AI is creating winners, not just efficiencies

AI is building new momentum in the market as demand for specialised AI-skilled workers bounced back in 2025 and returned to levels last seen in 2022. This signals a renewed sense of confidence in AI-enabled growth in the UK.

The PwC AI Jobs Barometer reveals that organisations successfully embedding AI are reporting stronger productivity, hiring success and wage growth than their peers. AI is fast becoming a key differentiator for business performance and growth.

One of the clearest findings is the growing importance of human skills. Far from reducing the need for skills like creativity and judgement, AI-exposed companies are actively seeking out individuals with these capabilities. Analysis of 2.4 million US entry-level roles suggests this shift is particularly pronounced in early careers, with Junior AI-assisted roles now seven times more likely to require human-intensive skills like leadership and face-to-face interactions.

The result is a ‘two-track’ global labour market - depending on whether AI is automating more or less expert tasks – as AI adoption accelerates. Roles where AI removes routine tasks and enables workers to focus on higher-value activities, such as judgement and decision-making, are seeing stronger growth (39%), compared to 17% growth in roles where AI is primarily simplifying tasks. This creates a growing opportunity for organisations to use AI to enhance human expertise and drive further productivity gains.

AI leaders are pulling ahead

The evidence linking AI adoption to productivity growth continues to strengthen. Globally, companies most able to apply AI to operations achieved productivity growth of 34%, compared to 24% for companies less able to effectively integrate AI.

Meanwhile, the top 20% ‘super-star’ global firms capable of integrating AI at scale are reaping average labour productivity growth of 163%—nearly five times higher than the most AI-exposed companies. This suggests that those organisations that embed AI across operations, and successfully transform their workforce to take advantage of it, have an opportunity to pull ahead of competitors.

AI is accelerating the need for new skills

The demand for AI is accelerating skills change across the workforce. Rather than job losses, a key labour market signal is rapid skills evolution emerging as a growing trend as occupations with greater AI exposure require workers to adapt and acquire new capabilities.

The more readily AI can be applied to a role, the faster the skills required for that role need to adapt and grow. The analysis found a positive correlation (0.33) between AI exposure and changes in skills requirements. The occupations with the greatest AI exposure experienced roughly double the skills transformation of the least-exposed jobs. The research found that the former required on average 224 new skills compared to 101 in the least exposed group.

Overall, the share of UK jobs requiring AI skills reached 2.2% last year. But the demand for skills like leadership, judgement and adaptability, as well as soft skills like interpersonal interactions, underlines the point that it’s not just about AI capability: human-intensive skills are critical for AI-augmented workforces. This can be seen in the US too, with the number of job openings for entry-level roles with traditionally senior-level skills has grown by 35% since 2019, while other entry-level roles shrank by 10%.

AI is evolving roles and changing workforce demand

One of the most striking findings in the AI Jobs Barometer is that the most AI-exposed organisations have grown headcount rather than reduced it. Among the companies most exposed to AI globally, headcount growth reached 52% relative to a 2018 baseline, compared to 36% among companies less able to take advantage of AI.

In addition, the demand for AI skills is driving up the average wage premium for workers with matching skill sets. The wage premium rose to 34.2% in 2025, up from 11% in the previous year, reflecting strong demand for workers with AI capabilities.

Hiring growth varies by sector, with technology, media and telecommunications, financial services and professional services reporting some of the highest levels of AI-related job hires, at 10%, 8% and 4% growth respectively.

Adapting the UK workforce to the new AI imperative

AI is clearly materially reshaping the labour market. Hiring has rebounded and required skills are evolving at pace. Organisations that can adapt to changing conditions and deploy AI and skilled workers at scale will outperform their peers.

The persistent narrative that AI will replace human workers isn’t borne out by the data. As the demand for human-intensive skills increases, it’s clear that human skills are becoming more, not less, valuable in the AI era.

Organisations will need to invest in continuous upskilling and provide opportunities for workers to develop both AI capabilities and the human skills that AI can’t replicate. Those companies that manage this will be best positioned to realise the productivity and growth opportunities AI presents.