PwC report shows AI skills linked to 62% higher pay in global job market

PwC released a report on 29 August 2026 showing that jobs requiring artificial-intelligence skills pay on average 62% more than comparable roles without such skills. The analysis, titled Global AI Jobs Barometer 2026, examined more than one billion online job postings across six continents collected up to June 2026. The study found that AI-related roles are expanding faster than non-AI roles and that companies actively using AI report both higher hiring rates and steeper wage growth than firms that do not.

The report introduces a new way to classify work: Professionalised jobs, where AI handles routine tasks and humans focus on higher-value judgment and expertise, and Democratised jobs, where AI lowers the barrier to entry by assisting with complex analysis. Professionalised roles grew 39% since 2018 while Democratised roles grew 17%. Wages in Professionalised roles rose 42% faster than in Democratised roles, indicating that employers value deep human expertise more when AI automates the rest.

Industry data show the pay premium varies widely. Consumer goods and retail post a 118% wage premium for AI skills, technology-media-telecom 84%, and manufacturing 73%. Overall, AI-related job postings increased about eight times faster than the total job market in 2025 and are now rising across finance, healthcare, manufacturing and public sectors.

PwC also highlights that companies making the most of AI see stronger growth in both headcount and compensation. Firms with advanced AI adoption increased staff by 52.2% versus 35.7% for others and raised wages by 24.4% versus 16.6%. The report cautions that simply using AI tools does not guarantee higher pay; organisations that deploy AI to create new products or services show the biggest gains in hiring and wages.

For entry-level workers, AI is reshaping entry requirements. Roles influenced by AI now demand leadership, team-building, stakeholder management and data-driven decision-making at the graduate level—skills once expected only of mid-career professionals. Such “senior skills” appear seven times more often in AI-affected entry-level postings than in unaffected ones, and postings asking for these skills have grown 35% since 2019 while other entry-level roles have declined.

The report stresses continuous learning as critical in an AI-driven economy. The pace of skill change in AI-influenced jobs is 2.2 times faster than in less-affected roles, and that gap widened by 75% over the past year. PwC concludes that workers who combine AI fluency with uniquely human abilities—empathy, presence, judgment, creativity and leadership—will be the ones who expand their market value rather than merely protect it.

Reported by AMP.