A new report from labour market intelligence firm Lightcast has revealed that jobs requiring artificial intelligence (AI) skills now offer salaries nearly $18,000 higher than similar roles without AI knowledge—a 28% pay boost on average.
The report titled ‘Beyond the Buzz: Developing the AI Skills Employers Actually Need’ is based on over 1.3 billion job postings and shows that AI is reshaping hiring across industries.
More than half of job listings that ask for AI skills now come from outside of IT or computer science roles, marking a shift in how organisations across marketing, finance, HR and even education are adopting AI. Since 2022, generative AI roles in non-tech sectors have grown by 800%.
“Companies that continue treating AI as a niche technical skill will find themselves competing for talent with organisations that have embedded AI literacy across their entire workforce,” Cole Napper, VP of research, innovation and talent insights at Lightcast, said.
He added that educators who wait and see what impact AI will have will find that they’ve lost students and funding to other providers who include AI skills across programs, not in place of other skills, but alongside them.
The report highlights that specific AI-related skills, unlike general familiarity, are driving job growth and value. It introduces a framework that categorises skills based on their growth, importance in the workforce and vulnerability to being replaced by AI. This aims to help educators and employers target training programs more effectively.
Lightcast’s report highlights how demand for AI skills is spreading across five key sectors. In marketing and PR, 8% of job postings now require AI skills, with rapid growth particularly among SEO roles. Human resources is leading the shift, showing a 66% increase in AI-related job listings, driven largely by talent acquisition.
In the finance sector, AI demand has jumped 40%, especially in roles like quantitative analysts. The science and research sector already shows strong integration of specialised AI capabilities, while education and training, although currently lagging, is seeing a 200% surge in generative AI skills that indicates a fast-approaching transformation in how educators prepare future professionals.
While several reports speculate on AI’s future impact, Lightcast says its research focuses on real-time data on what’s happening today in job markets around the world.
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