AI is reshaping the global labour market into two distinct paths, while rewarding human skills such as judgement, creativity and leadership, according to a report from consulting and advisory firm PwC.

The report, which analysed more than one billion job ads across six continents, found that AI is rapidly changing the skills employers want most from workers, while companies most able to use AI are continuing to expand hiring faster than their peers. 

According to its 2026 AI Jobs Barometer, PwC said AI is creating a “two-track” global labour market, made up of “professionalised” roles and “democratised” roles. 

Professionalised roles, such as radiologists or recruiters, are those where AI automates routine tasks, allowing human judgement and expertise to become more important. 

By contrast, democratised roles, such as IT service managers or medical secretaries, are those where AI makes the role itself easier for non-experts to perform. 

The report found that professionalised roles are seeing twice the growth in available jobs and 42 per cent faster salary growth than roles categorised as democratised. 

At the same time, companies most able to use AI are also seeing faster headcount growth than the least AI-exposed companies, at 53 per cent compared with 36 per cent, as well as higher wage growth, at 24 per cent compared with 17 per cent. 

PwC also found that a group of “super-star companies” most exposed to AI achieved labour productivity gains of 163 per cent, significantly outpacing other businesses. 

More broadly, companies operating in the most AI-exposed sectors recorded 34 per cent productivity growth in 2025 relative to 2018, compared with 24 per cent for companies least able to use AI. 

Within this group, the report said a pronounced “super-star” effect is emerging, with the top 20 per cent of the most AI-exposed companies achieving average labour productivity growth of 163 per cent relative to 2018. 

This was nearly five times higher than the most AI-exposed companies overall. 

Perhaps more surprisingly, PwC said headcount growth at the most AI-exposed companies is outpacing growth at the least AI-exposed companies, at 52 per cent compared with 36 per cent in 2025, based on 2018 baseline levels. 

The report also found that jobs requiring specific AI skills, such as prompt engineering or machine learning, are growing almost eight times faster than the overall jobs market. 

According to PwC, jobs requiring specific AI skills have grown by 69 per cent since 2019, compared with 8.6 per cent for the total jobs market. 

This growth rate is almost twice as high as in 2024, with growth in AI-related jobs outpacing all jobs since 2015. 

As companies continue to boost productivity with AI, the average wage premium for workers with AI skills also continued to rise, reaching 62 per cent, up from 57 per cent last year. 

The wage premium varies by industry, reaching as high as 118 per cent in some sectors, such as consumer markets, and 16 per cent in government and public sector work. 

Sectors including technology, media and telecommunications, at 11 per cent, and professional services, at 6 per cent, saw the highest share in AI job growth, while health was at the lowest end, at less than 1 per cent. 

At entry level, however, the report showed a more divided picture. 

Based on 2.4 million entry-level jobs analysed in the US, AI appears to be increasing demand for more senior skills from junior workers. 

PwC said entry-level roles most exposed to AI are now seven times more likely to require traditionally senior-level human-intensive skills, such as leadership, creativity or face-to-face interactions. 

Finally, job openings for these “seniorised” entry-level roles have grown 35 per cent since 2019, while other entry-level roles declined by 10 per cent.