The short answer: very fast. Demand for AI skills increased nearly 200 percent in a year, with London accounting for 80 percent of AI-related job postings and nearly two-thirds of all technology vacancies in the UK according to Accenture data reported by The Register. That tells you where the heat is, and it is not cooling.
The longer view is just as striking. Across AI-related occupations, the net change ranges from approximately 696,000 jobs in the Automation Scenario to 1,072,000 in the Technological Opportunities Scenario, with replacement demand rising from 3,077,000 to 3,193,000 jobs in GOV.UK's AI Skills for Life and Work projections. Those are big numbers, and they create space for specialist roles that keep AI systems safe.
Hiring in 2025 was cautious overall. Against a subdued 2025 economic backdrop, businesses took a cautious approach to hiring but there were demand hotspots for specialist tech skills including AI, data, enterprise applications and cyber security Computer Weekly's tech recruitment outlook for 2026 notes. AI safety sits right inside those hotspots, where careful judgement matters most.
AI safety is the work of making AI systems behave as intended: reliable, secure, fair and well governed. It overlaps heavily with cyber security, which is a useful signal for how a safety-focused career can grow. There are approximately 143,000 individuals in the UK cyber security workforce, with growth moderately accelerating from 2 percent in 2022 to 5 percent in 2024 GOV.UK's Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2025 reports.
Demand for trusted specialists stays stubbornly high. A comparison with the Cyber Security Skills 2024 report showed 70 percent of cyber firms reported at least one hard-to-fill vacancy the AI Labour Market Survey 2025 found. That gap is exactly where AI safety roles are forming: testing, red-teaming, model evaluation, governance and risk.
Entry routes are widening too. Apprenticeships have risen from 3 percent of AI hires in 2020 to 19 percent in 2025 according to GOV.UK's AI Labour Market Survey 2025. So the path into AI safety is no longer graduate-only, which is good news if you want to build a team from a range of backgrounds.
Start with the skills pipeline, because it is expanding. During London Tech Week 2025, the UK government announced a partnership to upskill 7.5 million UK workers in essential AI skills by 2030, equivalent to around 20 percent of the UK workforce techUK reports. That means more candidates with foundational AI knowledge entering the market each year, and more scope to train for safety specifics in-house.
Hire for judgement, not just tooling. AI safety work rewards people who ask sharp questions, document their reasoning and think about failure modes before they happen. Mix formal hires with apprentices, given apprenticeships have risen from 3 percent of AI hires in 2020 to 19 percent in 2025 per GOV.UK's AI Labour Market Survey 2025. And move quickly: with London accounting for 80 percent of AI-related job postings as The Register reported from Accenture data, strong people get multiple offers.
Write clear role scopes, define what safe means for your systems, and test for it in interviews. The specialist skills in shortest supply, including AI, data and cyber security flagged in Computer Weekly's 2026 outlook, reward employers who make it easy to apply and fast to respond.
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