The AI Training Job Market in October 2026

On the 18 platforms tracked throughout, open roles went down 3.1% like for like (about 2,520 in the week of 5 Oct 2026 and 2,717 in the week of 19 Oct 2026 as read, a count that also moved with changes in how this site reads some of their boards).Finding 1

Platforms listed about 340 new roles a week over the last week, against 432 a week in the week before (-21.3%).Finding 2

Law, Medicine & Finance was the largest kind of AI training work, with 1,541 of 4,381 open roles (35.2%) on 31 Oct 2026.Finding 1

Invisible listed the most roles, 12.2% of all open roles on 31 Oct 2026; the five largest platforms together listed 41.4%.Finding 3

On 31 Oct 2026, 4,381 AI training roles were open across the job boards of 62 platforms; Invisible listed the most (12.2%) and Surge AI advertised the highest median pay ($300/hr).Summary

Invisible (12.2%), SuperAnnotate (SME) (8.7%) and Alignerr (8.2%) listed the most open roles on 31 Oct 2026; the five largest of the 62 platforms held 41.4% of all open roles.Finding 1

Of the 37 platforms with at least 3 roles stating a rate, Surge AI advertised the highest median, $300/hr, and RWS TrainAI Community the lowest, $11/hr.Finding 2

From 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026, open roles on the 18 AI training platforms tracked throughout went down 7.3% with re-key batches set aside: 2 grew and 5 shrank by 10% or more while 5 held steady, and the largest moves in roles were OpenTrain AI (-157 roles, -19.6%) and AfterQuery (+32, +16.2%).Summary

On the 18 platforms tracked throughout the window, open roles changed by -7.3% once measured like for like across the changes in how this site reads some of their boards (2,665 to 2,632 as read, -1.2%), on 1,160 new listings against 1,289 removals; 2 grew and 5 shrank by 10% or more while 5 held steady.Finding 1

On 19 Oct 2026, Mindrift re-issued 20 listings under new identifiers: the same titles left and came back at one read (24 left and 22 arrived that day; the re-issued ones are 13.7% of its removals and 8.6% of its new listings over 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026), so they are set aside rather than read as roles filled and opened, and kept out of its 135 new listings and 49 removals.Finding 4

On 31 Oct 2026, AI training listings were unconcentrated overall (HHI 522 across 62 platforms); Robotics & Physical-AI Data was the most concentrated kind of work, led by Claru with 40% of its open roles.Summary

Across all AI training work, listings are unconcentrated (HHI 522 across 62 platforms); Invisible holds 12.2% of open roles.Finding 1

On the same platforms, concentration rose from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026 (HHI 1,368 to 1,402) and fell in 4 of 9 kinds of work; the largest move was in Agentic Tasks & RL Environments, from 3,592 to 2,287.Finding 4

From the week of 28 Sep 2026 to the week of 26 Oct 2026, on the same platforms, 11 kinds of AI training work had a market rate at both ends; Red-Teaming & AI Safety moved most (+48.5%), and Red-Teaming & AI Safety paid the highest median ($74/hr).Summary

On the same platforms, between the weeks of 28 Sep 2026 and 26 Oct 2026, the advertised median for Red-Teaming & AI Safety moved up 48.5% ($50 to $74/hr), and Data Annotation & Labeling fell 17.9% ($28 to $23/hr).Finding 1

Open Law, Medicine & Finance roles changed the most, from about 617 to 1,523 a day (+146.9%), counting platforms added along the way.Finding 4

Compared within each kind of work on 31 Oct 2026, a profession named in the title went with +37.6%, a US-only location rule went with +33.4%, a senior or lead title went with +21.3% and an assessment in the description with -14.5% in advertised pay.Summary

Within the same kind of work, roles whose title names a profession or discipline advertised 37.6% more than roles whose title names none, the largest premium measured; roles whose description mentions an assessment or skills test advertised 14.5% less than described roles mentioning none.Finding 1

Roles whose title names a profession or discipline advertised 37.6% more than roles whose title names none in the same kind of work, across 11 kinds (medians $65 and $35/hr overall).Finding 2

On 31 Oct 2026, for roles open to US residents, the best-paying platform advertised 5 times the rate of the worst-paying one in the typical kind of AI training work, and up to 13.5 times in Transcription, Audio & Speech ($135 at Weekday against $10 at TELUS Digital AI).Summary

Among roles open to US residents, the widest gap for the same kind of work is in Transcription, Audio & Speech: Weekday advertises a median of $135 an hour and TELUS Digital AI $10 (13.5 times).Finding 1

Across all roles, wherever they hire, the widest gap is in Law, Medicine & Finance: Surge AI advertises a median of $300 an hour and Welo Data $12, 25 times as much, partly because the two hire in different countries.Finding 3

On 31 Oct 2026, 81.4% of 4,381 open AI training roles stated an hourly rate, with a median of $40/hr and 44.5% at $50/hr or more.Summary

Math & STEM roles stated a rate most often (91.5%), Robotics & Physical-AI Data roles least often (61%).Finding 2

20 of the 62 platforms with enough open roles to read on their own stated a rate on every role; Sigma AI stated one on none of its 81 roles.Finding 3

On 31 Oct 2026, 18.9% of open AI training roles accepted applicants from any country; residents of the United States could apply to the most (2,994 of 4,381).Summary

18.9% of the 4,381 roles open on 31 Oct 2026 accepted applicants from any country; 63.0% were limited to listed countries and 18.1% excluded some.Finding 1

Red-Teaming & AI Safety was the most open to the world (37% of roles open worldwide); Robotics & Physical-AI Data the least (5%).Finding 2

On 31 Oct 2026, 2.2% of 4,381 open AI training roles had to be done on-site or hybrid, 95.9% were remote and 1.9% did not say; the largest group of on-site roles was in-person data collection, and most were in the United States, the United Kingdom and India.Summary

2.2% of the 4,381 AI training roles open on 31 Oct 2026 (95) must be done on-site or hybrid; 95.9% are remote and 1.9% do not say.Finding 1

83 open roles state no arrangement in their title, location or workplace field, 30.1% of them at Mindrift, so the remote share is a floor.Finding 2

From 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026, people on AITraining.jobs made 59,228 apply clicks; per open role, interest was highest in Data Annotation & Labeling (3.7x the average role) and lowest in Research Studies & Surveys (0.15x).Summary

Law, Medicine & Finance drew the most apply clicks: 15,923 of 53,799 (29.6%), followed by Data Annotation & Labeling (17.7%) and Transcription, Audio & Speech (15.5%).Finding 1

Per open role, Data Annotation & Labeling drew the most applicant interest: 12.61 apply clicks a week, 3.7x the average role. Research Studies & Surveys drew the least: 0.52 a week (0.15x).Finding 2

Compared within the same kind of work from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026, 'freelance' in the title went with 97% fewer clicks per open role, a US-only rule with 86% fewer and a long title with 73% fewer: associations among the people who use AITraining.jobs, partly the site's own ranking of roles.Summary

Within the same kind of work, roles open worldwide drew 2.3 times the apply clicks per open role of roles open only to listed countries, the strongest association measured (12 kinds of work compared).Finding 1

Roles in the top fifth of their kind of work's advertised rates drew 0.64 times the clicks per open role of their kinds' average, against 1.01 for the bottom fifth and 1.19 for roles stating no rate.Finding 4

On 31 Oct 2026, open AI training roles named 95 languages; English, Spanish and French had the most openings, and Afrikaans roles advertised the highest median pay ($35/hr).Summary

English (195), Spanish (117), French (91), German (88) and Chinese (Mandarin) (78) had the most open roles on 31 Oct 2026, of 95 languages named in role titles.Finding 1

Afrikaans roles advertised the highest median pay, $35/hr, and Burmese the lowest, $8/hr, among languages with at least 3 distinct advertised rates.Finding 2

On 31 Oct 2026, 2,171 open AI training roles named an expert field; Software and IT, Finance and accounting and Medicine and nursing had the most openings, and Law advertised the highest median pay ($100/hr).Summary

Software and IT (395), Finance and accounting (240), Medicine and nursing (229), Engineering (non-software) (221) and Law (154) had the most open roles on 31 Oct 2026, of 21 fields named in role titles.Finding 1

Law roles advertised the highest median pay, $100/hr, and Translation and interpreting the lowest, $30/hr, among fields with at least 3 distinct advertised rates.Finding 3

On 31 Oct 2026, Nuclear, CBRN and defense was the hardest expert field to recruit for AI training work (scarcity index 2.78x, 1.00 = the market), German the hardest language (2.04x) and Agentic Tasks & RL Environments the hardest kind of work (1.81x); 6 groups were scarcer than the market on all three measures: applicants per opening, time to close and pay.Summary

Nuclear, CBRN and defense is the hardest expert field to staff, with a scarcity index of 2.78x (1.00 is the market): its roles draw 0.09x the market's apply clicks per open role, its listings came down 71% less often than other roles of the same age on the same platforms, and it advertises $50/hr, 25% above the market median of $40/hr.Finding 1

German is the hardest language to staff, with a scarcity index of 2.04x (1.00 is the market): its roles draw 0.17x the market's apply clicks per open role, its listings came down 48% less often than other roles of the same age on the same platforms, and it advertises $35/hr, 12% below the market median of $40/hr.Finding 2

Of 302 Coding & Software Evaluation roles open on 31 Oct 2026, 71.5% name a programming language, Python most often (39.1%).Summary

Python is the language named most often in open Coding & Software Evaluation roles: 118 of 302 (39.1%), in the title or the description, ahead of TypeScript (77); 22 different languages are named, and 38.1% of the roles name one in the title.Finding 1

Where a description is published, 74.5% of 259 Coding & Software Evaluation roles name a language and 43.2% name two or more; Python is named in 463 roles read.Finding 2

Half of the AI training roles listed from 3 Aug 2026 to 31 Oct 2026 came down within 25.3 days of being listed; Writing & Content turned over fastest (median 9.2 days), and counting only removed roles would put the median at 13 days.Summary

Half of the 3,167 AI training roles listed from 3 Aug 2026 to 31 Oct 2026 came down within 25.3 days of being listed (Kaplan-Meier median), and 44.7% were still listed four weeks after going up.Finding 1

Counting only the roles already removed puts the median at 13 days; counting the 46.0% still listed too, it is 25.3 days, 95.0% longer.Finding 2

From 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026, 90.0% of dated AI training postings fell on a weekday (Tuesday the busiest day), while people applied most on Tuesday and in the 14:00 UTC hour.Summary

Tuesday and Wednesday are the busiest posting days, with 45.5% of new postings between them (an even spread would give two days 28.6%); 90.0% carry a Monday-to-Friday date.Finding 1

Postings with a stated time are busiest in the 06:00 UTC hour (9.0% of them), and 19.1% fall in the 04:00 to 08:00 UTC block.Finding 3

Of 4,000 open AI training roles with a full description on 31 Oct 2026, 25.2% mention a PhD or master's degree, 16.6% a professional credential and 20.0% an assessment or test.Summary

17.3% of the 4,000 AI training roles with a full description mention a PhD, and 25.2% mention a PhD or a master's degree.Finding 1

16.6% mention a professional credential: 124 roles a medical degree and 105 a law degree or bar admission.Finding 2

On 31 Oct 2026, 24.6% of open AI training roles (1,078) asked for no expert field, level or credential in their title and advertised a median $25/hr, and 41.1% of the roles with a full description mentioned no degree, years of experience or credential, though 15.3% of those still mentioned a test.Summary

1,078 of the 4,381 AI training roles open on 31 Oct 2026 (24.6%) are generalist roles: the title names no expert field, level or credential, and the work is not Law, Medicine & Finance or Coding & Software Evaluation.Finding 1

A further 670 open roles (15.3%) are kept out only by a word such as "Expert" or "Specialist" in the title, 77.6% of them naming a language; counted in, generalist roles would be 39.9% of open roles.Finding 2

Of the 4,000 open roles whose full description is read (61 platforms), 14.1% state a test, interview or check, most often an assessment, test or trial task (9.0%), and 16.6% name a professional credential or licence; the 1,682 application forms read on 34 platforms require a median of 10 fields, and 85.7% require a resume.Summary

Screening can be read for 61 of the 62 platforms with open roles on 31 Oct 2026: full descriptions of 4,000 roles on 61 platforms (91.3% of open roles) and application forms of 1,682 roles on 34 (38.4%); Alignerr publishes neither.Finding 1

14.1% of the 4,000 described roles state a selection step (a test, an interview or a check), most often an assessment, test or trial task (9.0%), then an interview with a person or of an unstated kind (5.6%); 0.8% state a background check or identity verification.Finding 2

On 31 Oct 2026, AI training roles were most often titled "Expert or SME", "Trainer" and "Specialist"; roles titled "Lead or manager" advertised the highest median pay ($80/hr).Summary

The most common title words were Expert or SME (24.8% of open roles), Trainer (18.7% of open roles) and Specialist (18.6% of open roles).Finding 1

Roles titled "Lead or manager" advertised the highest median ($80/hr); roles titled "Rater" the lowest ($9/hr).Finding 2

From the week of 5 Oct 2026 to the week of 19 Oct 2026, on the 18 platforms tracked throughout, Teaching grew fastest among expert fields (+135% open roles), German among languages (+74.6%) and Red-Teaming & AI Safety among kinds of work (+36.2%).Summary

Teaching grew fastest among expert fields on the 18 platforms tracked throughout, from about 15 open roles in the week of 5 Oct 2026 to 35 in the week of 19 Oct 2026 (+135%), with 7 new listings from 4 platforms; Psychology and mental health shrank the most (-50.9%).Finding 1

German grew fastest among languages on the 18 platforms tracked throughout, from about 50 open roles in the week of 5 Oct 2026 to 87 in the week of 19 Oct 2026 (+74.6%), with 21 new listings from 8 platforms.Finding 2

125 published figures on what AI labs pay for human data, from 2021 to 30 Oct 2026: lab spend, vendor bill rates against worker pay, vendors' take, RL-environment prices, prices per task and contract sizes; the largest spend figure recorded: Surge reportedly generated $1.2 billion in revenue in 2024 from work with AI labs (Surge AI, reported).Summary

US data vendors (Surge AI, Mercor, AfterQuery, Turing) and Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance and other Chinese labs: About $500M a year of training data sold to Chinese labs (paid by the buyer; training data services, reported, 8 Aug 2026).Finding 1

Mercor: $93/hr average contracted rate; $4M+ daily payouts; oncologist roles $350 to $450 an hour (paid to the worker; expert human data (all domains), stated, 30 Oct 2026).Finding 2

To 30 Oct 2026, the evidence shows labs buying more coding (production-like environments), computer-use app and website clones and egocentric and robotics demonstration data and less generalist annotation and microtasks and static maths and verifiable coding tasks.Summary

Rising: coding (production-like environments), computer-use app and website clones, egocentric and robotics demonstration data, enterprise workflow RL environments and data, expert judgment (creative and non-professional domains), expert judgment (professional domains), in-house human data and environment teams at labs, licensed media and content, off-the-shelf and synthetic data, RL environments (all domains), voice and conversational audio and wet-lab and experimental science data.Finding 1

Enterprise workflow RL environments and data has the most evidence (8 items).Finding 3

From 11 Jul 2023 to 29 Oct 2026, 90 content and data licensing deals between AI companies and data owners are recorded, 22 with a published price; the largest is News Corp with OpenAI ("Could be" close to $250 million over five years, per The Wall Street Journal (as reported by VentureBeat); terms not disclosed by the parties).Summary

OpenAI signed the most deals (25), ahead of Meta (14) and Google (9).Finding 3

The most frequent kind of licensor is news publisher (44 deals), then music (15) and stock media (8).Finding 4