PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer puts a number on something founders and product leads have been feeling anecdotally: hiring for AI skills in the UK got significantly harder and more expensive over the past year. The wage premium commanded by AI-skilled workers rose to 34.2% in 2025, up from 11% in 2024 — roughly tripling in twelve months. UK job postings requiring specialist AI skills reached almost 180,000 in 2025, up from around 112,000 the year before.
Where the UK sits globally
That 34.2% premium is actually below the 27-country global average of 62%, which tells you two things at once: AI talent is expensive everywhere, and the UK isn’t even the most competitive market for it. Sector variation is wide too — the premium peaks at 64% in consumer markets, with technology, media and telecoms reporting the highest share of AI-related hires (10%), ahead of financial services (8%).
Why this changes the buy-vs-build calculation
A year ago, a founder or CTO weighing whether to hire an in-house AI engineer versus commissioning a build had a reasonably even choice. That calculation has shifted. A 34.2% wage premium on top of already-competitive senior engineering salaries, layered onto a market where nearly 180,000 roles are chasing a limited specialist pool, means in-house hiring now carries real timeline risk — open AI roles sit unfilled for months, and the ones that do get filled cost meaningfully more than they did in 2024.
So what
If your roadmap includes an AI feature or product and you’re stuck deciding whether to hire, the maths increasingly favours commissioning a team that already has the specialists rather than competing in a hiring market where wages are up 3x and the candidate pool hasn’t kept pace. It’s usually faster to ship and avoids carrying a hard-to-fill role on permanent headcount. Our custom software development page covers how we scope AI-inclusive builds without the hiring overhead, or get in touch to talk through what you’re trying to build.