AI Job Trends in Manchester

AI
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in Manchester citing AI skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 10 72
Rank change year-on-year +5 +62 -25
Permanent jobs citing AI 832 332 108
As % of all permanent jobs in Manchester 10.66% 14.44% 2.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.92% 16.52% 3.39%
Number of salaries quoted 442 104 36
10th Percentile £42,500 £24,570 £42,500
25th Percentile £52,500 £31,688 £49,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £57,500 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -14.81% +3.85%
75th Percentile £95,000 £82,500 £84,063
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £93,250
North West median annual salary £67,472 £60,000 £56,509
% change year-on-year +12.45% +6.18% -13.06%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Manchester

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 citing process or methodology skills in Manchester.

6 months to
24 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies citing process or methodology skills 5,975 2,010 3,182
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Manchester 76.57% 87.43% 85.08%
Number of salaries quoted 4,399 1,205 1,489
10th Percentile £34,200 £28,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £35,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £51,250 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +21.95% -6.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £70,000 £69,250
90th Percentile £96,250 £85,000 £85,000
North West median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% -3.85% -5.45%

AI Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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

AI job vacancy trend in Manchester

AI Salary Trend in Manchester

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing AI.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing AI

AI Salary Histogram in Manchester

Salary distribution for jobs citing AI in Manchester over the 6 months to 24 October 2026.

Salary histogram for AI in Manchester

AI Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing AI within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 24 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
Job Ads
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Salford -13 25 £90,000 +29.71% 32
Bolton +9 14 £37,500 -30.23% 11
Cheadle - 11 £63,750 - 7
Ashton-under-Lyne - 9 £51,000 -
Rochdale +3 5 £70,000 - 20
Stockport -14 5 £70,000 - 8
Sale - 2 £62,500 - 1
AI
North West

AI Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

RankSkillShareJob Ads
1Agile20.9%174
2Continuous Improvement20.0%166
3Software Engineering18.1%151
4CI/CD17.8%148
5Problem-Solving15.7%131
6DevOps15.5%129
6Stakeholder Management15.5%129
8Coaching14.2%118
9Machine Learning13.9%116
10Analytics13.8%115
11Decision-Making12.3%102
12Customer Service11.5%96
13Roadmaps11.2%93
14Generative AI10.2%85
14Mentoring10.2%85
14Stakeholder Engagement10.2%85
17Full-Stack Development8.8%73
18LLM8.2%68
19Cybersecurity8.1%67
20Data Science7.7%64