Summary

• PwC says UK job postings requiring specialist AI skills rose to 180,000 in 2025, up from 112,000 in 2024.
• The average wage premium for specialist AI-skilled workers rose to 34.2%, up from 11% a year earlier.
• The findings point to a labour market in which AI adoption rewards workers and employers able to redesign work around the technology.

PwC UK says demand for AI-skilled workers has rebounded sharply, with specialist AI job postings rising to 180,000 in 2025 and the average wage premium for those workers climbing to 34.2%.

The firm’s 2026 UK AI Jobs Barometer says the wage premium is up from 11% in the previous year, while demand for specialist AI roles has returned to levels last seen in 2022. The data suggests the UK labour market is moving beyond early generative AI experimentation and into a period where employers are paying more for workers who can deploy and apply AI in operational settings.

Hiring growth is strongest in technology, media and telecommunications, financial services, and professional services. Those sectors combine large knowledge-workforces, data-rich processes, client-service pressure, and strong incentives to automate analysis, reporting, coding, risk management, operations, and customer interaction.

The more revealing finding is the shape of the split. PwC argues that AI is creating a two-track global labour market, depending on whether technology automates more or less expert tasks. Roles where AI removes routine work and allows people to focus on judgement and decision-making are growing faster than roles where AI mainly simplifies lower-value activity.

That pattern creates a harder workplace adjustment than either AI optimism or job-loss panic suggests. AI can raise productivity and wages for people who combine technical fluency with judgement, communication, adaptability, and leadership. It can also weaken the traditional early-career ladder if entry-level workers lose access to the routine tasks through which they previously learned the business.

PwC’s global analysis points in that direction, with entry-level roles in AI-exposed fields requiring more advanced human skills earlier in careers. The apprenticeship model of knowledge work is being squeezed. If junior staff are expected to exercise judgement before they have had enough low-risk practice, organisations will need to rethink training rather than assume AI has solved the development problem.

The UK economy needs productivity growth, and AI offers one route to it. PwC’s data, however, suggests the gains are uneven. Companies that redesign work around AI appear better positioned than those that add a chatbot to existing processes and leave the underlying workflow unchanged. Data quality, process design, accountability, governance, and management capability still determine whether the technology improves performance.

The wage premium also raises a cost issue. If AI-capable workers command a premium of more than a third, competition for talent will widen the gap between organisations that can hire experienced staff and those that cannot. Smaller businesses and public-sector bodies may struggle if they compete directly with large technology, financial-services, and consulting employers for the same people.

Training will therefore matter as much as recruitment. Companies cannot buy their way out of the skills gap indefinitely. They will need to develop existing staff, create safe adoption rules, redesign roles, and train managers who understand AI well enough to judge when it improves work and when it merely produces faster noise.

The regional dimension should not be ignored. AI demand in the UK is likely to cluster around London and other established technology and professional-services centres unless investment broadens access to skills, infrastructure, and adoption support. Productivity gains that concentrate in already advantaged sectors and regions will be harder to convert into wider economic growth.

PwC’s Barometer does not support a simple view of AI as a job destroyer. It shows a labour market in which capability, training, and organisational design are becoming more valuable. The adjustment will be demanding. AI is changing what counts as employable skill, how junior work is structured, and how value is distributed inside companies.