UK AI hiring jumped 61% while vacancies fell 6.6%, PwC says

Britain’s AI jobs boom is happening at the same time the overall job market is cooling, and PwC just put numbers on the split. In its latest AI Jobs Barometer, the consulting firm says AI specialist hiring in the UK jumped 61% over the past year, rising from 112,000 roles in 2024 to 180,000 in 2025. That gain lands even as overall vacancies across the economy fell by 6.6 percent.

So yes, hiring is up. But the more consequential part is what employers are hiring for. PwC’s analysis suggests companies are not treating this as a pure “build the models” sprint. Instead, they are looking for people who can use AI inside existing professions and business functions. PwC found that so-called AI user roles grew by almost 66,000 positions during the year, while AI developer roles increased by just 2,600.

This is the two-track labor market PwC says is emerging. On one track, AI helps skilled workers automate repetitive tasks, so they can focus on higher-value work. On the other, AI primarily makes tasks easier or lowers the barriers to entry, which changes the mix of who can do what. PwC’s report measures that split in growth rates: roles most enhanced by AI have grown by 39% since 2018, compared with 17% growth in jobs where AI is primarily simplifying work.

If you run a company, that distinction matters because it affects both your operating model and your staffing strategy. AI developer roles are narrower, more technical, and often expensive to recruit quickly. AI user roles are broader, meaning the “automation to productivity” wave is likely to show up as workflow redesign rather than just new engineering headcount. The practical result is that businesses are moving from experimentation to implementation. They still need people who can work with AI tools day-to-day, but they do not necessarily need to staff entire teams whose job is to invent new model capabilities.

PwC’s wage data adds another layer that boards and finance teams tend to care about: compensation is moving. Jobs requiring AI skills now command an average wage premium of 34.2%, up from 11% a year ago. PwC also reports that consumer market companies are offering premiums as high as 64%, while government and public sector employers top out at 12%. That spread is a clue to how quickly different sectors are willing to pay for AI-skilled labor, and it is likely to shape where talent concentrates as companies compete for people who can translate AI tools into real output.

This all lands against a backdrop where AI is already testing the social contract around work. The source notes growing anxiety about AI’s impact on employment. Recent polling found one in five Britons believes AI-driven layoffs could eventually trigger civil unrest. Separately, another survey found that office workers are already spending nearly six hours every week checking, correcting, or redoing work generated by AI tools.

Taken together, these details sketch the “awkward stage” many firms are now in: the technology is arriving faster than the process discipline required to make it reliably useful. If workers have to spend almost six hours a week fixing AI outputs, then value is not just in having access to tools. It is in training, governance, quality controls, and role redesign, which reinforces PwC’s point that AI user capabilities are becoming a core labor-market requirement.

The bigger strategic stake for peers is that hiring data like this is often a leading indicator of where investment and execution energy will go next. If AI user roles are expanding by roughly 66,000 positions compared to only 2,600 for developer roles, companies may be quietly concluding that the fastest path to ROI is not building more models, but integrating AI into existing workflows at scale. For executive teams, that means the competitive edge may shift away from who can code the most and toward who can operationalize AI with minimal chaos, minimal rework, and measurable productivity gains. And for boards, it means workforce planning for AI should assume a two-track world, not a single funnel where every hiring plan is centered on model builders.