PwC barometer finds AI splitting jobs into two tracks

TL;DR:

• PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, drawn from more than a billion job ads, finds AI creating a “two-track” market where roles demanding human judgement grow faster than those it simplifies.
• The wage premium for AI skills has climbed to 62%, up from 57% a year earlier, while headcount at the most AI-exposed firms is outpacing the least exposed.
• The findings cut against the gloomier UK jobs narratives of recent weeks, suggesting capability — not headcount — is where the divide is opening.

PwC’s flagship annual study lands as one of the more optimistic readings of AI’s effect on work, and a useful counterweight to a fraught UK debate. Analysing over a billion advertisements across 27 countries, the 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer argues that AI is not hollowing out employment so much as reshaping what employers value — and rewarding the firms that use it to amplify expertise rather than simply cut costs.

Capability, not headcount

The report describes a market splitting in two. “Professionalised” roles, where AI strips out routine work and elevates human judgement, are seeing twice the job growth and 42% faster salary growth than “democratised” roles the technology makes easier for non-experts. The premium for AI skills has reached 62%, and demand for entry-level workers with traditionally senior traits — leadership, creativity, face-to-face skills — has risen sharply. Strikingly, headcount at the most AI-exposed companies grew faster than at the least exposed.

That optimism sits awkwardly beside recent UK signals. The CMI’s warning that managers lack the skills to deliver AI gains, the split among banking bosses over an AI jobs reckoning and the government’s bootcamps to shield young workers all assume disruption. PwC’s data suggests the threat is less about job numbers than about who can command the new premium — and whether training keeps pace.

Looking forward

For UK firms, the barometer reframes the policy question. If returns flow to organisations that pair AI with deep human expertise, the binding constraint is skills and management capability, not automation headcount. Britain’s challenge, on this reading, is ensuring the wage premium widens opportunity rather than entrenching a two-track workforce.