Skills › genai
AI agents jobs: demand and pay (October 2026)
4,019 open data & AI postings at 1,583 companies mention AI agents, or 30.6% of all data & AI postings we track (as of October 18, 2026).
30.6%share of data & AI postings
1,583companies hiring
$208Kmedian pay, US (n=1366)
—week over week (needs more history)
AI agents pay by level
| Level (from title) | Median pay | Postings with pay (n) |
|---|---|---|
| Intern | — | 2 |
| Entry / junior | $124K | 12 |
| Mid (II) | $180K | 17 |
| Senior | $198K | 372 |
| Staff / lead | $235K | 261 |
| Principal | $237K | 68 |
| Manager | $239K | 62 |
| Director+ | $244K | 73 |
| Level not stated | $200K | 499 |
Median of the published range midpoint, US postings in USD, annualized. Shown only when n ≥ 10; “—” means fewer.
Roles that ask for AI agents
| Role | Postings | % of that role |
|---|---|---|
| AI Engineer | 1,983 | 52.5% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 516 | 26.1% |
| Data Engineer | 323 | 18.2% |
| Data Scientist | 310 | 20.2% |
| Data & AI leadership | 294 | 27.7% |
| Data Architect | 180 | 45.3% |
| AI Research Scientist | 168 | 38.5% |
| Data Analyst | 100 | 8.9% |
| Analytics Engineer | 86 | 23.2% |
| Data Governance & Quality | 22 | 10.0% |
| BI Developer / Analyst | 20 | 13.3% |
| Database Engineer / DBA | 17 | 5.6% |
The weekly Data Skills Index
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How it's measured: a posting counts if its title or description matches the AI agents patterns in our taxonomy. Postings by the vendor itself are excluded. See the methodology.