AI and data job postings rose 80% in the last year, led by AI engineering roles, while workers aged 22-25 experienced a 16% decline in employment.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DataCamp, the leading platform for AI and data skill building, released its new report today: The State of AI Careers 2026. Drawing on exclusive data from Lightcast, the global standard for labor intelligence covering 165 countries in the world, the report analyzes two million unique job postings across 85 regions worldwide between January 2024 and April 2026. It finds that the AI and data job market expanded strongly in the past year, following a slight decline in 2024 and a period of stagnation in 2025.
AI & Data Roles Lead the Rebound in Job Creation
Among the 25 roles tracked, AI-focused and technical roles consistently grew faster than other categories. AI engineering roles had the highest growth rate, increasing 255% year-over-year. Generative AI engineering roles saw a 197% increase. Globally, both roles had median base salaries above $100,000. Data science managers had the highest median base salary in the analysis, approaching $190,000.
While technical roles showed growth across the board, the rate of this rebound is uneven across the categories analyzed. Infrastructure-oriented roles, including data engineer, Python developer, data architect, and machine-learning engineer, also show strong growth, while traditional data analyst, data scientist, and business intelligence roles saw less than 50% growth year-over-year.
Tech & Communication Skills are in Demand
As AI automates more of the mechanical work of analysis and reporting, employers are increasingly looking for people who can not only use AI and data tools, but also explain insights, apply judgment, and connect technical work to business decisions. In DataCamp’s analysis, communication emerged as a universal job requirement across all 25 AI and data career paths studied, alongside Python, SQL, and computer science.
AI skills followed closely, appearing as a core competency in 22 of the 25 roles analyzed. The finding suggests that the labor market rewards candidates who combine communication and technical fundamentals with AI-specific capabilities, such as prompt engineering, agent management, and domain-specific applications.
"Our new report goes under the hood of how AI is changing the jobs market to examine the myriad of different changes within this story," said Jonathan Cornelissen, co-founder and CEO at DataCamp. “AI is changing what it means to be technical and what roles are in demand, and it’s hitting younger workers hard. There’s no one narrative here, but understanding and preparing for this shift is how we put ourselves in the best place to succeed.”
AI-related Job Creation is Surging in a Dynamic Labor Market
While the report finds that new roles are being created, displacement is part of the same picture, aligning with the World Economic Forum’s projection that 170 million new roles will emerge globally by 2030 while 92 million roles will be displaced, for a net gain of 78 million jobs.
The market for AI- and data-related roles mirrors this complexity, with employment among workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed fields such as customer support or accounting falling 6% between late 2022 and September 2025. Those same fields saw increased demand for more experienced workers, with older workers in the same fields seeing an employment increase by 6% to 9%. This shift underpins a 16% relative employment decline amongst entry-level workers.
The report also found no systematic unemployment spike among the most AI-exposed workers, indicating that AI exposure does not translate directly into job replacement. Instead, the data points to a labor market being reorganized around changing tasks, skills, and levels of experience.
Download the full report here.
About DataCamp
DataCamp is the learning platform offering the world’s #1 AI tutor. Built with AI at its core, it makes learning AI, data, and engineering topics uniquely personal, the way a great tutor would. Whether upskilling a small business or transforming a workforce, DataCamp's curriculum delivers comprehensive coverage of every AI and data skill, equipping organizations to lead in an AI-powered future, supporting over 6,000 organizations and 19 million learners worldwide. To learn more, visit datacamp.com.
Contacts
Press contact
James Robinson
james@weatherfield.co
