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Adaptation · Labour & consumers

Wage premium for AI skills (PwC AI Jobs Barometer)

emerging50/95 confidence, mixed or hard to operationalisegrade Ccoincident

1What this measures

Average wage premium for jobs requiring specific AI skills over comparable jobs without them, from PwC's Global AI Jobs Barometer (one billion job ads, 27 countries), with a press restatement alongside.

Why it matters. The price of scarce complementary skill. A large, stable premium says AI diffuses through people who can use it; a premium that doubles or collapses says the labour market is repricing at speed.

Proxy types
welfare, market_structure
Unit
share
Cadence
annual
Valve
adoption to adaptation

2How we track this

Normal band
≥ 25.0% and ≤ 75.0%
Fast band
≥ 100.0%
Falsifying
—

Normal = a premium between 25% and 75%, large but of the size prior scarce IT skills carried; fast = a premium of 100% or more, wages doubling for a skill. Between is `emerging`.

Applied to pwc.ai_skilled_workers.wage_premium.fy.

3Tracker interpretation

62%, up from 56% the year before; the market pays for the complement, not the substitute.

4Evidence

Latest point
62.0%as of 2025-12-31
ai_skilled_workers
Value the bands apply to
62.0%as of 2025-12-31

2 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.

5Status and reasoning

emergingsince 2026-09-10 · evaluate

First scoring. The AI-skills wage premium reached 62% in 2025 data (PwC 2026 Barometer, 15 Jun 2026; Outsource Accelerator relay), inside the normal band; the measure is a consultancy's own job-ad method (tier 7), so emerging.

6Timeline notes

  • 2025-12-31 ai_skilled_workers · 62.0%as of 2025-12-31

7Counterevidence

What cuts against this reading

A consultancy's method over job ads (tier 7), not paid wages; ad wording drifts as "AI skills" becomes table stakes; premium partly reflects seniority.

8Update history

  1. 2026-09-10unmeasured to emergingconf — → 50 · evaluate

    First scoring. The AI-skills wage premium reached 62% in 2025 data (PwC 2026 Barometer, 15 Jun 2026; Outsource Accelerator relay), inside the normal band; the measure is a consultancy's own job-ad method (tier 7), so emerging.

    obs:3289e34c

9Confidence

50 / 95 — mixed or hard to operationalise

Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; below 50 limited or vague.

10Related