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 18 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 46 69
Rank change year-on-year +42 +23 +53
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,852 2,642 2,887
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 14.51% 5.37% 3.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 18.28% 5.81% 4.38%
Number of salaries quoted 2,437 1,344 1,678
10th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £61,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +7.14% -
75th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £117,500 £117,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £66,254 £62,500
% change year-on-year -9.44% +6.01% -

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 53,894 45,456 65,928
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.39% 92.40% 88.33%
Number of salaries quoted 32,246 22,087 51,057
10th Percentile £29,000 £34,750 £29,440
25th Percentile £38,296 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 +40 8,988 £70,000 -6.67% 2,175
UK excluding London +42 7,093 £60,000 -9.44% 1,487
North of England +46 2,603 £60,709 -9.44% 348
Work from Home +37 2,593 £67,500 +1.82% 1,141
London +33 2,302 £80,000 -12.33% 1,108
North West +39 1,992 £60,709 -13.27% 195
Midlands +90 1,530 £55,000 -15.38% 183
South East +38 1,485 £50,000 -34.21% 546
West Midlands +83 1,251 £59,527 +1.32% 105
East of England +28 668 £55,000 -16.96% 138
Yorkshire +41 508 £67,500 +12.50% 108
South West +22 368 £62,500 -3.85% 161
Scotland +38 330 £70,000 +21.74% 84
East Midlands +69 290 £50,000 -23.08% 77
Wales +41 122 £51,585 +3.17% 38
North East +48 103 £55,000 -24.14% 46
Northern Ireland -6 54 £90,000 -5.26% 12
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 (0.96%) SharePoint
2 61 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (0.53%) Apache Spark
4 48 (0.49%) Confluence
5 42 (0.43%) CMS
5 42 (0.43%) Jupyter
6 24 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
7 21 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
8 20 (0.20%) ArcGIS
9 19 (0.19%) WordPress
10 18 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 17 (0.17%) Appian
12 15 (0.15%) Apache
13 13 (0.13%) JBoss
13 13 (0.13%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.091%) Apache Solr
15 7 (0.071%) SAS
16 5 (0.051%) Apache Pulsar
16 5 (0.051%) IIS
16 5 (0.051%) Umbraco
Applications
1 1,015 (10.30%) Chatbot
2 699 (7.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 88 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
4 41 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (0.17%) Maya
6 15 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.10%) MS Visio
8 6 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
9 5 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
9 5 (0.051%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.051%) UserZoom
10 4 (0.041%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 4 (0.041%) Sketch
10 4 (0.041%) Weka
11 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.030%) Simulink
12 2 (0.020%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.020%) InDesign
12 2 (0.020%) Notion
13 1 (0.010%) GNU Octave
Business Applications
1 47 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.19%) NetSuite
2 19 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
3 13 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.10%) Shopify
5 10 (0.10%) Workday HCM
6 8 (0.081%) Distributed Ledger
6 8 (0.081%) Endur
7 7 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
7 7 (0.071%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.041%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.030%) Oracle Assets
9 3 (0.030%) SAP Business One
9 3 (0.030%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 2 (0.020%) Dynamics GP
10 2 (0.020%) Elite 3E
10 2 (0.020%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 2 (0.020%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,132 (41.94%) Cloud Computing
2 1,653 (16.78%) Azure
3 989 (10.04%) Power Platform
4 725 (7.36%) AWS
5 658 (6.68%) Azure AI
6 447 (4.54%) SaaS
7 329 (3.34%) GCP
8 226 (2.29%) GitHub
9 200 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
9 200 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
10 123 (1.25%) Snowflake
11 111 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
11 111 (1.13%) GitHub Copilot
12 109 (1.11%) Entra ID
13 108 (1.10%) Microsoft Copilot
14 104 (1.06%) Serverless
15 97 (0.98%) Power Automate
16 69 (0.70%) PaaS
17 67 (0.68%) dbt
18 63 (0.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 4,061 (41.22%) Internet
2 87 (0.88%) Broadband
3 52 (0.53%) Firewall
4 33 (0.33%) Network Security
5 32 (0.32%) Unified Communications
6 27 (0.27%) VoIP
7 24 (0.24%) VPN
8 19 (0.19%) HTTP
8 19 (0.19%) WAN
9 17 (0.17%) TCP/IP
10 16 (0.16%) DNS
11 14 (0.14%) Telepresence
11 14 (0.14%) VLAN
11 14 (0.14%) WebEx
12 13 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (0.12%) DHCP
14 8 (0.081%) Intranet
14 8 (0.081%) Wireshark
15 7 (0.071%) LAN
15 7 (0.071%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 827 (8.39%) Power BI
2 687 (6.97%) Tableau
3 155 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
4 106 (1.08%) SQL Server
5 98 (0.99%) NoSQL
6 97 (0.98%) Data Lake
7 92 (0.93%) Metadata
8 76 (0.77%) PostgreSQL
9 75 (0.76%) MongoDB
10 74 (0.75%) Big Data
11 43 (0.44%) BigQuery
12 39 (0.40%) MySQL
13 38 (0.39%) Pinecone
14 34 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
14 34 (0.35%) Hadoop
15 33 (0.33%) Relational Database
16 32 (0.32%) Looker
17 29 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 27 (0.27%) Data Mining
19 25 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 133 (1.35%) Git
2 113 (1.15%) JIRA
3 53 (0.54%) MLflow
4 45 (0.46%) Jenkins
5 33 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
6 30 (0.30%) GitLab
7 19 (0.19%) Cypress.io
8 17 (0.17%) Octopus Deploy
8 17 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
8 17 (0.17%) Selenium
8 17 (0.17%) TeamCity
9 13 (0.13%) Visual Studio
10 12 (0.12%) Postman
11 10 (0.10%) Claude Code
12 9 (0.091%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.081%) Storybook
13 8 (0.081%) Subversion
14 7 (0.071%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.071%) Vite
15 6 (0.061%) Gradle
General
1 5,811 (58.98%) Social Skills
2 4,489 (45.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,231 (42.95%) Banking
4 1,197 (12.15%) Finance
5 1,040 (10.56%) Analytical Skills
6 409 (4.15%) Marketing
7 305 (3.10%) Public Sector
8 280 (2.84%) Law
8 280 (2.84%) Legal
9 231 (2.34%) Retail
10 165 (1.67%) Games
11 142 (1.44%) Manufacturing
12 108 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
13 105 (1.07%) Telecoms
14 94 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
15 83 (0.84%) Financial Institution
15 83 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
16 69 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
17 60 (0.61%) Electronics
18 47 (0.48%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 3,161 (32.08%) Lecturer
2 951 (9.65%) Trainer
3 774 (7.86%) Analyst
4 704 (7.15%) Senior
5 634 (6.44%) Data Analyst
6 572 (5.81%) Junior
7 552 (5.60%) Junior Analyst
7 552 (5.60%) Junior Data Analyst
8 446 (4.53%) Lead
9 428 (4.34%) Developer
10 291 (2.95%) Architect
11 232 (2.35%) Consultant
12 188 (1.91%) Software Engineer
13 161 (1.63%) Data Engineer
14 134 (1.36%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 124 (1.26%) Solutions Architect
16 122 (1.24%) Content Editor
17 99 (1.00%) Senior Manager
18 92 (0.93%) Data Scientist
19 88 (0.89%) Research Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (2.40%) React
2 186 (1.89%) .NET
3 172 (1.75%) REST
4 155 (1.57%) PyTorch
5 126 (1.28%) TensorFlow
6 118 (1.20%) RESTful
7 114 (1.16%) Node.js
8 108 (1.10%) HTML
9 90 (0.91%) LangChain
10 83 (0.84%) scikit-learn
11 82 (0.83%) FastAPI
12 81 (0.82%) CSS
13 77 (0.78%) Hugging Face
14 74 (0.75%) Django
14 74 (0.75%) Kafka
15 70 (0.71%) AngularJS
16 69 (0.70%) Pandas
17 61 (0.62%) Spring
18 58 (0.59%) Flask
19 57 (0.58%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 4,083 (41.44%) IoT
2 280 (2.84%) Cloud Native
3 189 (1.92%) Onboarding
4 177 (1.80%) Product Ownership
5 164 (1.66%) Algorithms
6 159 (1.61%) Robotics
7 158 (1.60%) AI Agents
8 132 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
9 120 (1.22%) Blog
10 111 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
11 101 (1.03%) Management Information System
12 98 (0.99%) Distributed Systems
13 97 (0.98%) Life Science
14 92 (0.93%) Low-Code
15 91 (0.92%) Molecular Biology
16 85 (0.86%) Social Media
17 72 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
18 65 (0.66%) Analytical Mindset
19 63 (0.64%) Legacy Systems
19 63 (0.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 89 (0.90%) Windows
2 85 (0.86%) Linux
3 68 (0.69%) Android
4 58 (0.59%) Unix
5 46 (0.47%) Apple iOS
6 32 (0.32%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.091%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.051%) Kali Linux
9 5 (0.051%) VMS
10 4 (0.041%) Robot Operating System
10 4 (0.041%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.030%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.020%) Mac OS X
12 2 (0.020%) zOS
13 1 (0.010%) Debian
13 1 (0.010%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.010%) Solaris
13 1 (0.010%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,091 (51.67%) Machine Learning
2 4,332 (43.97%) Cybersecurity
3 4,318 (43.83%) User Experience
4 4,070 (41.31%) Web Development
5 1,110 (11.27%) Analytics
6 1,059 (10.75%) Conversational UI
7 969 (9.84%) Business Intelligence
8 934 (9.48%) Agile
9 735 (7.46%) Problem-Solving
10 671 (6.81%) Roadmaps
11 617 (6.26%) Decision-Making
12 605 (6.14%) CI/CD
13 595 (6.04%) Software Engineering
14 585 (5.94%) Continuous Improvement
15 580 (5.89%) DevOps
16 497 (5.04%) Data Science
17 489 (4.96%) Generative AI
18 478 (4.85%) LLM
19 433 (4.40%) Computer Science
20 432 (4.38%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 1,687 (17.12%) Python
2 1,150 (11.67%) SQL
3 264 (2.68%) JavaScript
4 250 (2.54%) TypeScript
5 225 (2.28%) Java
6 160 (1.62%) C#
7 88 (0.89%) PowerShell
8 85 (0.86%) C++
9 71 (0.72%) Bash
10 68 (0.69%) Go
11 59 (0.60%) R
12 41 (0.42%) PHP
13 34 (0.35%) Rust
14 28 (0.28%) Kotlin
15 27 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 26 (0.26%) Scala
17 24 (0.24%) C
18 23 (0.23%) Apex Code
19 21 (0.21%) PL/SQL
20 17 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 5,861 (59.49%) Degree
2 4,728 (47.99%) Master's Degree
3 4,664 (47.34%) PhD
4 4,049 (41.10%) Postgraduate
5 603 (6.12%) Azure Certification
6 343 (3.48%) Security Cleared
7 262 (2.66%) SC Cleared
8 194 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
9 96 (0.97%) AWS Certification
10 85 (0.86%) DV Cleared
11 69 (0.70%) DBS Check
12 49 (0.50%) CISSP
12 49 (0.50%) PMP
13 47 (0.48%) BPSS Clearance
14 39 (0.40%) ACCA
15 36 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
16 34 (0.35%) PMI Certification
17 31 (0.31%) Numerate Degree
18 30 (0.30%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
19 29 (0.29%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 226 (2.29%) Data Quality
2 203 (2.06%) Accessibility
3 146 (1.48%) QA
4 131 (1.33%) GDPR
5 78 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 41 (0.42%) EU AI Act
6 41 (0.42%) GxP
7 36 (0.37%) NIST
8 34 (0.35%) IFRS
9 26 (0.26%) GRC
10 25 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
10 25 (0.25%) HIPAA
11 23 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
12 22 (0.22%) PMO
12 22 (0.22%) Solvency II
12 22 (0.22%) WCAG
13 21 (0.21%) PSD2
13 21 (0.21%) SLA
14 18 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 17 (0.17%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 253 (2.57%) Docker
2 78 (0.79%) Active Directory
3 23 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
4 20 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.16%) Firmware
5 16 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
6 12 (0.12%) vSphere
7 5 (0.051%) Lustre
8 4 (0.041%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 4 (0.041%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.030%) GPFS
9 3 (0.030%) Kamailio
10 2 (0.020%) Ceph
10 2 (0.020%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.020%) NFS
10 2 (0.020%) RACF
11 1 (0.010%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 246 (2.50%) Kubernetes
2 241 (2.45%) Terraform
3 54 (0.55%) Ansible
4 47 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
5 44 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (0.40%) Prometheus
7 34 (0.35%) Grafana
8 14 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
9 10 (0.10%) Argo
10 8 (0.081%) Kubeflow
11 7 (0.071%) SCCM
11 7 (0.071%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.061%) Proxmox
13 5 (0.051%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (0.041%) Nessus
14 4 (0.041%) Nmap
14 4 (0.041%) RSA Archer
14 4 (0.041%) SolarWinds Orion
15 3 (0.030%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
15 3 (0.030%) Control-M
Vendors
1 1,388 (14.09%) Microsoft
2 946 (9.60%) PayPal
3 187 (1.90%) Google
4 177 (1.80%) Databricks
5 116 (1.18%) OpenAI
6 108 (1.10%) Adobe
7 103 (1.05%) Salesforce
8 102 (1.04%) Oracle
9 94 (0.95%) Dell
10 92 (0.93%) Cisco
11 75 (0.76%) SAP
12 48 (0.49%) Blue Prism
13 47 (0.48%) Alteryx
14 46 (0.47%) Foundry
14 46 (0.47%) Palantir
15 40 (0.41%) HubSpot
16 36 (0.37%) Fortinet
17 34 (0.35%) Bloomberg
18 32 (0.32%) Apple
19 28 (0.28%) VMware