Demystifying AI Job Trends
Overview
As AI continues to grow in prominence, so does the demand for tech professionals who can create, implement and use it in all of its many forms. Talent leaders and tech recruiters will need to understand AI hiring trends in order to have a clearer sense of the market and the tech professionals they seek to find. In this section we cover AI hiring market trends and include insights on things such as the share of the overall tech job market, who is hiring AI tech professionals, the skills that are in demand and more.
In collecting this data, we chose to focus on comparisons between 2023 and 2024. To give us a solid basis for comparison between 2023 and 2024, we homed in on January through May from each year. Since 2022 was a wild year for tech hiring (January through May 2022 had nearly double the number of tech job postings compared to January through May 2024), we opted to keep it out of this data set, focusing instead on what has occurred since generative AI became a prominent part of mainstream business strategy in late 2022. Our goal in presenting you with this data is to make sure you're equipped with the facts you need to adapt to a post-AI job market. Will it continue to shift? Absolutely. So the hope here is to give you a sense of grounding right now; a jumping off point as you dig deeper into how to integrate AI into your career and job search.
What Share of the Market Do AI Jobs Take Up?
After continuous growth of AI job postings all year, May was an especially notable month. AI job postings in May increased 25% from April’s count, and when compared to May of last year, we see that AI job postings have increased 48%.
The share of all tech jobs that require AI skills is growing as well. In May of 2023, AI or machine learning related skill sets were referenced on 11% of tech job postings. By May of 2024, they climbed to 18% of all tech job postings. While there are still fewer tech jobs in the market than there were last year at this time (tech job postings declined 12% year over year), the count of tech job postings in May showed a significant 15% month-over-month increase over April.
Where are AI Jobs Concentrated?
Every industry has a different relationship with and need for AI. Consulting is currently occupying the top of the list of industries filling AI roles, followed by retail, education, and tech. This is unsurprising, as consulting firms have been quite open about their intentions for AI hiring in 2024. Not only are Deloitte and Accenture both among the top ten companies hiring for tech professionals, but we know that another consulting firm, IBM, doubled their book of business associated with AI projects between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024.
Amazon is currently the number one employer hiring for AI jobs, increasing their postings by a staggering 983% in the first five months of 2024 compared to the same time frame last year. It is trailed closely by Capital One, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase and Meta.
From a sheer job volume standpoint, AI job seekers will have the most success searching for roles in states like California, Virginia, and New York. The state of Washington has seen the most growth overall, at a 120% increase from last year (likely due in part to the AI hiring spree undertaken by Seattle-based Amazon).
Who are Companies Hiring Right Now?
Though we are seeing significant growth in AI-related jobs overall, not all roles have seen increased hiring so far this year. Data scientist roles top the list of job postings in terms of volume, but postings are down 9% year-over-year.
Of the tech job postings with sufficient job posting data, the fastest-growing jobs requiring AI/ML skills are applied scientists, AI architects, software developers, machine learning engineers, and product lifecycle managers, all showing more than 245% growth compared to last year.
The skills that have grown the most this year are prompt engineering, fact checking, and generative AI, each increasing by more than 1,000% year-over-year. However, skills like machine learning and data science, those more commonly tied to AI, continue to dominate the landscape in terms of skills required for AI-related roles. It will be interesting to see how more traditional skills like Python and computer science grow in importance in a more AI-driven world. These skills will continue to be essential skills for all tech professionals, and are likely to be considered as table stakes in many roles, in addition to asking candidates to have added new AI-related skills to their portfolios.
Soft skills such as communication, leadership, management, research and innovation show considerable prominence in AI jobs as well, underscoring the importance of skill building in these areas for tech professionals who want to set themselves apart as top candidates.