AINEWS
UK firms added 25 AI users for every AI builder last year
Workers who deploy AI inside an existing job are the ones getting hired, not machine learning engineers, according to PwC's latest AI Jobs Barometer.
Workers who deploy AI inside an existing job are the ones getting hired, not machine learning engineers, according to PwC's latest AI Jobs Barometer.
UK employers added roughly 66,000 roles that use artificial intelligence last year and only about 2,600 that build it, according to PwC's latest AI Jobs Barometer. The roughly 25-to-1 split marks a two-track labor market, the consulting firm says, where most AI hiring rewards workers who can wield the tools inside an existing job, not those who build the models.
The headline number in PwC's report is a 61% year-over-year jump in UK AI specialist hiring, from 112,000 roles in 2024 to 180,000 in 2025. The more telling figure sits underneath: overall UK job vacancies fell 6.6% in the same window. AI-related hiring is rising while the rest of the labor market cools, a pattern PwC describes as a barometer reading for whether the technology is creating work or just reshaping it.
What "two-track" means in practice is straightforward. On one track, AI augments skilled workers and helps them automate repetitive tasks. On the other, AI lowers the barrier to entry and the role is simpler. PwC's own taxonomy separates "AI user" roles from "AI developer" roles, and the data shows the gap is widening: roughly 66,000 new AI-user positions were added in 2025, while the AI-developer side added only about 2,600.
The pay data is where the gap starts to matter for workers. The wage premium for roles that require AI skills has nearly tripled in a year, rising from 11% above the market average to 34.2%, according to the barometer. Consumer-facing industries are paying premiums as high as 64% for AI-literate staff. Government and public-sector employers top out at 12%, a reminder that the premium is not evenly distributed across the economy.
One caveat the report does not soften: PwC is not a neutral observer. It is one of the largest sellers of AI transformation consulting, with a commercial interest in telling employers that the AI rollout is going well. The Register flags this in its coverage, and the framing is worth weighing against the barometer's conclusions about job creation.
For workers weighing their next career move, the data points to a clear direction. The AI wage premium sits in deployment, not development: the 2,600 new AI-developer roles are a small slice of the 66,000 new AI-user positions UK employers actually hired for last year.