Demystifying AI Job Trends
Overview
As AI grows in prominence, so does the demand for tech professionals who can create, implement and use it. One of the biggest challenges with the current AI job market is that many organizations are still figuring out exactly what they need in terms of skills and talent, with still more knowing they want AI skills, but not yet having a clear roadmap for what those professionals will be working on or what problems they will be solving for the business. It's important for you to stay on top of these trends, as they will have an impact on what you're seeing in job descriptions, recruiter discussions and ultimately, the opportunities that are going to provide you with the best chance to land your next role. We gathered the following insights on general job market trends, dug into who is hiring AI tech professionals, explored what skills are in demand and more.
In collecting this data, we chose to focus on comparisons between 2023 and 2024. Since 2022 was a wild year for tech hiring (32% more jobs were posted in January – February 2022 in the tech industry compared to 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. To give us a solid basis for comparison between 2023 and 2024, we homed in on January and February from each year. We did this for two reasons: so far we only have January and February data from 2024 to work with and job posting trends fluctuate significantly over the course of every year, typically concentrated the most in Q1. When it did make sense to consider overall trends over the course of 2023, we did so. We also included salary data from our 2024 Tech Salary Report to round out the picture of who is applying to these jobs and what they expect. 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?
In January of 2023, AI or machine learning related skill sets were referenced on 9% of job postings. By February of 2024, they climbed to nearly 14% of all tech job postings. This obscures the situation, however, when the reality of the overall tech market is that all tech job postings have taken a sharp decline when we compare January and February of 2023 to January and February of 2024. In fact, the number of tech jobs on the market took a dramatic hit and saw a decline of 26%. We also know that job postings that require AI and machine learning skill sets remained steady over the course of 2023. With all tech jobs declining, and AI and machine learning jobs remaining steady, the share of AI and ML jobs in the overall tech job market will naturally go up.
When ChatGPT was released to the public in late 2022, few outside the AI science community used generative AI in their regular vocabulary. It is no surprise that now, just two years later, generative AI has taken the business world by storm and those who can harness it possess a desirable skill set. While job postings that require AI and ML skill sets have grown a still significant 8.5%, those that call out generative AI skill sets have risen sharply from nothing in just a year. In other words, generative AI skill sets increase their place in the AI skills market daily.
Where are AI Jobs Concentrated?
Every industry has a different relationship with and need for AI. Naturally, companies categorized under Professional, Scientific and Technical Services* take the largest share of AI job postings, increasing the volume of postings by 3% from last year. It isn’t surprising that tech, likely dominating a big piece of that pie, is rapidly hiring AI talent. However, consulting firms, also part of that category, have taken AI hiring very seriously as well. Not only are Deloitte and Accenture both among the top 10 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.
Other industries possibly prioritizing AI growth are manufacturing, up by 17% this year, Information, up by 45% this year, and healthcare, up by 13%. Retail trade has doubled its adoption, likely due to major hiring efforts by Amazon.
Surprisingly, finance and insurance dropped its postings of AI jobs the most from last year, decreasing by 29%. There could be a variety of reasons for this, including the overall tightening that has occurred in many established industries over the past year plus as companies braced for a recession. Finance (fintech excepted) is also historically later to the party when it comes to technological advancements, and a lack of AI-related projects on the product or internal IT roadmap could be strategically keeping AI jobs and roles with AI skills at bay in the industry
We also noticed that Amazon, Google and Microsoft are among the top fifteen companies hiring for AI talent right now. This is especially noticeable in the wake of a flurry of layoffs orchestrated by each company in recent months, explained as a strategy to make room for more AI prioritization this year. The data we see here aligns with this narrative.