AI Job Trends

AI
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring AI skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 51 66
Rank change year-on-year +47 +15 +55
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,554 2,570 2,733
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 15.24% 4.88% 4.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.99% 5.35% 4.54%
Number of salaries quoted 2,221 1,273 1,610
10th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £60,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £71,000 £77,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.79% +10.00% -
75th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £118,750 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,450 £67,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -11.93% +8.00% +0.67%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 50,302 48,021 60,136
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.24% 91.22% 88.90%
Number of salaries quoted 29,664 23,067 46,526
10th Percentile £28,675 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

AI
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing AI relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

AI job vacancy trend in the UK

AI
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing AI.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing AI

AI
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing AI over the 6 months to 26 January 2026.

Salary histogram for AI in the UK

AI
Top 18 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing AI within the UK over the 6 months to 26 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
England +45 8,708 £72,500 -5.84% 4,429
UK excluding London +51 6,889 £59,450 -11.93% 3,888
Work from Home +57 2,723 £67,500 -6.90% 2,321
North of England +57 2,553 £61,418 -10.01% 645
London +34 2,235 £80,000 -11.11% 1,228
North West +45 1,988 £61,418 -10.01% 290
Midlands +95 1,512 £59,527 -8.42% 404
South East +32 1,420 £50,000 -35.06% 1,459
West Midlands +89 1,250 £60,000 +4.35% 167
East of England +51 638 £55,000 -16.97% 591
Yorkshire +58 460 £70,000 +7.69% 252
South West +33 340 £62,500 - 464
Scotland +45 334 £65,000 +9.24% 158
East Midlands +78 272 £41,250 -43.10% 228
Wales +42 120 £53,171 -5.47% 187
North East +49 105 £55,000 -27.63% 107
Northern Ireland -6 47 £90,000 +1.41% 81
Channel Islands - 8 - -

AI
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 95 (0.99%) SharePoint
2 58 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
3 50 (0.52%) Apache Spark
4 48 (0.50%) Confluence
5 39 (0.41%) CMS
6 21 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
7 20 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 16 (0.17%) Apache
8 16 (0.17%) Appian
9 15 (0.16%) WordPress
10 13 (0.14%) JBoss
10 13 (0.14%) Jupyter
10 13 (0.14%) WebSphere
11 9 (0.094%) Apache Solr
11 9 (0.094%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.063%) SAS
13 5 (0.052%) Apache Pulsar
13 5 (0.052%) IIS
13 5 (0.052%) nginx
13 5 (0.052%) Umbraco
Applications
1 1,204 (12.60%) Chatbot
2 480 (5.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 98 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
4 43 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.22%) Maya
6 12 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.10%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.073%) Adobe Premiere
8 7 (0.073%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.073%) Notion
9 6 (0.063%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.063%) Photoshop
10 5 (0.052%) Sketch
11 4 (0.042%) InDesign
11 4 (0.042%) Weka
12 3 (0.031%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.031%) Simulink
12 3 (0.031%) UserZoom
13 1 (0.010%) Adobe Illustrator
13 1 (0.010%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 56 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
3 18 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 12 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
5 11 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
5 11 (0.12%) Shopify
6 8 (0.084%) Endur
6 8 (0.084%) Workday HCM
7 7 (0.073%) Oracle EBS
7 7 (0.073%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.063%) Distributed Ledger
9 5 (0.052%) Elite 3E
10 4 (0.042%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.042%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.031%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.031%) Oracle Assets
11 3 (0.031%) SAP Business One
12 2 (0.021%) SAP ERP
12 2 (0.021%) SAP FI
12 2 (0.021%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,097 (42.88%) Cloud Computing
2 1,385 (14.50%) Azure
3 757 (7.92%) Power Platform
4 695 (7.27%) AWS
5 442 (4.63%) Azure AI
6 428 (4.48%) SaaS
7 319 (3.34%) GCP
8 225 (2.36%) GitHub
9 210 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
10 179 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
11 121 (1.27%) Snowflake
12 113 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
13 107 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
14 105 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
15 104 (1.09%) Serverless
16 96 (1.00%) Entra ID
17 92 (0.96%) Power Automate
18 74 (0.77%) Vertex AI
19 65 (0.68%) dbt
20 64 (0.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 4,060 (42.50%) Internet
2 39 (0.41%) Firewall
3 31 (0.32%) Network Security
4 27 (0.28%) Unified Communications
5 25 (0.26%) VoIP
6 24 (0.25%) Broadband
7 20 (0.21%) VPN
8 15 (0.16%) HTTP
8 15 (0.16%) WAN
9 14 (0.15%) DNS
9 14 (0.15%) TCP/IP
9 14 (0.15%) Telepresence
9 14 (0.15%) WebEx
9 14 (0.15%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (0.13%) VLAN
11 9 (0.094%) DHCP
11 9 (0.094%) Wireless
12 8 (0.084%) InfiniBand
12 8 (0.084%) LAN
13 7 (0.073%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 606 (6.34%) Power BI
2 466 (4.88%) Tableau
3 157 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
4 110 (1.15%) NoSQL
5 106 (1.11%) SQL Server
6 104 (1.09%) Data Lake
7 78 (0.82%) Metadata
8 74 (0.77%) PostgreSQL
9 73 (0.76%) MongoDB
10 68 (0.71%) Big Data
11 45 (0.47%) BigQuery
12 39 (0.41%) MySQL
13 37 (0.39%) Pinecone
14 35 (0.37%) Hadoop
15 33 (0.35%) Relational Database
16 31 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
17 30 (0.31%) Looker
17 30 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 27 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
19 24 (0.25%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 137 (1.43%) Git
2 121 (1.27%) JIRA
3 48 (0.50%) Jenkins
3 48 (0.50%) MLflow
4 29 (0.30%) GitLab
5 20 (0.21%) Cypress.io
5 20 (0.21%) Octopus Deploy
5 20 (0.21%) TeamCity
6 18 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
7 14 (0.15%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.14%) Selenium
9 9 (0.094%) Bitbucket
9 9 (0.094%) Vite
10 8 (0.084%) Postman
10 8 (0.084%) Subversion
11 7 (0.073%) Burp Suite
11 7 (0.073%) Storybook
11 7 (0.073%) WebDriver
12 6 (0.063%) JUnit
12 6 (0.063%) Maven
General
1 5,571 (58.31%) Social Skills
2 4,494 (47.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,215 (44.12%) Banking
4 1,123 (11.75%) Finance
5 1,089 (11.40%) Analytical Skills
6 388 (4.06%) Marketing
7 293 (3.07%) Public Sector
8 278 (2.91%) Law
9 263 (2.75%) Legal
10 197 (2.06%) Retail
11 118 (1.24%) Games
12 112 (1.17%) Manufacturing
13 104 (1.09%) Telecoms
14 94 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
15 93 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
16 76 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
17 75 (0.79%) Financial Institution
18 74 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
19 67 (0.70%) Electronics
20 63 (0.66%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 3,163 (33.11%) Lecturer
2 1,163 (12.17%) Trainer
3 681 (7.13%) Senior
4 546 (5.71%) Analyst
5 406 (4.25%) Data Analyst
6 397 (4.16%) Developer
7 390 (4.08%) Lead
8 354 (3.71%) Junior
9 331 (3.46%) Junior Analyst
9 331 (3.46%) Junior Data Analyst
10 263 (2.75%) Architect
11 218 (2.28%) Consultant
12 174 (1.82%) Software Engineer
13 155 (1.62%) Content Editor
14 154 (1.61%) Data Engineer
15 138 (1.44%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 110 (1.15%) Solutions Architect
17 106 (1.11%) Support Specialist
18 98 (1.03%) Customer Support Specialist
19 93 (0.97%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (2.42%) React
2 179 (1.87%) .NET
3 174 (1.82%) REST
4 142 (1.49%) PyTorch
5 122 (1.28%) TensorFlow
6 116 (1.21%) Node.js
7 110 (1.15%) LangChain
8 109 (1.14%) RESTful
9 98 (1.03%) HTML
10 83 (0.87%) FastAPI
11 72 (0.75%) CSS
12 70 (0.73%) AngularJS
13 69 (0.72%) Kafka
14 68 (0.71%) Django
15 58 (0.61%) Vue
16 57 (0.60%) scikit-learn
17 54 (0.57%) Next.js
18 53 (0.55%) OAuth
19 52 (0.54%) Flask
19 52 (0.54%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 4,077 (42.67%) IoT
2 270 (2.83%) Cloud Native
3 186 (1.95%) Product Ownership
4 175 (1.83%) Onboarding
5 155 (1.62%) Robotics
6 153 (1.60%) AI Agents
7 129 (1.35%) Algorithms
8 127 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
9 119 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
10 112 (1.17%) Blog
11 98 (1.03%) Management Information System
12 97 (1.02%) Molecular Biology
13 95 (0.99%) Life Science
14 91 (0.95%) Low-Code
15 84 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
16 82 (0.86%) Distributed Systems
17 71 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
18 70 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
19 63 (0.66%) Virtual Team
20 54 (0.57%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 78 (0.82%) Windows
2 75 (0.79%) Linux
3 58 (0.61%) Android
4 54 (0.57%) Unix
5 35 (0.37%) Apple iOS
6 28 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 12 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.10%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.052%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.031%) OpenWrt
10 3 (0.031%) Robot Operating System
10 3 (0.031%) VMS
11 2 (0.021%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.021%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.021%) zOS
12 1 (0.010%) Debian
12 1 (0.010%) Solaris
12 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,056 (52.92%) Machine Learning
2 4,327 (45.29%) Cybersecurity
3 4,315 (45.16%) User Experience
4 4,071 (42.61%) Web Development
5 1,249 (13.07%) Conversational UI
6 1,006 (10.53%) Analytics
7 903 (9.45%) Agile
8 749 (7.84%) Problem-Solving
9 740 (7.75%) Business Intelligence
10 588 (6.15%) DevOps
10 588 (6.15%) Roadmaps
11 573 (6.00%) CI/CD
12 570 (5.97%) Software Engineering
13 563 (5.89%) Decision-Making
14 538 (5.63%) Continuous Improvement
15 475 (4.97%) Generative AI
16 471 (4.93%) Computer Science
16 471 (4.93%) Data Science
17 448 (4.69%) LLM
18 394 (4.12%) Chemistry
Programming Languages
1 1,369 (14.33%) Python
2 928 (9.71%) SQL
3 252 (2.64%) JavaScript
4 247 (2.59%) TypeScript
5 200 (2.09%) Java
6 145 (1.52%) C#
7 86 (0.90%) PowerShell
8 76 (0.80%) C++
9 66 (0.69%) Bash
10 60 (0.63%) Go
11 58 (0.61%) R
12 38 (0.40%) PHP
13 34 (0.36%) Rust
14 32 (0.33%) Scala
15 31 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 27 (0.28%) Kotlin
17 23 (0.24%) Apex Code
18 21 (0.22%) C
18 21 (0.22%) PL/SQL
19 19 (0.20%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 6,103 (63.88%) Degree
2 4,804 (50.28%) Master's Degree
3 4,733 (49.54%) PhD
4 4,049 (42.38%) Postgraduate
5 375 (3.93%) Azure Certification
6 321 (3.36%) Security Cleared
7 258 (2.70%) SC Cleared
8 219 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
9 78 (0.82%) DV Cleared
10 61 (0.64%) AWS Certification
10 61 (0.64%) DBS Check
11 47 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
12 46 (0.48%) PMP
13 44 (0.46%) CISSP
14 36 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
15 34 (0.36%) ACCA
16 31 (0.32%) PMI Certification
17 30 (0.31%) CISA
17 30 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
18 28 (0.29%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 222 (2.32%) Data Quality
2 135 (1.41%) Accessibility
3 130 (1.36%) QA
4 113 (1.18%) GDPR
5 75 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 43 (0.45%) GxP
7 40 (0.42%) EU AI Act
8 35 (0.37%) NIST
9 29 (0.30%) IFRS
10 27 (0.28%) SLA
11 25 (0.26%) HIPAA
12 24 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
13 22 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.23%) Solvency II
14 21 (0.22%) GRC
14 21 (0.22%) PMO
14 21 (0.22%) PSD2
14 21 (0.22%) WCAG
15 20 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 17 (0.18%) GAAP
System Software
1 231 (2.42%) Docker
2 69 (0.72%) Active Directory
3 21 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
3 21 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (0.16%) Firmware
6 13 (0.14%) vSphere
7 7 (0.073%) Lustre
8 5 (0.052%) GPFS
8 5 (0.052%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.052%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (0.042%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.021%) Ceph
10 2 (0.021%) NFS
10 2 (0.021%) RACF
11 1 (0.010%) Kamailio
11 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 231 (2.42%) Terraform
2 214 (2.24%) Kubernetes
3 51 (0.53%) Ansible
4 48 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
5 42 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
6 30 (0.31%) Prometheus
7 22 (0.23%) Grafana
8 14 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
9 9 (0.094%) Kubeflow
10 8 (0.084%) Argo
10 8 (0.084%) SCCM
11 6 (0.063%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.052%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.042%) Nessus
13 4 (0.042%) Nmap
14 3 (0.031%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
14 3 (0.031%) Proxmox
14 3 (0.031%) RSA Archer
15 2 (0.021%) HP Fortify
15 2 (0.021%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
Vendors
1 1,163 (12.17%) PayPal
2 1,119 (11.71%) Microsoft
3 186 (1.95%) Google
4 169 (1.77%) Databricks
5 118 (1.24%) OpenAI
6 101 (1.06%) Oracle
6 101 (1.06%) Salesforce
7 99 (1.04%) Cisco
8 86 (0.90%) Dell
9 80 (0.84%) Adobe
10 69 (0.72%) SAP
11 48 (0.50%) Alteryx
12 47 (0.49%) Blue Prism
13 46 (0.48%) Foundry
14 43 (0.45%) HubSpot
15 41 (0.43%) Palantir
16 38 (0.40%) Fortinet
17 35 (0.37%) Apple
18 34 (0.36%) Bloomberg
19 30 (0.31%) Palo Alto