Based on 24+ pages of analysis from 10,000+ global AI job listings
ReadyFly’s definitive report on global AI hiring, compensation, skills, and trends across Q4 2024.
📌 Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Global Compensation Trends
- Regional Hiring Trends
- Top AI Job Titles by Seniority
- Most In-Demand AI Skills
- Industries Hiring for AI Roles
- Remote Work & Format Trends
- Qualifications & Job Requirements
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
- Recommendations for Job Seekers
- Sources & Methodology
Executive Summary
AI job hiring remained strong in Q4 2024 despite global market volatility. Salaries rose in most regions, with significant demand for GenAI, cloud-based AI solutions, and AI ethics roles. The market showed:
- High hiring momentum in North America, Europe, and APAC.
- Growing demand for entry-to-mid-level AI engineers, with a spike in remote job offerings.
- ML, Python, Cloud, and AI Ethics were the most requested skills.
This report synthesizes data from over 10,000 global AI job listings across public job boards and career portals between Q4 2024 months.
Global Compensation Trends
| Region | Avg Salary Range (USD) | Top Hiring Cities |
|---|---|---|
| North America | $120K–$200K+ | San Francisco, New York, Seattle |
| Europe | $85K–$150K | London, Berlin, Paris |
| APAC | $15K–$40K | Bangalore, Singapore, Tokyo |
| MENA | $35K–$85K | Dubai, Cairo |
| LATAM | $20K–$60K | São Paulo, Buenos Aires |
Salaries for senior AI engineers and LLM specialists reached up to $250K–$300K in select markets.
Regional Hiring Trends
North America
- Highest number of open roles globally
- Emphasis on ML Ops, Big Data, AI safety
- Remote roles growing faster than in other regions
Europe
- Demand for AI policy, ethics, and compliance
- Research roles concentrated in Germany, France, UK
- Multilingual NLP jobs on the rise
APAC
- Large share of entry-level and mid-level roles
- High demand for cloud, automation, and computer vision
MENA
- Rapid AI adoption in public sector, finance, and energy
- High-paying roles emerging in Dubai
LATAM
- Strong startup ecosystem around NLP and customer AI
- Local language data processing growing in demand
Top AI Job Titles by Seniority
| Level | Popular Titles |
| Entry-Level | AI Engineer, Data Analyst, ML Intern |
| Mid-Level | ML Engineer, GenAI Specialist, Data Scientist |
| Senior-Level | AI Product Manager, LLM Engineer, AI Architect |
| Executive | Head of AI, Director of ML, Chief Data Officer |
Remote-friendly roles are most common at mid-seniority levels.
Most In-Demand AI Skills
Top Technical Skills by Frequency
| Skill | % of Listings | Avg Salary Boost |
| Python | 72% | +15% |
| Machine Learning | 64% | +20% |
| SQL | 48% | +10% |
| Cloud (AWS, GCP) | 45% | +15% |
| NLP / LLMs | 40% | +25% |
Fastest Growing Skills (YoY)
- AI Ethics / Explainability (+27%)
- LangChain & RAG pipelines (+21%)
- LoRA / QLoRA fine-tuning (+18%)
- AI Ops (monitoring/serving models) (+15%)
Industries Hiring for AI Roles
| Industry | In-Demand Skills | Roles |
| Finance | Python, ML, AI Risk | Quant Analyst, AI Auditor |
| Healthcare | NLP, Computer Vision, Ethics | AI Scientist, ML Researcher |
| E-commerce | Personalization, RecSys, LLMs | AI Product Manager, Data Scientist |
| Manufacturing | Computer Vision, Robotics | AI Engineer, Automation Lead |
| Education | GenAI, NLP, Data Analytics | Curriculum AI Lead, GenAI PM |
Remote Work & Format Trends
- 41% of AI roles in Q4 2024 were remote or hybrid
- Remote jobs had a 9% higher average applicant rate
- US and UK companies dominate remote AI hiring
- Highest remote compensation: GenAI, LLM, DevOps-AI roles
Qualifications & Job Requirements
| Category | Common Requirements |
| Education | BSc in CS/AI/Math, MSc preferred for mid-senior |
| Experience | 2–5 years (Mid), 6+ years (Senior) |
| Certifications | GCP/AWS Certs, DeepLearning.ai, HuggingFace |
| Project Portfolio | GitHub, Kaggle, open-source contributions |
Soft skills like cross-functional collaboration and communication with non-tech teams are now essential.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
- 12% of job listings mention DEI or inclusive hiring explicitly
- Top regions: UK, Canada, US
- Roles emphasizing DEI:
- AI Ethics Lead
- Bias Analyst
- Responsible AI Strategist
Recommendations for Job Seekers
- Focus on cross-training: Cloud + ML + SQL = 80% job eligibility
- Portfolio-first strategy: Personal projects > passive resumes
- Follow location-based salary trends: Apply remote globally
- Target roles with emerging keywords: LLM, Explainability, AIOps
- Use employer signals: High-growth hiring = growth opportunities
Sources & Methodology
- 10,000+ job listings from LinkedIn, company career pages, Glassdoor, Indeed, GitHub Jobs, and open public datasets
- Manual validation of compensation ranges and seniority tiers
- Keyword tagging and skills clustering using NLP models