AI Job Market Report —
Auto-generated from live job posting data
Key Highlights
- AI job postings across tracked categories are down 24% month-over-month, with 659 listings in the latest month.
- AI Engineer is the fastest growing category, up 20% from April 2026.
- NLP saw the largest decline, down 80% month-over-month.
- AI Engineer median salary rose 12% this month.
- "AI engineer" is trending upward in job listings, with 13% more mentions than last month.
In May 2026, the AI job market contracted by 24% compared to April 2026. Across the 8 major categories we track — including AI Engineering, Machine Learning, Data Science, and Generative AI — there were 659 job listings in the latest month, compared to 868 the month before. This data is drawn from real job postings aggregated across hundreds of companies hiring for AI and machine learning roles.
The most in-demand AI roles by volume this month are Data Scientist (204 listings), ML Engineer (190 listings), Data Engineer (97 listings). AI Engineer leads in growth with a 20% increase in postings. On the other hand, NLP saw a 80% decrease.
Looking at salary trends, AI Engineer remains the highest-paid tracked role with a median annual salary of $238,500. Notable salary movements this month include AI Engineer (up 12%) and Data Scientist (up 10%). These figures are based on median salaries from job postings with published compensation data, converted to annual USD equivalents.
Among the keywords we track, the top movers this month are "AI engineer" (145 listings, +13%), "data science" (508 listings, -11%), "LLM" (556 listings, -19%). These trends reflect shifting employer demand and can signal which skills are gaining traction in the AI job market. Use the interactive keyword search above to explore trends for any skill or technology.
This report is automatically generated from live job posting data and updated every few hours. For the most current view, explore the interactive charts below or browse the latest AI job listings directly.