LinkUp X Revelio Labs: Do AI skills pay off?

Key takeaways:

• Despite a slowdown in 2023, the demand for AI talent remains substantially higher than pre-pandemic levels.

• On average, tech jobs that require AI-related skills offer a 5.8% higher salary compared to similar positions within the same company that do not require AI-related skills.

• Small and medium-sized AI companies have significantly ramped up their demand for AI talent since 2021 relative to large tech companies. Yet, large tech companies still offer higher salaries for AI tech roles.

Amid the uncertainties in the tech sector, AI continues to be the focus of big tech, start-ups, and venture capital funds. Despite the overall slowdown in investment over the past year, AI continues to attract sizable investments. This week, we are collaborating with LinkUp to analyze the demand for AI talent based on the new LinkUp and Revelio Labs joint Job Listings with predicted salaries. We examine the specific skills sought by tech companies and how much these companies are willing to pay to secure the talent that will drive this transformative technology.

Job postings data from LinkUp show that the demand for AI tech workers surged through 2021, reaching its peak in mid-2022. By July 2022, the number of new job postings for AI tech workers had tripled compared to 2019. However, due to substantial layoffs in big tech and firms curbing their hiring, the growth rate of AI job postings decelerated substantially in 2023. Today, the number of AI job postings has increased by approximately 60% relative to 2019, similar to the growth observed for other tech jobs.

Using Revelio Labs’ salary model, which is trained on millions of public salary records including H-1B filings, job postings, and self-filed data, we predict salaries for all job postings based on their job descriptions. We find that AI tech jobs have a significant salary advantage. On average, they offer a 5.8% higher salary compared to similar positions within the same company that do not require AI-related skills.

What does it take to secure an AI-related position in today’s market? By analyzing the text of millions of job postings, we find that AI jobs require proficiency in machine learning, deep learning, Java, and natural language processing. Honing these skills is a crucial way for tech workers and new engineers to remain competitive in the job market.

Next, we compare AI job postings in big tech and small and medium-sized tech companies. Small and medium-sized AI companies have been making significant investments in their technical workforce. For example, since 2021, all job postings for engineering and technical roles at People.ai require AI skills. Among big tech, Alphabet emerges as the top investor in AI talent. Since 2021, 22% of Alphabet’s job postings for technical roles require AI skills.

Large tech companies offer higher salaries in their AI postings compared to small and medium-sized tech companies. Although the pay gap between the two has narrowed between 2021 and 2022, it has once again risen in 2023. The mass layoffs in large tech companies in the previous year suggest that these companies now engage in more selective hiring practices, and they are willing to pay more in order to attract and secure the most exceptional talent in the market.