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What AI Jobs Look Like in Hiring Data

The government doesn't count AI jobs separately yet. Job postings and hiring data show which AI titles employers use and how fast demand is growing.

Figures on this page come from job-posting and professional-network data, not federal statistics. For government projections of pay and job growth, see the main page.

The Data in Two Minutes

Question 1 of 3

What Do Employers Call AI Jobs?

Short answer: the fastest-growing titles are AI engineer, AI consultant or strategist, and AI/ML researcher. Most people move into them from software engineering or data science.

LinkedIn's Jobs on the Rise list ranks job titles by how fast hiring into them grew from January 2023 to July 2025. Four of the top five are tied to AI.

AI engineer

No. 1 fastest-growing in the U.S.

Builds and deploys AI models that handle tasks like problem-solving and prediction.

Most often moved in fromSoftware engineer, data scientist, full-stack engineer

AI consultant or strategist

No. 2

Helps organizations plan for and put AI technologies to work.

Most often moved in fromSoftware engineer, product manager

AI/ML researcher

No. 5

Designs new AI models and systems.

Most often moved in fromData scientist, software engineer, machine learning engineer

LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise 2026

The paths into these titles run through software engineering and data science, the same occupations the government projections on the main page cover for the AI major.

Question 2 of 3

How Much Hiring Demand Is There?

Short answer: AI skills show up in about 1 in 40 U.S. job postings, and the share of postings that are AI jobs has roughly quadrupled since 2022.

2.5%

Share of all U.S. job postings in 2025 that asked for at least one AI skill, such as machine learning or natural language processing. Lightcast, in the Stanford AI Index 2026.

+280%

Growth in one year in postings that mention agentic AI skills, from 0.06% to 0.23% of all U.S. postings, roughly 90,000 postings. Lightcast, in the Stanford AI Index 2026.

1.13%

Share of U.S. job postings in 2025 that were AI jobs under a stricter definition, up from 0.28% in 2022. Based on 155 million postings. University of Maryland–LinkUp AI Maps.

AI skills aren't limited to tech jobs. Lightcast reports that most postings asking for AI skills are outside IT roles, and that share has been rising. Washington, D.C., has a higher concentration of AI postings than any state.

AI skills also pay. Across more than a billion job ads in 27 countries, PwC found that jobs requiring AI skills offered wages 62% higher on average than similar jobs that didn't, up from 57% a year earlier (PwC 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, using Lightcast data).

How to read these numbers

Lightcast counts a posting as an AI job if it lists at least one AI skill. That includes non-technical roles and areas like AI ethics and governance. Lightcast updates its list of AI skills each year, so compare figures across years with care.

The University of Maryland–LinkUp project uses a language model to identify postings that require AI skills, a stricter test than Lightcast's, which is why its share (1.13%) is lower than Lightcast's (2.5%). Both show the same direction.

Postings measure what employers are asking for, not how many people hold a job. PwC's wage premium compares advertised wages in job postings across 27 countries; it isn't a U.S. salary survey.

Question 3 of 3

Why Doesn't the Government Count AI Jobs?

Short answer: federal statistics use a job classification last revised in 2018, before most of today's AI titles existed. A revision is under way.

Every federal agency that publishes job data uses the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC). The 2018 version has no occupation named for AI. The Office of Management and Budget opened a review in June 2024, and the final 2028 structure is expected in 2027. Whether it will add AI occupations hasn't been announced.

Until then, AI work is counted inside established occupations: data scientists, computer and information research scientists, and software developers. These are the same occupations BLS discusses in its own analysis of AI and employment, and the ones shown for the AI major on the main page.

Federal hiring is one place AI titles already appear. The Office of Personnel Management lets agencies add "(Artificial Intelligence)" to the title of a position that does AI work most of the time. One recent posting, for example, was officially titled Data Scientist (Artificial Intelligence), with the working title Senior AI/ML Engineer.

The Bottom Line

  • AI engineer is the fastest-growing job title in the U.S., with AI consultants and AI/ML researchers close behind.
  • About 1 in 40 U.S. job postings asks for an AI skill, many of them outside tech.
  • Most people reach AI titles from software engineering or data science, the occupations the government projections cover.
  • Industry data changes quickly, and each source defines AI jobs its own way. Read these numbers for direction, not as precise counts.

Where These Numbers Come From

Figures on this page come from industry and research sources unless marked as government. Values were checked against the published sources on September 30, 2026.

Industry and research sources

Government sources