AI talent comes at a 30% salary premium: ‘If you try to play catch up later, this is going to cost you even more’
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No longer are AI skills only associated with tech or IT roles.
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August 11, 2025
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Fortune
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AI·RecruitingAI talent comes at a 30% salary premium: ‘If you try to play catch up later, this is going to cost you even more’By Mikaela CohenBy HR BrewBy Mikaela CohenBy HR Brew More employers are demanding AI skills, but the supply of employees with these skills has stayed consistent.Getty ImagesAI skills are in demand, and HR will need to fork over higher salaries to recruit this talent
Adding AI skills to job descriptions could cost employers 28% more in annual compensation, a recent report from re firm Lightcast found
AI-related skills can include expertise with large language models (LLMs), ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot, as well as mpt engineering, text summarization, and more
A Lightcast analysis of over 1.3 billion job postings in 2024 found roles advertising at least one AI or generative AI skill offered $18,000 more in annual compensation on average than those that did not
Some 51% of these AI roles were not in -related industries, up from 44% in 2022. “AI is becoming more and more pervasive throughout all of the job descriptions that we’re seeing for virtually any different career area,” Cole Napper, VP of re at Lightcast, told HR Brew
No longer are AI skills only associated with or IT roles, Napper said, and the roles that are seeing the biggest rise in AI skill demand are recruiters and HR s
Companies that don’t keep up with this trend, he said, could miss out on talent. “There is a divergence that’s going on between employers who are saying, ‘We’re not leaning into this space
We’re not really seeing the need to do that,” Napper said. “It’s better to recruit sooner than later, because if you try to play catch up later, this is going to cost you even more.” It’s a supply and demand issue, Napper added
More employers are demanding AI skills, but the supply of employees with these skills has stayed consistent, he said
He suspects the workforce will adjust through upskilling and reskilling, but this will take time. “There is always a lagging effect, because it takes time for people to build skills,” he said
This report was originally published by HR Brew.Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world
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