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Talent intelligence · Updated

Hiring guide

AI engineers are in high demand in London. Everything you need to hire one: how scarce they are, what to offer, where to look, who you’re up against and what wins them.

An AI engineer is a software engineer who builds AI into a product and ships it, from features on large language models to the models and platforms behind them. The job is hands-on engineering, judged by what runs in production.

What the job involves

Share of open AI engineer roles in London that ask for it

  • Ships AI to production
  • Builds infrastructure for models
  • Builds on language models
  • Measures model quality
  • Trains or fine-tunes models

3 kinds of AI engineer

The title covers 3 different jobs. Know which one you’re hiring before you search. Only 5% of roles are research engineering on frontier models.

  1. 46%

    of open roles

    The product builder

    Builds product features on large language models, from agents to search, and checks the answers hold up.

    Also titled: AI engineer, software engineer, founding engineer

  2. 25%

    of open roles

    The platform builder

    Builds the systems that train, serve and monitor models so they run fast and reliably at scale.

    Also titled: Software engineer, machine learning engineer, MLOps engineer

  3. 23%

    of open roles

    The model builder

    Trains and fine-tunes their own models, such as recommendations, vision or fraud, and ships them into the product.

    Also titled: Data scientist, machine learning engineer, applied scientist

  • 7,900

    AI engineers working in London

  • 950

    open roles for AI engineers

  • 66 days

    median time a role stays open

  • £100k

    median expected base

We count people and roles that match the role of an AI engineer. We don’t just count titles. How we count

01

How hard is this hire?

Nearly 1 in 9 AI engineer positions in London is an open role, a third above the London Tech benchmark, and roles take 2 weeks longer to fill.

  • People in the role

    7,900

    AI engineers working in London, September 2026

    2,0004,0006,0008,00010,000Jan ’23Sep ’23May ’24Jan ’25Sep ’25Sep ’267,911
    Sep ’267,911
    AI engineers working in London, by month
    MonthAI engineers
    January 20233,949
    February 20233,984
    March 20234,014
    April 20234,064
    May 20234,075
    June 20234,224
    July 20234,303
    August 20234,317
    September 20234,517
    October 20234,515
    November 20234,546
    December 20234,624
    January 20244,833
    February 20244,924
    March 20245,016
    April 20245,118
    May 20245,230
    June 20245,370
    July 20245,496
    August 20245,541
    September 20245,729
    October 20245,812
    November 20245,868
    December 20245,897
    January 20256,169
    February 20256,217
    March 20256,321
    April 20256,428
    May 20256,552
    June 20256,743
    July 20256,825
    August 20256,910
    September 20257,152
    October 20257,236
    November 20257,349
    December 20257,395
    January 20267,489
    February 20267,596
    March 20267,700
    April 20267,711
    May 20267,765
    June 20267,859
    July 20267,900
    August 20267,894
    September 20267,911

  • Open roles

    950

    AI engineer roles open in London, September 2026

    5001,0001,500Aug ’25Nov ’25Feb ’26May ’26Sep ’26954
    Sep ’26954
    Open AI engineer roles in London, by month
    MonthAI engineer roles
    August 2025611
    September 2025606
    October 2025609
    November 2025674
    December 2025677
    January 2026718
    February 2026752
    March 2026819
    April 2026822
    May 2026913
    June 2026942
    July 2026920
    August 2026967
    September 2026954

  • Vacancy rate

    10.8%

    of AI engineer positions in London are open roles, September 2026

    5.0%10.0%15.0%Aug ’25Nov ’25Feb ’26May ’26Sep ’26Benchmark – London Tech: 8.2%10.8%
    Sep ’2610.8%
    Vacancy rate for AI engineers in London, by month, against Benchmark – London Tech (8.2% in September 2026)
    MonthAI engineer vacancy rate
    August 20258.1%
    September 20257.8%
    October 20257.8%
    November 20258.4%
    December 20258.4%
    January 20268.7%
    February 20269.0%
    March 20269.6%
    April 20269.6%
    May 202610.5%
    June 202610.7%
    July 202610.4%
    August 202610.9%
    September 202610.8%

  • Time to fill

    66 days

    median time an AI engineer role stays open

    50%100%Day 0Day 30Day 60Day 90Day 120Day 15021%
    Day 15021%Benchmark – London Tech: 14%
    Share of roles in London still open each number of days after posting
    Days after postingAI engineer rolesBenchmark – London Tech
    Day 0100%100%
    Day 1583%84%
    Day 3071%70%
    Day 4561%56%
    Day 6053%44%
    Day 7546%35%
    Day 9038%28%
    Day 10531%23%
    Day 12027%19%
    Day 13523%16%
    Day 15021%14%

02

How much to offer

Expected base salary

When to offer more

Extra base pay for each, all else equal

  • 6–8 years’ experience, not 3–5+14%
  • Founder or early employee+13%
  • A more prestigious employer+12%
  • Has a PhD+6%
  • Shipped language-model apps+6%
  • Already an AI engineer+6%
  • Has led a team+5%
  • No clear effect on payElite university+1%
  • Trains their own models0%

03

Where to look

  1. Number 1: Meta

    London’s deepest AI bench

    More AI engineers work in Meta’s London office than at any other employer in the city.

  2. Number 2: Amazon

    Big teams, many alumni

    Large London teams build AGI, Alexa and advertising models, and many of their engineers have moved on.

  3. Number 3: Faculty

    An applied AI training ground

    Now part of Accenture, its engineers ship models for many clients, and as many have moved on as stayed.

Where new AI engineers come from

71%

weren’t AI engineers in their last job

47%

joined from a startup or scale-up

  • Already AI engineers29%
  • Software, data and solutions engineers25%
  • Data scientists and researchers17%
  • Founders and engineering leaders9%
  • Graduates and others20%

04

Who you’re competing with

The enterprises, and the startups and scale-ups, that posted the most AI engineer roles in London in the 6 months to November 2026.

  1. Accenture33 roles
  2. JPMorganChase31 roles
  3. Wise25 roles
  4. Google20 roles
  5. ASOS18 roles

05

How to win them

AI work, hands-on engineering and strong pay get you in the door. To win the most in-demand AI engineers, lead with what they want more than the rest.

What the most in-demand AI engineers want

  1. 1

    Sell the early-stage upside

  2. 2

    Offer equity

  3. 3

    Show where the role leads

  4. 4

    Show the frontier model work

  • An early-stage startup
  • Equity
  • A top-tier, well-known company
  • A path into leadership, product or founding
  • Frontier or foundation model work

More are open to any setup

34%

of AI engineers are open to any setup

29%

of other software engineers

  • Office-leaning
  • Open to anything
  • Remote-leaning
  • Remote only

Skip the 66‑day search

Brief Jill, the AI agent for hiring, on your AI engineer role. She’ll introduce you to engineers in Jack’s network who are open to a move.

Hire AI engineers with Jill

About this guide

The data
This guide combines publicly available data on jobs and careers with our own data from Jack’s network of candidates and the companies hiring with Jill.
How we count AI engineers
We decide who is an AI engineer by the work a job or career describes, not just its title, and apply that definition to people and job postings alike.
Kinds of company
Startups and scale-ups are private tech companies founded since 2005. Enterprises are listed, owned by a listed company, or larger than 5,000 staff.
Vacancy rate and time to fill
Vacancy rate is open roles as a share of all positions, filled and open. Time to fill follows each role from when it’s posted until it closes, and allows for roles that are still open. The Benchmark – London Tech line measures London’s tech startups and scale-ups the same way.
Pay
Pay is the base salary candidates in and near the role say they expect, weighted to match the seniority of the roles being hired. The premiums compare people with similar experience.
What wins them
We compare the profiles of people hiring managers ask to meet with those they passed on.