The short version
Across 4,377 UK job adverts, just 1.8% mention artificial intelligence at all, and only 0.39% ask for it as an actual job skill. Of the adverts that do mention AI, most are not advertising AI work. They are telling applicants not to use AI when they apply.
The headline numbers
4,377
UK adverts read by hand
1.8%
mention AI at all
0.39%
ask for AI as a job skill
78%
of AI mentions are about your application, not the job
Three things the data shows
1. The role that mentions AI most never asks for it as a skill
Doctor adverts mention AI more than any other role we read, at 9.0%. Not one of those mentions is about using AI in the job. Every single one is an NHS Trust notice about whether and how you may use AI in your application. The occupation that talks about AI most does so entirely to police applications.
2. Real AI demand is tiny, and concentrated
AI shows up as an actual job skill in 0.39% of adverts. The only roles where it appears with any regularity are customer service (2.9%), HR (1.4%) and recruitment (1.0%). For most of the UK labour market we sampled, AI is simply not named as something the job requires.
3. Reading by hand changes the count
A keyword search would have over-counted. We excluded six false positives that contain the letters AI but mean something else: NHS reference numbers ending in “-AI”, and three dairy-farm recruiter adverts where “AI” means artificial insemination. It also let us separate AI as a job skill from AI as application policy, which a word count cannot do.
AI mentions by occupation
| Occupation | Adverts | Mention AI | As a job skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doctor | 188 | 9.0% | 0.0% |
| Social worker | 64 | 6.2% | 0.0% |
| Office admin | 102 | 5.9% | 0.0% |
| Teacher | 113 | 5.3% | 0.0% |
| HR business partner | 142 | 4.9% | 1.4% |
| Customer service | 415 | 3.1% | 2.9% |
| Care worker | 105 | 2.9% | 0.0% |
| Support worker | 418 | 1.7% | 0.0% |
| Recruiter | 200 | 1.5% | 1.0% |
| Teaching assistant | 500 | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| Receptionist | 278 | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| HGV driver | 240 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Other roles read: electrician 1.6%, paramedic 1.4%, plumber 0.8%, retail assistant 0.7%, entry-level “no experience” 0.3%, warehouse operative 0.2%. All 0.0% as a job skill except entry-level (0.3%).
How we counted
The dataset is built from live UK adverts on two public sources: NHS Jobs, and the UK government Find a Job service. Every advert is read by a person, not keyword-scraped. Reading for meaning is slower, so the sample is smaller, but it removes a class of false positives that a word count cannot.
An advert counts as mentioning AI only where the text refers to artificial intelligence as part of the work, the tools of the role, or the application process. We separate three cases a keyword search would merge:
- • AI as a job skill (counted as demand): the advert names an AI tool the worker uses, or lists AI fluency as a skill.
- • AI as application policy (counted separately): the advert mentions AI to discourage, monitor or restrict its use when applying. 78% of all AI mentions fall here.
- • False positives (excluded): the letters AI appear but mean something else, like a reference number or artificial insemination.
Limitations. The sample is built role by role for clean within-occupation comparison, so the overall percentages are not weighted to be nationally representative. The per-occupation rates are the more robust figures. Both sources skew toward public-sector and entry-to-mid roles. The data is a snapshot collected up to June 2026, and measures only what employers write in adverts, not what workers actually do in the role or what they are paid.
Citing this
Sausage Dog, “AI in UK job adverts,” 2026. Hand-read dataset of 4,377 UK job adverts from NHS Jobs and the UK government Find a Job service. sausagedog.io/ai-in-job-adverts. For the underlying figures or to verify a specific number, contact hello@sausagedog.io.
Last updated 2026-06-13.
We built Sausage Dog on this kind of reading: what UK employers actually ask for, in their own words.
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