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 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 52 61
Rank change year-on-year +48 +9 +57
Permanent jobs citing AI 9,395 2,582 2,344
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 15.58% 4.82% 4.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 19.25% 5.31% 4.70%
Number of salaries quoted 2,164 1,261 1,348
10th Percentile £35,000 £45,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £57,500 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £77,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.84% +2.67% +7.14%
75th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £92,500
90th Percentile £118,750 £118,750 £120,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £59,527 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -14.96% +7.69% +5.69%

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 48,808 48,616 49,870
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.95% 90.71% 89.93%
Number of salaries quoted 28,796 23,669 37,967
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £77,715
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £51,971
% change year-on-year -9.09% +5.83% -5.51%

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 15 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 15 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 8,563 £72,500 -6.45% 3,771
UK excluding London +54 6,798 £59,527 -14.96% 3,318
Work from Home +63 2,694 £67,500 -10.00% 1,735
North of England +53 2,534 £62,500 -8.42% 576
London +35 2,186 £80,000 -11.11% 974
North West +42 1,976 £60,000 -14.29% 258
Midlands +108 1,500 £60,000 -7.69% 356
South East +27 1,390 £50,000 -33.33% 1,217
West Midlands +94 1,243 £66,250 +15.22% 145
East of England +87 621 £50,000 -35.06% 494
Yorkshire +54 455 £72,500 +13.90% 227
Scotland +44 345 £67,500 +13.45% 124
South West +31 322 £62,500 - 399
East Midlands +85 267 £42,500 -44.81% 201
Wales +39 118 £55,000 -12.00% 164
North East +57 103 £55,000 -27.63% 93
Northern Ireland -6 42 £90,000 +1.41% 74
Channel Islands - 8 - - 1

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 91 (0.97%) SharePoint
2 53 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (0.55%) Confluence
4 48 (0.51%) Apache Spark
5 40 (0.43%) CMS
6 20 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 19 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
8 16 (0.17%) Apache
9 15 (0.16%) WordPress
10 14 (0.15%) Appian
11 11 (0.12%) JBoss
11 11 (0.12%) Jupyter
11 11 (0.12%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.096%) Apache Solr
13 6 (0.064%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.053%) Apache Pulsar
14 5 (0.053%) IIS
14 5 (0.053%) nginx
14 5 (0.053%) Umbraco
15 4 (0.043%) Drupal
Applications
1 1,204 (12.82%) Chatbot
2 423 (4.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 93 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
4 41 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.22%) Maya
6 10 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.085%) Sketch
8 7 (0.075%) Adobe Premiere
8 7 (0.075%) Microsoft Project
8 7 (0.075%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.075%) Notion
9 6 (0.064%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.064%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.043%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.043%) InDesign
10 4 (0.043%) Weka
11 3 (0.032%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.032%) Simulink
12 2 (0.021%) S-PLUS
12 2 (0.021%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 52 (0.55%) 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 (0.085%) Endur
6 8 (0.085%) Workday HCM
7 7 (0.075%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
9 5 (0.053%) Elite 3E
9 5 (0.053%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.043%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.043%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.032%) Oracle Assets
11 3 (0.032%) SAP Business One
12 2 (0.021%) Dynamics GP
12 2 (0.021%) SAP CO
12 2 (0.021%) SAP ERP
12 2 (0.021%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 4,095 (43.59%) Cloud Computing
2 1,314 (13.99%) Azure
3 689 (7.33%) AWS
4 684 (7.28%) Power Platform
5 421 (4.48%) SaaS
6 387 (4.12%) Azure AI
7 317 (3.37%) GCP
8 220 (2.34%) GitHub
9 210 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
10 165 (1.76%) Microsoft 365
11 117 (1.25%) Snowflake
12 115 (1.22%) GitHub Copilot
13 101 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
14 100 (1.06%) Microsoft Copilot
14 100 (1.06%) Serverless
15 90 (0.96%) Entra ID
16 86 (0.92%) Power Automate
17 72 (0.77%) Vertex AI
18 67 (0.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 60 (0.64%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 4,060 (43.21%) Internet
2 33 (0.35%) Firewall
3 25 (0.27%) Network Security
4 24 (0.26%) VoIP
5 23 (0.24%) Broadband
6 22 (0.23%) Unified Communications
7 17 (0.18%) VPN
8 16 (0.17%) WAN
9 15 (0.16%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (0.15%) DNS
10 14 (0.15%) HTTP
10 14 (0.15%) Telepresence
10 14 (0.15%) WebEx
11 13 (0.14%) TCP/IP
12 11 (0.12%) VLAN
12 11 (0.12%) Wireless
13 9 (0.096%) LAN
14 8 (0.085%) DHCP
14 8 (0.085%) InfiniBand
15 7 (0.075%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 540 (5.75%) Power BI
2 408 (4.34%) Tableau
3 153 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
4 111 (1.18%) NoSQL
5 109 (1.16%) SQL Server
6 99 (1.05%) Data Lake
7 81 (0.86%) MongoDB
8 78 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
9 69 (0.73%) Big Data
9 69 (0.73%) Metadata
10 46 (0.49%) MySQL
11 40 (0.43%) BigQuery
12 35 (0.37%) Relational Database
13 34 (0.36%) Hadoop
14 32 (0.34%) Pinecone
14 32 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 29 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
15 29 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
15 29 (0.31%) Looker
16 22 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 129 (1.37%) Git
2 128 (1.36%) JIRA
3 51 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 46 (0.49%) MLflow
5 27 (0.29%) GitLab
6 22 (0.23%) Octopus Deploy
6 22 (0.23%) TeamCity
7 18 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
8 16 (0.17%) Cypress.io
9 12 (0.13%) Visual Studio
10 11 (0.12%) Selenium
11 10 (0.11%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.096%) Vite
13 8 (0.085%) Subversion
14 7 (0.075%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.075%) Storybook
14 7 (0.075%) WebDriver
15 6 (0.064%) ERwin
15 6 (0.064%) JMeter
15 6 (0.064%) Postman
General
1 5,512 (58.67%) Social Skills
2 4,493 (47.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4,215 (44.86%) Banking
4 1,096 (11.67%) Analytical Skills
5 1,094 (11.64%) Finance
6 391 (4.16%) Marketing
7 280 (2.98%) Public Sector
8 277 (2.95%) Law
9 253 (2.69%) Legal
10 197 (2.10%) Retail
11 120 (1.28%) Games
12 107 (1.14%) Telecoms
13 102 (1.09%) Manufacturing
14 97 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
15 93 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
16 74 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
16 74 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
17 72 (0.77%) Financial Institution
18 66 (0.70%) Aviation
19 64 (0.68%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 3,161 (33.65%) Lecturer
2 1,163 (12.38%) Trainer
3 660 (7.03%) Senior
4 487 (5.18%) Analyst
5 391 (4.16%) Developer
6 374 (3.98%) Lead
7 346 (3.68%) Data Analyst
8 300 (3.19%) Junior
9 276 (2.94%) Junior Analyst
9 276 (2.94%) Junior Data Analyst
10 262 (2.79%) Architect
11 213 (2.27%) Consultant
12 175 (1.86%) Software Engineer
13 155 (1.65%) Content Editor
14 145 (1.54%) Data Engineer
15 131 (1.39%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 106 (1.13%) Support Specialist
17 101 (1.08%) Solutions Architect
18 98 (1.04%) Customer Support Specialist
19 90 (0.96%) Research Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (2.46%) React
2 176 (1.87%) .NET
3 171 (1.82%) REST
4 130 (1.38%) PyTorch
5 119 (1.27%) Node.js
6 115 (1.22%) TensorFlow
7 113 (1.20%) LangChain
8 107 (1.14%) RESTful
9 92 (0.98%) HTML
10 83 (0.88%) FastAPI
11 70 (0.75%) AngularJS
12 69 (0.73%) Kafka
13 67 (0.71%) Django
14 66 (0.70%) CSS
15 58 (0.62%) Vue
16 56 (0.60%) scikit-learn
17 51 (0.54%) Flask
17 51 (0.54%) Next.js
18 48 (0.51%) OAuth
18 48 (0.51%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 4,076 (43.38%) IoT
2 262 (2.79%) Cloud Native
3 184 (1.96%) Product Ownership
4 174 (1.85%) Onboarding
5 150 (1.60%) AI Agents
6 148 (1.58%) Robotics
7 127 (1.35%) Algorithms
8 125 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
9 123 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 110 (1.17%) Blog
11 97 (1.03%) Molecular Biology
12 93 (0.99%) Life Science
13 92 (0.98%) Management Information System
14 89 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
15 88 (0.94%) Low-Code
16 83 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
17 72 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
18 70 (0.75%) Analytical Mindset
19 65 (0.69%) Virtual Team
20 51 (0.54%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 72 (0.77%) Windows
2 68 (0.72%) Linux
3 60 (0.64%) Android
4 53 (0.56%) Unix
5 38 (0.40%) Apple iOS
6 27 (0.29%) Windows Server
7 11 (0.12%) Mac OS
7 11 (0.12%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.053%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.032%) OpenWrt
10 2 (0.021%) Mac OS X
10 2 (0.021%) VMS
10 2 (0.021%) zOS
11 1 (0.011%) Debian
11 1 (0.011%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.011%) Solaris
11 1 (0.011%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.011%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,032 (53.56%) Machine Learning
2 4,326 (46.05%) Cybersecurity
3 4,306 (45.83%) User Experience
4 4,069 (43.31%) Web Development
5 1,253 (13.34%) Conversational UI
6 984 (10.47%) Analytics
7 893 (9.51%) Agile
8 741 (7.89%) Problem-Solving
9 673 (7.16%) Business Intelligence
10 585 (6.23%) Roadmaps
11 574 (6.11%) DevOps
12 557 (5.93%) Decision-Making
13 554 (5.90%) Software Engineering
14 546 (5.81%) Continuous Improvement
15 545 (5.80%) CI/CD
16 459 (4.89%) Generative AI
17 457 (4.86%) Data Science
18 442 (4.70%) Computer Science
19 435 (4.63%) LLM
20 395 (4.20%) Chemistry
Programming Languages
1 1,272 (13.54%) Python
2 862 (9.18%) SQL
3 248 (2.64%) TypeScript
4 243 (2.59%) JavaScript
5 189 (2.01%) Java
6 142 (1.51%) C#
7 84 (0.89%) PowerShell
8 73 (0.78%) C++
9 60 (0.64%) R
10 59 (0.63%) Bash
11 53 (0.56%) Go
12 33 (0.35%) PHP
13 31 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 31 (0.33%) Rust
14 29 (0.31%) Scala
15 28 (0.30%) Kotlin
16 23 (0.24%) Apex Code
17 20 (0.21%) Bicep
17 20 (0.21%) C
17 20 (0.21%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 6,080 (64.72%) Degree
2 4,798 (51.07%) Master's Degree
3 4,727 (50.31%) PhD
4 4,049 (43.10%) Postgraduate
5 319 (3.40%) Azure Certification
6 312 (3.32%) Security Cleared
7 255 (2.71%) SC Cleared
8 210 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
9 75 (0.80%) DV Cleared
10 57 (0.61%) AWS Certification
11 52 (0.55%) DBS Check
12 48 (0.51%) BPSS Clearance
13 46 (0.49%) PMP
14 40 (0.43%) CISSP
15 36 (0.38%) ACCA
15 36 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
16 31 (0.33%) Numerate Degree
16 31 (0.33%) PMI Certification
17 28 (0.30%) CISA
18 26 (0.28%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 213 (2.27%) Data Quality
2 127 (1.35%) Accessibility
3 125 (1.33%) QA
4 106 (1.13%) GDPR
5 68 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 43 (0.46%) GxP
7 39 (0.42%) EU AI Act
8 30 (0.32%) NIST
8 30 (0.32%) SLA
9 29 (0.31%) IFRS
10 25 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
11 24 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
11 24 (0.26%) HIPAA
12 22 (0.23%) Solvency II
13 21 (0.22%) PSD2
14 19 (0.20%) GAAP
15 18 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 18 (0.19%) PMO
16 17 (0.18%) WCAG
17 16 (0.17%) GRC
System Software
1 232 (2.47%) Docker
2 62 (0.66%) Active Directory
3 22 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
4 19 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
6 15 (0.16%) Firmware
7 12 (0.13%) vSphere
8 7 (0.075%) Lustre
9 6 (0.064%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.053%) GPFS
10 5 (0.053%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 4 (0.043%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.021%) Ceph
12 2 (0.021%) NFS
12 2 (0.021%) RACF
13 1 (0.011%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 226 (2.41%) Terraform
2 205 (2.18%) Kubernetes
3 50 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
4 48 (0.51%) Ansible
5 41 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
6 27 (0.29%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.19%) Grafana
8 14 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
9 9 (0.096%) Kubeflow
10 8 (0.085%) SCCM
11 7 (0.075%) Argo
12 5 (0.053%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.043%) Nessus
13 4 (0.043%) Nmap
13 4 (0.043%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.021%) Control-M
14 2 (0.021%) HP Fortify
14 2 (0.021%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
14 2 (0.021%) Puppet
14 2 (0.021%) SELinux
Vendors
1 1,161 (12.36%) PayPal
2 1,058 (11.26%) Microsoft
3 182 (1.94%) Google
4 163 (1.73%) Databricks
5 112 (1.19%) OpenAI
6 102 (1.09%) Oracle
7 101 (1.08%) Cisco
8 95 (1.01%) Salesforce
9 89 (0.95%) Adobe
10 85 (0.90%) Dell
11 71 (0.76%) SAP
12 48 (0.51%) Alteryx
13 47 (0.50%) Blue Prism
14 45 (0.48%) Foundry
14 45 (0.48%) HubSpot
15 44 (0.47%) Apple
16 42 (0.45%) Palo Alto
17 39 (0.42%) Fortinet
18 35 (0.37%) Palantir
19 34 (0.36%) Bloomberg