PwC’s 2024 AI Jobs Barometer investigated the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on productivity, skills, jobs, and wages by analysing over 500 million job advertisements across 15 different countries which comprise over 30% of global GDP. The study focused on ‘AI-exposed’ industries and jobs, which means jobs in which AI can be readily used for some tasks, such as financial analysts and customer service agents.
Growth in labour productivity
The study found that AI is enhancing the productivity of employees, particularly in AI-exposed industries which are experiencing 4.8 times higher growth in labour productivity. Besides increasing speed, improved productivity also means finding new, AI-powered ways to create value.
The study’s findings are commensurate with those obtained in PwC’s 2024 Global CEO Survey. About 84% of CEOs anticipated that AI will increase efficiencies in employees’ time at work while 70% believed that AI will significantly change the way their company creates and delivers value over the next few years.
Al exposure and labour productivity growth rate by sector. Each dot represents a country.
Change in skills demanded by employers
Traditional skills are featured less in job advertisements and new skills are becoming more present. This is particularly true for AI-exposed occupations, where the skills required by employers are changing 25% faster than in roles less exposed to AI.
The skill sets that AI can assist with, such as coding in Javascript, are experiencing reduced employer demand. On the other hand, there is increased employer demand for skills that cannot be replaced by AI, such as coaching, and for skills that make use of AI. Indeed, PwC’s 2024 Global CEO Survey found that 69% of CEOs believed that most of their workforce will need to develop new AI-related skills.
Change in skills demanded by employers for occupations more (and less) exposed to Al
Workers in AI-exposed roles may need to demonstrate or acquire new skills to stay relevant in a fast-evolving job market. Below are four of the skills categories rising and declining fastest in demand, and for each category a few examples are provided of specific skills.
Increased quantity of jobs that require specialist AI skills
There are seven times as many postings for specialist AI jobs in 2024 as there were in 2012. In contrast, postings for all jobs have grown more slowly, doubling since 2012. This implies that openings for jobs that require specialist AI skills have grown 3.5 times faster than openings for all jobs in the last 12 years.
Wage premium for employees with specialist AI skills
Employees who learn to leverage AI are likely to enhance their value, potentially gaining greater bargaining power for higher wages. The transformative impact of AI is evident among workers with specialised AI skills, such as machine learning, who are driving the AI revolution. Since 2016, the growth rate of jobs requiring these specialised AI skills has surpassed overall job growth. These specialist jobs carry up to a 25% wage premium, highlighting their significant value to companies.
Wage premium for job vacancies which require Al skills by country
Occupation |
Country Al Wage Premium | |||||
| USA | UK | Canada | Australia | Singapore | ||
| Database Designers and Administrators | +53% | +58% | +8% | +14% | +35% | |
| Lawyers | +49% | +27% | - | - | +5% | |
| Sales and Marketing Managers | +43% | +14% | +3% | +7% | +3% | |
| Financial Analysts | +33% | +32% | - | - | +11% | |
| Applications Programmers | +32% | +24% | - | +7% | +34% | |
| Systems Analysts | +30% | +34% | +15% | +7% | +28% | |
| Accountants | +18% | +5% | +17% - | +4% | ||
| Average wage premium across all jobs | +25% | +14% | +11% | +6% | +7% | |
Sources: PwC analysis of Lightcast data, ISCO-08 Occupation Codes (4-digit level). 2023 data. These findings do not demonstrate a causal relationship. These estimates are calculated by comparing the average salaries of AI job postings to those of non-AI postings for the same occupations. Two filters are applied to ensure (1) the count of AI job postings and (2) the ratio of AI jobs:non-AI jobs being compared is above a certain threshold. The analysis provided represents five of the 15 countries: UK, USA, Singapore, Canada and Australia. The remainder of the countries have been omitted from this analysis as the data was less extensive: New Zealand, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Ultimately, the study’s principal finding was that AI has a transformative effect on the workplace by enhancing the productivity of employees and organisations while simultaneously shifting the skills needed for workers to thrive in the evolving job market. Growing labour productivity and upskilling of employees are key drivers of economic growth and rising living standards.
The full report can be found here.
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