The Market for Robotics & Physical-AI Data Work

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 Robotics & Physical-AI Data.

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.

• Live dataLast 28 complete days, recomputed daily
• October 2026 edition (this page)Freezes on first reading
• September 2026 editionFrozen 10 Oct 2026
• August 2026 editionFrozen 10 Oct 2026

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.

@misc{aitrainingjobs_robotics_physical_ai_data_market_2026_10,
  author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
  title = {The Market for Robotics & Physical-AI Data Work, October 2026 edition},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://aitraining.jobs/research/robotics-physical-ai-data-market/2026-10}},
}

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