Got AI skills? You can earn 43% more in your next job - and not just for tech work

X Innovation Home Innovation Artificial Intelligence Got AI skills? You can earn 43 more in your next job - and not just for tech work A recent study of more than a year's worth of job postings suggests that even a single AI skill makes a huge difference in the salary offered across a range of sectors. Written by Webb Wright, Contributing WriterContributing Writer Sept. 4, 2025 at 11:37 a.m. PT Andrii ZastrozhnoviStock Plus via Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET's key takeawaysDemand for AI skills is on the rise across industries.A single AI skill makes a huge difference in listed salaries.Different industries are looking for different AI skills.As businesses race to adopt AI, they're placing a higher premium on job candidates who know their way around the technology.A recent study from labor market research firm Lightcast found that jobs requiring AI-related skills offer higher annual salaries than those that don't. This is true not only in tech-heavy industries like IT and computer science but also across a range of other sectors.Also: Jobs for young developers are dwindling, thanks to AIA closer look at the findingsThe researchers analyzed billions of job postings from the past 13 years, and identified 300 AI skills, including AI ethics, governance and regulation, natural language processing, and robotics.According to the report, job postings that listed just one AI-related skill offered an average salary that was 28 higher than those that didn't, a difference of around 18,000 per year. That figure jumped to 43 for postings that listed two or more AI skills compared to those that listed none."Using real-world job postings, we establish how demand for AI is growing throughout the labor market broadly, not limited to a few specific use cases, and we also show jobs that include AI skills demand a salary premium over comparable roles that do not," the authors note in the report.Also: Is AI a job killer or creator? There's a third option: Startup rocket fuelOther recent data, however, has shown that recent college graduates with computer science degrees have been struggling to find work in the tech sector, as AI tools start to automate many of the routine tasks that historically have been delegated to younger workers with less experience. Meanwhile, tech giants have been locked in a ruthless battle for acquiring AI talent, driven by a widely held belief that the future of their industry will be dominated by the first company to successfully build artificial general intelligence (or "superintelligence," in Meta's case). Tech and beyondThe new Lightcast data indicates that the contest for AI talent is now spilling beyond tech into a raft of other industries. *Reporting by Zdnet.*