What are the most in-demand AI roles for 2026?
Following from our recent “2026 London Salary Benchmarking Report”, specifically for VC- and PE-backed scaleups and challenger brands - Highlights from Page 9 of the Report below.
OpenAI and Anthropic are setting the talent strategy playbook, with both companies stretching the top end of the pay scale, while everyone else is trying to replicate.
Salary ranges for AI roles
AI & ML Engineers £120k – £250k
Data Engineers £120k – £200k
Cloud Engineers £100k – £180k
Forward Deployed Engineers £120k – £200k
AI Product Managers £120k – £180k
Enterprise AE, Senior Sales with AI sales experience £100k – £150k Double OTE.
We predict Enterprise Sales Executives will be one of the most in-demand roles as new AI products fight it out for market share.
Other role: Head of AI, AI Ethics/Governance, AI Cyber.
Where the real value is
The gap between what LLMs can do and what companies are actually using is enormous - creating massive demand for implementation talent.
The real value is in people who can turn AI capability into provable ROI. That requires judgement, communication, and cross-functional thinking. AI increases speed of build, not clarity of thought.
Forward Deployment Engineers are emerging as the new customer-facing power role.
The fight for AI/ML/Data talent is intensifying, with the best-backed scale-ups taking the best people early and cherry picking the top 1% (by offering sky high salaries, of course).
Get the 2026 salary report
If you’d like access and you’re hiring, or salary benchmarking, comment “2026 Salaries” and I’ll send it over.
DM Ellis Seder for a confidential chat.