Artificial Intelligence Engineer Job Trends

AI Engineer
UK

The median AI Engineer salary in the UK is £87,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 July 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 613 839
Rank change year-on-year +343 +226 +31
Permanent jobs requiring an Artificial Intelligence Engineer 714 61 51
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.72% 0.12% 0.050%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.77% 0.14% 0.053%
Number of salaries quoted 302 28 36
10th Percentile £53,750 £58,875 £40,000
25th Percentile £63,125 £66,875 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £87,500 £80,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% +6.67% -6.25%
75th Percentile £100,000 £101,250 £90,000
90th Percentile £112,500 £115,750 £106,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £85,000 £70,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +21.43% +33.33% -23.64%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 93,080 44,133 95,805
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.21% 89.80% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 63,762 26,055 68,461
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,750 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.12%

Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Artificial Intelligence Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Artificial Intelligence Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Artificial Intelligence Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Artificial Intelligence Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Artificial Intelligence Engineer over the 6 months to 15 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Artificial Intelligence Engineer in the UK

Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Artificial Intelligence Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 15 July 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
England +325 646 £87,500 +16.67% 329
UK excluding London +274 477 £85,000 +21.43% 203
London +132 222 £90,000 +5.88% 191
North of England +107 152 £72,500 +3.57% 57
Work from Home +98 132 £85,250 +17.59% 145
South East +63 96 £100,000 - 58
Midlands +51 82 £76,000 -15.56% 17
Yorkshire +34 68 £71,250 -22.97% 18
North West +52 67 £75,000 +7.14% 33
South West - 61 £100,000 - 20
West Midlands +13 41 £75,000 -16.67% 13
East Midlands - 41 £90,000 - 4
East of England +10 32 £52,500 -17.97% 14
Scotland +44 31 £75,000 -6.25% 22
Wales - 23 £47,500 - 9
North East - 17 £67,500 - 7
Northern Ireland - 6 - - 8

Artificial Intelligence Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 July 2026, Artificial Intelligence Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Artificial Intelligence Engineer in the job title.

1 669 (93.70%) AI
2 519 (72.69%) Python
3 423 (59.24%) Azure
4 376 (52.66%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
5 362 (50.70%) Azure AI
6 339 (47.48%) Azure Certification
7 202 (28.29%) Software Engineering
8 186 (26.05%) LLM
9 122 (17.09%) Machine Learning
10 114 (15.97%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
11 104 (14.57%) Generative AI
12 75 (10.50%) Workflow
13 74 (10.36%) LangChain
14 73 (10.22%) AWS
15 68 (9.52%) Prompt Engineering
16 59 (8.26%) Anthropic Claude
16 59 (8.26%) Problem-Solving
17 56 (7.84%) MLOps
18 54 (7.56%) OpenAI
19 47 (6.58%) CI/CD
19 47 (6.58%) Decision-Making
20 46 (6.44%) Full-Stack Development
21 43 (6.02%) Observability
22 42 (5.88%) Degree
22 42 (5.88%) GCP
22 42 (5.88%) Microsoft
23 38 (5.32%) Kubernetes
24 37 (5.18%) Data Science
24 37 (5.18%) LangGraph
24 37 (5.18%) Security Cleared

Artificial Intelligence Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 6 (0.84%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.42%) Appian
3 2 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.28%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (0.42%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Elite 3E
Cloud Services
1 423 (59.24%) Azure
2 362 (50.70%) Azure AI
3 73 (10.22%) AWS
4 59 (8.26%) Anthropic Claude
5 42 (5.88%) GCP
6 31 (4.34%) Firebase
7 28 (3.92%) Microsoft Copilot
8 26 (3.64%) Power Platform
9 21 (2.94%) Copilot Studio
10 18 (2.52%) LangSmith
11 16 (2.24%) GitHub
12 15 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
13 13 (1.82%) Amazon Bedrock
13 13 (1.82%) GitHub Copilot
13 13 (1.82%) SaaS
14 12 (1.68%) Azure Machine Learning
14 12 (1.68%) Cloud Run
15 10 (1.40%) Power Automate
16 9 (1.26%) Azure AKS
16 9 (1.26%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.12%) Broadband
2 3 (0.42%) SMS
3 1 (0.14%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.52%) Pinecone
2 7 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (0.84%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (0.70%) Big Data
4 5 (0.70%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.56%) SQL Server
6 3 (0.42%) DynamoDB
6 3 (0.42%) Metadata
6 3 (0.42%) MySQL
7 2 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.28%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.28%) Neo4j
7 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.28%) Semantic Layer
7 2 (0.28%) Weaviate
8 1 (0.14%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.14%) Flink
8 1 (0.14%) Redis
8 1 (0.14%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 29 (4.06%) Claude Code
2 9 (1.26%) MLflow
3 7 (0.98%) Git
4 5 (0.70%) GitLab
5 4 (0.56%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.42%) Vite
7 2 (0.28%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 384 (53.78%) Social Skills
2 84 (11.76%) Finance
3 15 (2.10%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (2.10%) Financial Institution
3 15 (2.10%) Law
4 14 (1.96%) Legal
5 9 (1.26%) Public Sector
6 6 (0.84%) Health Technology
7 5 (0.70%) Games
7 5 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (0.42%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (0.28%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.28%) Banking
9 2 (0.28%) Tech for Good
9 2 (0.28%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.14%) Advertising
10 1 (0.14%) Legal Technology
10 1 (0.14%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (10.36%) LangChain
2 37 (5.18%) LangGraph
3 30 (4.20%) LlamaIndex
4 29 (4.06%) Model Context Protocol
5 22 (3.08%) PyTorch
6 21 (2.94%) React
7 18 (2.52%) FastAPI
8 17 (2.38%) Langfuse
9 16 (2.24%) TensorFlow
10 15 (2.10%) Next.js
11 13 (1.82%) REST
12 12 (1.68%) .NET
12 12 (1.68%) pgvector
12 12 (1.68%) RESTful
13 11 (1.54%) Django
14 10 (1.40%) Hugging Face
15 9 (1.26%) CrewAI
16 8 (1.12%) scikit-learn
17 7 (0.98%) JSON
18 6 (0.84%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 117 (16.39%) AI Agents
2 42 (5.88%) Cloud Native
3 31 (4.34%) Distributed Systems
4 18 (2.52%) Low-Code
5 14 (1.96%) e-Learning
6 9 (1.26%) Life Science
7 7 (0.98%) Algorithms
8 6 (0.84%) PropTech
9 5 (0.70%) Autonomous Agent
9 5 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (0.70%) Product Ownership
10 4 (0.56%) Blog
10 4 (0.56%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.56%) Public Cloud
10 4 (0.56%) Video\Live Streaming
11 3 (0.42%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 3 (0.42%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.42%) Smart Energy
12 2 (0.28%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.14%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 669 (93.70%) AI
2 376 (52.66%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
3 202 (28.29%) Software Engineering
4 186 (26.05%) LLM
5 122 (17.09%) Machine Learning
6 114 (15.97%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
7 104 (14.57%) Generative AI
8 75 (10.50%) Workflow
9 68 (9.52%) Prompt Engineering
10 59 (8.26%) Problem-Solving
11 56 (7.84%) MLOps
12 47 (6.58%) CI/CD
12 47 (6.58%) Decision-Making
13 46 (6.44%) Full-Stack Development
14 43 (6.02%) Observability
15 37 (5.18%) Data Science
16 34 (4.76%) Mentoring
17 33 (4.62%) Agile
17 33 (4.62%) Microservices
18 32 (4.48%) Deep Learning
Programming Languages
1 519 (72.69%) Python
2 26 (3.64%) TypeScript
3 24 (3.36%) SQL
4 19 (2.66%) Java
5 17 (2.38%) C#
6 11 (1.54%) C++
7 9 (1.26%) JavaScript
8 8 (1.12%) PowerShell
9 7 (0.98%) Bash
10 6 (0.84%) Go
11 3 (0.42%) Julia
11 3 (0.42%) PHP
12 2 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.28%) Search Processing Language
13 1 (0.14%) C
13 1 (0.14%) R
13 1 (0.14%) Rust
Qualifications
1 339 (47.48%) Azure Certification
2 42 (5.88%) Degree
3 37 (5.18%) Security Cleared
4 22 (3.08%) DV Cleared
5 21 (2.94%) SC Cleared
6 14 (1.96%) PhD
7 9 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
8 8 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (0.98%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.70%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 4 (0.56%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 2 (0.28%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (0.28%) CASP
12 2 (0.28%) CCSP
12 2 (0.28%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.28%) CISSP
12 2 (0.28%) CompTIA CySA+
12 2 (0.28%) CompTIA Security+
13 1 (0.14%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (1.82%) Data Quality
2 7 (0.98%) QA
3 4 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.28%) GDPR
4 2 (0.28%) GRC
4 2 (0.28%) HIPAA
4 2 (0.28%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
System Software
1 24 (3.36%) Docker
2 1 (0.14%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 38 (5.32%) Kubernetes
2 18 (2.52%) Terraform
3 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.28%) Ansible
4 2 (0.28%) Kubeflow
5 1 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 54 (7.56%) OpenAI
2 42 (5.88%) Microsoft
3 25 (3.50%) Foundry
4 9 (1.26%) Databricks
5 7 (0.98%) Google
6 4 (0.56%) UiPath
7 3 (0.42%) Automation Anywhere
8 2 (0.28%) SAP
8 2 (0.28%) Splunk
9 1 (0.14%) DocuSign
9 1 (0.14%) HighQ
9 1 (0.14%) iManage
9 1 (0.14%) Intapp
9 1 (0.14%) Legora
9 1 (0.14%) Litera