Labour market note · October 2026
AI jobs nearly doubled in the UK and Ireland while the job market shrank
In September 2026, 15.0% of job postings in Ireland mentioned AI. In November 2022, the month ChatGPT launched, the figure was 4.3%. The UK went from 2.3% to 9.8%. Over the same period, total UK postings fell by more than half.
Julian Diaz · Data: Indeed Hiring Lab, Jan 2019 to Sep 2026
Source 1 · Fig. 1 to 3 · How much AI demand
Indeed Hiring Lab tracks all job postings on Indeed in each country, in every sector, not only tech. From that it publishes the share of postings that mention AI, monthly since 2019, and an index of how many jobs are posted in total.
Source 2 · Fig. 4 to 8 · Who hires, for what
A LinkedIn sample I collected on 15 October 2026: 5,001 postings returned by a search for "artificial intelligence" in each country, posted in the previous month. It is a different dataset from Indeed's, not a breakdown of it, so the two halves of the page answer different questions.
Fig. 1Share of job postings that mention AI, by month
Spain is shaded grey because Indeed does not publish an AI share for it. Its total postings are 145 on an index where February 2020 = 100, the highest of the seven countries here. Figures are monthly averages of a seven-day trailing average.
AI demand dipped in 2023, then climbed from 2024 in every country
2020. The share jumped in the UK, Ireland and Italy during the first Covid lockdowns. That was not new AI hiring. Total postings collapsed (the UK index fell to 37, a third of its February level) while tech and data roles held up better. In Germany postings fell far less, to 86, and the share barely moved.
2021 to 2022. The share ran high through the tech hiring boom. Ireland peaked at 6.9%. ChatGPT launched at the end of this period, in November 2022.
2023. ChatGPT did not lift job postings straight away. The share fell in every country and hit its low between May and October, a year of tech layoffs and hiring freezes.
2024 onwards. A steady climb in all six countries, steepest in Ireland and the UK. The Netherlands and France moved least.
Fig. 2AI share of postings, Jan 2019 to Sep 2026. Same scale in every panel.
The dotted line marks November 2022, when ChatGPT launched. The open circle marks each country's low after that. Countries are sorted by their latest value.
Fewer jobs overall, more AI jobs
A higher share could simply mean the rest of the market shrank. So I multiplied each country's AI share by its total-postings index. That gives a rough index of the number of AI postings. In the UK, total postings fell by 56% since November 2022, yet AI postings nearly doubled (+89%). In Italy and the Netherlands the AI share rose only enough to offset a shrinking market.
Fig. 3November 2022 compared with September 2026
| Country | AI share
Nov 2022 | AI share
Sep 2026 | All postings
Feb 2020 = 100 | All postings
Feb 2020 to Sep 2026 | AI postings
est. change |
Who is hiring: consulting firms lead, but the list is long
This half of the page uses the LinkedIn sample (source 2), about 700 postings per country. After removing recruitment agencies and reposts of the same role, 4,184 distinct roles were left, from 2,036 employers.
Accenture is the only employer with AI roles open in all seven countries and has the most roles overall, 108. EY and Deloitte follow. Fig. 4 shows the 14 employers present in the most countries. Together they hold 537 roles, only 13% of the sample. 1,728 employers have just one or two AI roles open, so AI hiring is spread across many firms, not held by a few big names. Fig. 5 to 8 cover all 4,184 roles.
Fig. 4Employers with AI roles open in the most countries. Distinct roles, month to 15 Oct 2026.
Countries are ordered by AI share of postings, highest first. A dot means no AI role in the sample.
Which industries hire for AI
Each employer is grouped by the first industry tag on its LinkedIn page. Consulting and IT services firms post between 19% of AI roles in the UK and 43% in Italy. They are the largest group in Italy, France and Spain. Software and tech companies lead in the UK, Ireland and Germany. The UK stands out for finance: banks and insurers post 22% of its AI roles, led by JPMorganChase.
Fig. 5Share of AI roles by the employer's industry. All 4,184 distinct roles.
Each row adds up to 100%. "No industry tag" means the employer's LinkedIn page lists none.
The biggest employers differ by country
No single firm dominates any country. The largest employer in each sample holds between 3% and 6% of its AI roles. The names show the industry split: JPMorganChase tops the UK and SAP tops Germany. In Spain NTT DATA leads, and Accenture leads in Ireland, Italy and France.
This is the first monthly snapshot. From November the page will show which employers are adding AI roles, not only who has the most today.
Fig. 6Top six AI employers in each country. Same scale in every panel.
Each panel shows the country's distinct AI roles and the share posted by consulting and IT services firms.
Most AI jobs are engineering, but almost one in five is business-facing
I grouped every job title by what the role does. 58% are engineering and research roles, and 15% are data and analytics. 19% are business-facing. Most of these are consultants, solutions architects and forward-deployed engineers who implement AI for clients. The rest are a smaller group of sales, product and strategy roles.
Ireland has the most business-facing AI roles, at 29%, followed by the Netherlands at 26%. In the UK, 76% of AI roles are engineering.
Fig. 7Share of AI roles by type of job, from the job title
Each row adds up to 100%. Red marks the consulting and implementation roles.
Few AI postings are written for graduates
Only 2.9% of AI roles have a title that says junior, graduate, intern or trainee. Italy is the exception at 9.1%, mostly junior roles at consultancies such as Deloitte, BIP, PwC and KPMG. France is lowest, at 0.4%.
Titles undercount entry-level roles, because many do not say it. LinkedIn's own seniority tag, filled in only for the UK and Ireland, puts the entry-level share higher: 13% in the UK and 9% in Ireland. Either way, most AI postings ask for experience.
Fig. 8Share of AI roles open to graduates
Filled dot: the job title says junior, graduate, intern or trainee, in any of five languages. Open circle: LinkedIn tags the role Entry level, Associate or Internship, available for the UK and Ireland only.
What this means
- AI demand is real, but uneven. Estimated AI postings rose 89% in the UK and 84% in Ireland since November 2022, but only 4% to 17% in France, Italy and the Netherlands. For anyone choosing where to build an AI career, Dublin and London are where demand is growing fastest.
- In southern Europe, consultancies are the main buyers of AI talent. They post 43% of AI roles in Italy and 39% in France. A company there that wants AI help is likely to hire a consultancy. A candidate there is likely to work on client projects.
- AI work is not only engineering. Almost one AI role in five is business-facing, and the largest part of that is implementation: solutions architects, forward-deployed engineers and AI consultants. Ireland has the most of these roles.
- Entry-level AI roles are scarce, so the way in is narrow. Under 3% of titles target graduates. Graduate programmes at consultancies, most visible in Italy, are one of the few doors explicitly open.
Method and sources
- AI share: Indeed Hiring Lab, AI Tracker, daily data to 30 September 2026, averaged by month. Indeed publishes it for six European countries.
- Total postings: Indeed Hiring Lab, Job Postings Tracker, seasonally adjusted, February 2020 = 100.
- My tracked roles: 105 postings logged by my job scout between 30 September and 15 October 2026, 96 of them in Europe. They are filtered for fit with my profile, so they show where I am looking, not the market.
- Employers: public LinkedIn job search, collected with an Apify scraper on 15 October 2026. One search for "artificial intelligence" per country, posted in the past month, up to 700 results. Germany, France and Italy also got a search in their own language. Results are a sample: LinkedIn caps each search, so these are not complete counts.
- 116 postings from recruitment agencies and job boards were removed, since they hide the real employer. Country branches of one firm (Accenture Italia, Accenture España) count as one employer. Separate brands such as Sogeti stay separate. Only employer names and counts are shown, not the listings.
- Industries (Fig. 5, 6): the first industry tag on the employer's LinkedIn page, grouped by keywords in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Dutch. Role types (Fig. 7) and graduate roles (Fig. 8): keywords in the job title. The rules are in
build/companies.py, and every group adds up to each country's total.
- Both Indeed datasets are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Map outlines: Natural Earth via world-atlas.
Code and method: github.com/Jdidiaz03/europe-ai-job-map. Made by Julian Diaz with Claude Code.