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Research report ยท October 2026 edition

The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work

On 31 Oct 2026, 124 roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments were open on 19 platforms (Mercor listed 28 of them (22.6%)); their median advertised rate was $65/hr, 63% above the $40/hr of all AI training work; each open role drew 0.36x the apply clicks of the average role.

Read the month's story: The AI Training Job Market in October 2026

Provisional figures. This month is complete, but late data can still arrive until 3 Nov 2026, when the edition is frozen for good.

Data window
1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026
31 days, UTC
Computed
1 Nov 2026, 01:17 UTC
Final once frozen
Source
The public job boards of the AI training platforms this site tracks, read every hour. Apply clicks are made on AITraining.jobs; full descriptions come from the platforms whose boards publish them.
Method
Version 5. Definitions
CC BY 4.0, how to cite

Every figure on this page as CSV and JSON, sent to your work email.

Key findings

  1. 1

    19 platforms listed the 124 open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments; Mercor held 28 of them (22.6%) and the three largest 67 (54.0%) (HHI 1,270, unconcentrated, against 522 for all AI training work).

    Figure 3
  2. 2

    103 of the 124 open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments (83.1%) stated an hourly rate, with a median of $65/hr (typical pay $45 to $120), 63% above the $40/hr of all AI training work.

    Figure 4
  3. 3

    Each open role in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments drew 1.22 apply clicks a week on AITraining.jobs, 0.36x the average AI training role: the 3rd lowest of 12 kinds of work whose demand reads on its own.

    Figure 6
  4. 4

    9 of the 124 open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments (7.3%) accepted applicants from any country, against 18.5% of all AI training roles; of the 20 countries compared, residents of the United States (84), India (80) and the United Kingdom (74) could apply to the most, and residents of Palestine to the fewest (25).

    Figure 9
  5. 5

    The words used most in the titles of open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments were Engineer or developer (42), Trainer (29) and Expert or SME (20), of 124 open roles.

    Figure 10
  6. 6

    Of the 120 open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments with a full description, 47 (39.2%) mention a PhD or master's degree, 18 (15.0%) a professional credential and 9 (7.5%) an assessment or test; the 22 stating years of experience ask for a median of 3 years.

    Figure 11
  7. 7

    Over the 31 days from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026, open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments on the platforms tracked at its start went up 115.5% (67 to 144, like for like across the changes in how this site reads some of their boards): platforms listed 89 new roles and removed 39, and a removed role had been listed for a median of 30 days (30 across all AI training work).

    Figure 2
  8. 8

    Within Agentic Tasks & RL Environments, roles listed during the window drew 4.08 apply clicks per role a week, against 0.17 for roles listed more than 12 weeks before the window.

    Figure 7

Figure 1

Open roles, week by week

Is the number of open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments rising or falling?

WeekOpen roles (fixed panel)Index
1 to 4 OctPartial week
58
114.9
5 to 11 OctPartial week
51
100.0
12 to 18 OctPartial week
47
107.9
19 to 25 OctPartial week
44
126.2
26 to 31 OctPartial week
68
195.4

Sample. Average open roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments over each week's days, on the 18 platforms tracked since 1 Oct 2026 (the fixed panel; 9 of them list this work), 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026.

The index is the panel's open roles against the week of 5 Oct 2026 (100), chained week to week, beside the same index for all AI training work on the same platforms.

This site changed how it reads 3 platforms' boards in this span (Alignerr on 14 Oct 2026; Mindrift on 14 Oct 2026 and 22 Oct 2026; OpenTrain AI on 14 Oct 2026). From each change to the end of its week the roles that came into view are counted as already listed, not as new listings, and the roles that left view are not counted as removals; changes in open roles are measured like for like across it, on the roles that did not move with it. Each platform's own report says what changed.

SuperAnnotate (SME) (first tracked 10 Oct 2026), Turing (first tracked 10 Oct 2026), Anyone AI (first tracked 11 Oct 2026), Claru (first tracked 14 Oct 2026), Weekday (first tracked 18 Oct 2026), Innodata (first tracked 18 Oct 2026), Lifted (Upwork) (first tracked 18 Oct 2026), TELUS Digital AI (first tracked 22 Oct 2026), Surge AI (first tracked 22 Oct 2026), Fleet AI (first tracked 22 Oct 2026) and Cohere (first tracked 25 Oct 2026) list this work but were added to the dataset later, so they are left out of the panel and counted only in the last column: a platform's arrival never reads as growth.

Every week is marked: the kind's change differs no more than chance from the rest of AI training work's, so its weeks do not read on their own.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 2

Listings added and removed

How fast do roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments turn over, and is the stock growing on the same platforms?

WorkOpen on 1 Oct 2026Open on 31 Oct 2026, same platformsChangeNew listings
Agentic Tasks & RL Environments67144
+115.5%
89
All AI training work2,6652,554
-4.2%
1,638

Sample. Roles listed from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026: 199 in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments, 7,396 across all AI training work.

Change compares the roles open on the first and the last day of the window on the platforms tracked when it opened, so a platform added during the window does not read as growth.

The kind's change reads on its own (not marked) from 2.7 roles open at the start: the weight of the rest of AI training work's change, fitted on the two.

A new listing first appeared in the window on a platform already tracked before that week; a platform's first week (its back catalogue) is not counted.

Median days listed runs from a removed role's listing date to its last sighting, for removed roles with a known listing date (at least 3; 39 here).

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 3

Who lists it

Which platforms list roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments, and what does each advertise?

PlatformOpen rolesShare of open rolesMedian per hour
Mercor28
22.6%
$50
Mindrift23
18.5%
n/a
Turing16
12.9%
n/a
AfterQuery12
9.7%
$80
micro111
8.9%
$90
SuperAnnotate (SME)6
4.8%
n/a
Anyone AI5
4.0%
$55
Invisible4
3.2%
$60
OpenTrain AI4
3.2%
$30
Alignerr2
1.6%
n/a
Claru2
1.6%
n/a
Innodata2
1.6%
n/a
Terac2
1.6%
n/a
Weekday2
1.6%
n/a
Cohere1
0.8%
n/a
Fleet AI1
0.8%
n/a
Lifted (Upwork)1
0.8%
n/a
Surge AI1
0.8%
n/a
TELUS Digital AI1
0.8%
n/a

Sample. 124 roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments open at the end of 31 Oct 2026, by the platform that lists them: HHI 1,270 (unconcentrated), against 522 for all AI training work.

HHI: the sum of every platform's squared percentage share of the open roles, 0 to 10,000; under 1,500 is unconcentrated, 1,500 to 2,500 moderately and above 2,500 highly concentrated (US merger-guideline thresholds).

Shares are of listings, not of people hired or money paid: a platform posting one role per language or country weighs more here than its hiring may.

A median needs at least 3 roles stating an hourly rate.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 4

What it pays

What do roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments advertise per hour, against AI training work as a whole?

WorkMedian per hourTypical pay fromTypical pay toStating an hourly rate
Agentic Tasks & RL Environments
$65
$45$12083.1%
All AI training work
$40
$30$12581.4%

Sample. Roles open on 31 Oct 2026: 124 in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments, 103 of them stating an hourly rate; 4,381 across all AI training work.

Pay is the hourly figure a posting advertises (the middle of a stated range), counted once per distinct rate as the job board counts it. The median and typical pay are the board's: typical pay runs from the 25th percentile of what roles pay (the middle of each advertised range) to the 90th-percentile advertised ceiling, stated from 3 distinct rates.

Roles paid per task or per project, or that state no figure, do not state an hourly rate.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 5

How its rates are distributed

What share of roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments pay $50 an hour or more?

Advertised rateOpen rolesShare of priced rolesAll AI training work
Under $15/hr5
4.9%
6.9%
$15 to $25/hr10
9.7%
10.6%
$25 to $35/hr10
9.7%
11.9%
$35 to $50/hr19
18.4%
26.0%
$50 to $75/hr29
28.2%
14.7%
$75 to $100/hr25
24.3%
15.3%
$100 to $150/hr4
3.9%
9.4%
$150/hr or more1
1.0%
5.1%

Sample. 103 roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments open on 31 Oct 2026 that state an hourly rate, against 3,565 across all AI training work.

Each role counts once, at the middle of its advertised range. The bands are those of the pay-transparency report.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 6

Applicant demand per open role

Do roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments draw more or fewer applicants per opening than the average AI training role?

RolesClicks per role a weekIndex
Agentic Tasks & RL Environments
1.22
0.36x
All AI training work
3.41
1.00x
Its roles stating an hourly rate
1.39
0.41x
Its roles stating no hourly rate
0.66
0.19x
Its roles open worldwideSmall sample
1.58
0.46x
Its roles limited by countrySmall sample
1.17
0.34x

Sample. Apply clicks on a specific role on AITraining.jobs, from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026: 390 on roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments, against the days those roles were open.

Clicks per role a week = apply clicks / (open role-days / 7). Index 1.00 is the rate of every role on the site.

Agentic Tasks & RL Environments against every kind of work: Rows with fewer than 3.6 open role-days (0.5 role-weeks) are marked as a small sample and not ranked: below that the pooled rate of the kinds of work weighs more than a row's own clicks (the weight fitted on their own clicks).

Its roles by stated pay, against each other: Rows with fewer than 38.8 open role-days (5.5 role-weeks) are marked as a small sample and not ranked: below that the pooled rate of the two sides weighs more than a row's own clicks (the weight fitted on their own clicks). Its roles by reach, against each other: Every row is marked as a small sample: the rates of the two sides differ no more than chance makes them, so none reads on its own and none is ranked. All AI training work is one set, read from its first open role-day.

Apply clicks measure interest among visitors to AITraining.jobs, who see roles open in their country and recent, priced roles first. Clicks are never split by platform.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 7

Applicant demand by listing age

Do newer roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments draw more applicants than older ones?

Listing ageClicks per role a weekIndex (this work = 1)
Listed during the window
4.08
3.33x
Listed up to 4 weeks before it
0.43
0.35x
Listed 4 to 12 weeks before it
0.28
0.23x
Listed more than 12 weeks before it
0.17
0.14x
Listing date unknown
1.10
0.90x

Sample. Apply clicks on roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments, from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026, by when each role was listed relative to the window's first day (1 Oct 2026).

Listing date: the date the job board gives for the posting, or else the first day the role appeared in the feed. A role that arrived with a platform's back catalogue and gives no date has none.

The index divides each row's rate by the rate of all roles in this kind of work, so it reads within the kind.

Rows with fewer than 4.9 open role-days (0.7 role-weeks) are marked as a small sample and not ranked: below that the pooled rate of the listing ages weighs more than a row's own clicks (the weight fitted on their own clicks).

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 8

Who may apply: location rules

Can people apply to roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments from anywhere?

Location ruleOpen rolesShare of its open rolesAll AI training work
Open worldwide9
7.3%
18.5%
Worldwide except listed countries56
45.2%
18.1%
Only listed countries59
47.6%
63.0%
No rule stated0
0.0%
0.4%

Sample. 124 roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments open at the end of 31 Oct 2026, against 4,381 across all AI training work.

The rule is read from each posting's location text, then, where that names no country, from what the posting's own description states, and where both are silent from what the platform states about where it hires.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 9

Who may apply: roles open to each country

How many roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments can a resident of each country apply to?

CountryOpen rolesShare of its open roles
Any country (worldwide roles only)
9
7.3%
United States
84
67.7%
India
80
64.5%
United Kingdom
74
59.7%
Germany
72
58.1%
Indonesia
70
56.5%
Philippines
70
56.5%
Argentina
63
50.8%
Bangladesh
63
50.8%
Colombia
62
50.0%
Chile
61
49.2%
Egypt
61
49.2%
Brazil
60
48.4%
Nigeria
59
47.6%
Ghana
57
46.0%
Japan
55
44.4%
South Korea
55
44.4%
Saudi Arabia
55
44.4%
Pakistan
50
40.3%
Cambodia
30
24.2%
Palestine
25
20.2%

Sample. 124 roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments open at the end of 31 Oct 2026, for residents of a fixed set of 20 countries.

A country's count is the roles open worldwide (including roles that state no rule, as on the job board), plus roles whose list names it, plus roles whose exclusion list does not.

The 20 countries are the same in every report of this series: those named most often by the location rules of open AI training roles on 9 Oct 2026, either as the only countries accepted or as excluded.

Median pay is over the roles open to that country that state an hourly rate (at least 3).

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 10

What the roles are called

What are roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments called: annotator, evaluator, expert or trainer?

Title wordOpen rolesShare of its open roles
Engineer or developer
42
33.9%
Trainer
29
23.4%
Expert or SME
20
16.1%
Analyst or researcher
18
14.5%
Evaluator or reviewer
12
9.7%
Specialist
8
6.5%
Lead or manager
6
4.8%
Red teamer or tester
3
2.4%
Annotator or labeler
2
1.6%
Contributor or participant
1
0.8%
Quality assurance
1
0.8%
Writer or editor
1
0.8%

Sample. 101 of the 124 roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments open on 31 Oct 2026 name one of these words in their title (81.5%); 12 title words are named.

A title can use several of these words ('Expert AI Trainer') and counts for each. The vocabularies are those of the job-titles, languages and expert-fields reports.

Median pay needs at least 3 roles stating an hourly rate.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

Figure 11

What the descriptions ask for

Do roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments ask for degrees, credentials, experience or tests?

RequirementRolesShare of described roles
Mentions a PhD45
37.5%
Mentions a PhD or master's47
39.2%
Mentions any degree54
45.0%
Mentions a professional credential18
15.0%
States years of experience22
18.3%
Asks for 5 years or more5
4.2%
States weekly hours50
41.7%
Mentions an assessment or test9
7.5%
Mentions an AI-led or video interview8
6.7%
Mentions a background check12
10.0%

Sample. 120 roles in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments open on 31 Oct 2026 whose job board publishes a full description (AfterQuery, Anyone AI, Claru, Cohere, Fleet AI, Innodata, Invisible, Lifted (Upwork), Mercor, micro1, Mindrift, OpenTrain AI, SuperAnnotate (SME), Surge AI, TELUS Digital AI, Terac, Turing and Weekday), 96.8% of its open roles; 4,000 described roles across all AI training work.

A mention can be a requirement or a preference ('a PhD is a plus'): the figure counts both. The patterns are those of the requirements report.

Only some platforms publish full descriptions, so this figure describes their roles, not every platform's.

A kind of work's figure is shown when its described roles outweigh the average of the kinds (5.8 described roles: the weight of every kind's shares around the shares of all described roles, fitted on their own counts).

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition.

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Method and definitions

The public job boards of the AI training platforms this site tracks, read every hour. Apply clicks are made on AITraining.jobs; full descriptions come from the platforms whose boards publish them. Every figure is computed by one database query over the window shown, the same query for the live report and for every edition. Each figure states its sample beneath it.

Kind of work
Each role is classified from its title and description into one of the twelve kinds of AI training work this site tracks; this report counts the roles classified as Agentic Tasks & RL Environments.
Fixed panel
The platforms already tracked when the weekly series opens. The index follows their open roles, so a platform added later (such as OpenTrain AI and Welo Data in September 2026) never reads as growth.
Index
The panel's average open roles in a week, divided by the same in the base week, times 100; shown beside the same index for all AI training work on the same platforms.
Open role
A role listed by a given day and still in its platform's feed that day.
New listing
A role that first appeared during the window on a platform already tracked before that week. A platform's first week in this dataset is its back catalogue and is not counted as new. When this site changes how it reads a platform's board (a cap lifted, a page kind or department read too, a relevance rule changed), the roles that came into view or left it from that change to the end of its week are this site's reading, not the platform's hiring: they are not new listings or removals, and changes in open roles are measured like for like across it. Each platform's report says what changed.
Removed listing
A role that left its platform's feed during the window.
Days listed
From a removed role's listing date to the last day it was seen in its feed. A median needs at least 3 removed roles.
HHI
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index: the sum of every platform's squared percentage share of open roles, 0 to 10,000. Under 1,500 unconcentrated, 1,500 to 2,500 moderately, above 2,500 highly concentrated.
Advertised pay
The hourly figure a posting states (the middle of a stated range), counted once per distinct rate as the job board counts it. The median and typical pay are the board's: typical pay runs from the 25th percentile of what roles pay (the middle of each advertised range) to the 90th-percentile advertised ceiling, stated from 3 distinct rates.
Clicks per open role a week
Apply clicks on AITraining.jobs on a specific role, divided by the days the roles were open, times 7.
Demand index
Clicks per open role a week divided by the same rate across every role on the site. Above 1, the roles draw more applicants than the average role.
Listing age
When a role was listed relative to the window's first day: during the window, up to 4 weeks before it, 4 to 12 weeks before or longer. The listing date is the job board's posting date, or else the first day the role appeared in the feed.
Location rule
Read from each posting's location text and, where that names no country, from what the posting's own description states: open worldwide, worldwide except listed countries, only listed countries, or no rule stated.
Open to a country
A role is open to residents of a country if it is open worldwide, its list names the country, or its exclusion list does not. The 20 countries compared are the same in every report of the series.
Window
Live: the last 28 complete days, in UTC, and the last twelve complete ISO weeks (from the week of 3 Aug 2026 at the earliest) for the weekly series. Edition: one calendar month, in UTC, and its weeks.

What this data cannot tell you

  • Platforms that recruit without a public job board are not counted. Several large ones invite workers to projects directly.
  • A listing is not a hire. Some platforms keep evergreen roles open for months, and some post one listing per language or country.
  • Apply clicks measure interest among the people who use AITraining.jobs, and what is shown first gets clicked more. Clicks are never published by platform.
  • Full descriptions are published by a few platforms only, so the requirements figure describes their roles and appears only when this kind's described roles read on their own against the other kinds' (the weight of every kind's shares around the shares of all described roles, fitted on their own counts).
  • A kind of work with few open roles gives figures that move with a handful of postings: rows on too little data are marked as a small sample.

How the job feeds are read and roles are classified: site methodology. How fresh, complete and consistent the data is, checked every day: data quality and coverage.

Editions

The live report covers the last 28 complete days and changes every day. Each complete month is also published as an edition, frozen two days after the month ends, so a figure you cite from an edition never moves.

Cite and reuse

Free to quote, chart and republish under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. This edition is frozen, so its figures will read the same later.

Citation

AITraining.jobs (2026). The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition. https://aitraining.jobs/research/agentic-rl-environment-market/2026-10

BibTeX

@misc{aitrainingjobs_agentic_rl_environment_market_2026_10,
  author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
  title = {The Market for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments Work, October 2026 edition},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://aitraining.jobs/research/agentic-rl-environment-market/2026-10}},
}
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