (0.47%) Power Query
20 22 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 206 (3.71%) Git
2 105 (1.89%) JIRA
3 77 (1.39%) GitLab
4 63 (1.13%) Jenkins
5 48 (0.86%) Claude Code
6 25 (0.45%) JUnit
7 24 (0.43%) Maven
8 22 (0.40%) Snyk
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
10 14 (0.25%) MLflow
11 13 (0.23%) Spock
12 12 (0.22%) Selenium
13 10 (0.18%) Mockito
13 10 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
14 8 (0.14%) IntelliJ
15 7 (0.13%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.13%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.13%) Vite
16 6 (0.11%) Eclipse
16 6 (0.11%) Storybook
General
1 1,790 (32.23%) Social Skills
2 1,101 (19.82%) Finance
3 712 (12.82%) Analytical Skills
4 606 (10.91%) Marketing
5 521 (9.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 339 (6.10%) Legal
6 339 (6.10%) Public Sector
7 200 (3.60%) Retail
8 194 (3.49%) Law
9 188 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
10 183 (3.29%) Organisational Skills
11 176 (3.17%) Manufacturing
12 123 (2.21%) Banking
13 96 (1.73%) Advertising
14 85 (1.53%) Games
15 81 (1.46%) Aerospace
16 71 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
17 65 (1.17%) Aviation
18 56 (1.01%) Telecoms
19 41 (0.74%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 1,025 (18.46%) Senior
2 673 (12.12%) Developer
3 517 (9.31%) Lead
4 489 (8.80%) Analyst
5 453 (8.16%) Architect
6 439 (7.90%) Software Engineer
7 423 (7.62%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 256 (4.61%) Data Analyst
9 254 (4.57%) Junior
10 233 (4.20%) Data Engineer
11 219 (3.94%) Junior Analyst
12 216 (3.89%) Junior Data Analyst
13 192 (3.46%) Senior Manager
14 188 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
15 183 (3.29%) .NET Developer
16 158 (2.84%) Consultant
17 154 (2.77%) Senior Developer
18 122 (2.20%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
19 107 (1.93%) Marketing Manager
20 106 (1.91%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 357 (6.43%) .NET
2 311 (5.60%) React
3 240 (4.32%) Terraform
4 190 (3.42%) CSS
5 172 (3.10%) HTML
6 171 (3.08%) ASP.NET
7 167 (3.01%) ASP.NET Core
8 155 (2.79%) .NET Core
9 151 (2.72%) REST
10 150 (2.70%) Node.js
11 145 (2.61%) ML.NET
12 122 (2.20%) RESTful
13 111 (2.00%) Blazor
14 81 (1.46%) Vue
15 67 (1.21%) Spring
16 63 (1.13%) LangChain
17 62 (1.12%) AngularJS
17 62 (1.12%) Kafka
18 56 (1.01%) FastAPI
19 53 (0.95%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 270 (4.86%) Cloud Native
2 268 (4.83%) Onboarding
3 258 (4.65%) AI Agents
4 177 (3.19%) Management Information System
5 165 (2.97%) Self-Motivation
6 156 (2.81%) Product Ownership
7 131 (2.36%) Marketing Technology
8 125 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
9 124 (2.23%) Social Media
10 121 (2.18%) Cyber Threat
11 107 (1.93%) Robotics
12 104 (1.87%) Algorithms
13 88 (1.58%) Blog
14 79 (1.42%) Data Centre
15 76 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
16 68 (1.22%) Low-Code
17 67 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
18 52 (0.94%) Driving Licence
19 51 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
19 51 (0.92%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 179 (3.22%) Linux
2 174 (3.13%) Windows
3 57 (1.03%) Windows Server
4 30 (0.54%) Android
5 22 (0.40%) VMS
6 21 (0.38%) Ubuntu
7 16 (0.29%) Mac OS
8 14 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.22%) Unix
10 11 (0.20%) Debian
11 9 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
12 8 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 5 (0.090%) CentOS
13 5 (0.090%) Solaris
14 4 (0.072%) Robot Operating System
14 4 (0.072%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.054%) AIX
15 3 (0.054%) Gentoo
16 2 (0.036%) Kali Linux
17 1 (0.018%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 933 (16.80%) Agile
2 908 (16.35%) Machine Learning
3 902 (16.24%) Analytics
4 894 (16.10%) Continuous Improvement
5 861 (15.50%) Software Engineering
6 796 (14.33%) Problem-Solving
7 735 (13.23%) CI/CD
8 665 (11.97%) Decision-Making
9 638 (11.49%) Business Intelligence
10 597 (10.75%) DevOps
11 586 (10.55%) Stakeholder Management
12 576 (10.37%) Mentoring
13 569 (10.24%) Roadmaps
14 529 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
15 446 (8.03%) LLM
16 419 (7.54%) Full-Stack Development
17 385 (6.93%) Coaching
18 375 (6.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 343 (6.18%) Data Science
20 334 (6.01%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 1,336 (24.05%) Python
2 931 (16.76%) SQL
3 446 (8.03%) C#
4 408 (7.35%) JavaScript
5 272 (4.90%) TypeScript
6 218 (3.93%) Java
7 168 (3.02%) C++
8 106 (1.91%) PowerShell
9 76 (1.37%) Bash
10 54 (0.97%) Rust
11 50 (0.90%) C
12 47 (0.85%) Go
13 38 (0.68%) PHP
14 37 (0.67%) Bicep
15 28 (0.50%) R
16 26 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 24 (0.43%) MATLAB
18 23 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
18 23 (0.41%) Ruby
19 22 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 571 (10.28%) Degree
2 497 (8.95%) Azure Certification
3 468 (8.43%) Security Cleared
4 303 (5.46%) SC Cleared
5 165 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 135 (2.43%) DV Cleared
7 108 (1.94%) CISSP
8 105 (1.89%) Master's Degree
9 90 (1.62%) CISM
10 75 (1.35%) ACCA
10 75 (1.35%) AWS Certification
11 71 (1.28%) Microsoft Certification
12 70 (1.26%) CIMA
13 61 (1.10%) A+ Certification
14 60 (1.08%) Network+ Certification
14 60 (1.08%) PhD
15 56 (1.01%) DBS Check
16 49 (0.88%) BPSS Clearance
17 40 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 18 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 292 (5.26%) Data Quality
2 182 (3.28%) Accessibility
3 175 (3.15%) GDPR
4 156 (2.81%) QA
5 110 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 70 (1.26%) GRC
6 70 (1.26%) SLA
7 63 (1.13%) NIST
8 46 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
9 37 (0.67%) NCSC
10 29 (0.52%) WCAG
11 28 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 23 (0.41%) PCI DSS
13 18 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 18 (0.32%) PMO
14 14 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 12 (0.22%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 10 (0.18%) ISO 9001
17 8 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 304 (5.47%) Docker
2 131 (2.36%) Active Directory
3 56 (1.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.45%) Hyper-V
6 24 (0.43%) Firmware
7 19 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
8 17 (0.31%) vSphere
9 12 (0.22%) Embedded Firmware
10 8 (0.14%) Ceph
11 3 (0.054%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.036%) Lustre
12 2 (0.036%) NFS
12 2 (0.036%) Snort
12 2 (0.036%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.018%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 303 (5.46%) Kubernetes
2 129 (2.32%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (1.04%) Ansible
4 50 (0.90%) Grafana
4 50 (0.90%) Prometheus
5 20 (0.36%) Puppet
6 18 (0.32%) Podman
7 12 (0.22%) Argo
8 10 (0.18%) Istio
9 8 (0.14%) Proxmox
10 7 (0.13%) Check_MK
10 7 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.090%) Nagios
11 5 (0.090%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.072%) Kubeflow
13 3 (0.054%) BMC PATROL
13 3 (0.054%) Functional Safety
13 3 (0.054%) linkerd
13 3 (0.054%) Plesk
13 3 (0.054%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 1,345 (24.22%) Microsoft
2 287 (5.17%) Google
3 120 (2.16%) YouTube
4 119 (2.14%) Databricks
5 109 (1.96%) Adobe
5 109 (1.96%) OpenAI
6 101 (1.82%) Salesforce
7 87 (1.57%) Cisco
8 75 (1.35%) Oracle
9 69 (1.24%) ServiceNow
10 68 (1.22%) VMware
11 67 (1.21%) Apple
12 60 (1.08%) CyberArk
13 55 (0.99%) TikTok
14 53 (0.95%) Dell
14 53 (0.95%) HubSpot
15 51 (0.92%) Samsung
16 50 (0.90%) SAP
17 44 (0.79%) Sage
18 42 (0.76%) Facebook