Banking professionals in the UAE who know how to work with artificial intelligence can now earn nearly double what colleagues in comparable roles make without those skills, a gap that signals how sharply employer demand has tilted toward AI competence across the Emirates.
That 92 percent salary advantage in financial services sits at the top of the wage premiums documented in PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, which tracked more than a billion job advertisements worldwide. Workers in technology, media and telecoms with AI skills earn 50 percent more than their peers, and the UAE registers a positive overall premium for AI-linked positions. PwC attributes these gaps largely to a scarcity of qualified candidates rather than to industries that simply pay well by nature.
The salary data points to a broader repositioning of the country’s labor market. Job listings that call for AI skills accounted for 3.2 percent of all UAE postings in 2025, up from 1.0 percent four years earlier. That expansion carried the country from 21st to 13th in global standings over the same stretch, placing it among the quickest-growing markets for AI talent anywhere.
In raw numbers, the count of UAE advertisements seeking AI abilities grew from roughly 4,600 in 2021 to 12,200 in 2025, with about 2,700 of those added in the final year alone. PwC reads the trajectory as evidence that firms across the Emirates have pushed past the trial stage and are folding AI into routine operations at a rate that outstrips many wealthier economies.
Much of that hiring targets people who deploy AI rather than construct it. Positions PwC labels “AI User” roles expanded 28 percent over the past year and now drive demand. Employees in these jobs turn commercial AI tools toward faster analysis, automated routine tasks and sharper decision-making. The effect widens the pool of occupations where AI matters well beyond conventional tech postings, so that companies increasingly want finance staff, marketers handling AI content systems, recruiters using AI screening and consultants weaving the technology into client engagements.
Recruitment activity confirms the spread. Every major UAE sector lifted its share of AI hiring during 2025. Technology, media and telecoms stayed the most AI-intensive field, while energy, professional services, financial services, healthcare and consumer businesses all widened their AI recruiting. Professional services and the energy, utilities and resources category remain the largest employers overall, at 16.7 percent and 19.4 percent of total postings respectively.
The pace of change also shows up in how quickly job requirements shift. PwC assigns the UAE’s AI-exposed occupations an average skills transformation score of 7.22, against a global figure of 4.47, an indication that workers here will need to refresh their capabilities more often. As AI absorbs repetitive work, the report says, employers place greater weight on judgment, creativity and problem-solving.
Globally, PwC found the firms most exposed to AI logged 40 percent stronger productivity growth than the least exposed, alongside faster hiring and quicker pay increases. The pattern, according to the report, comes from organizations using AI to lift what employees can accomplish rather than to cut positions. Skills tied to AI-exposed jobs are turning over at roughly twice the rate seen in less-exposed work, which for UAE professionals reframes AI proficiency as a basic condition of employability rather than a specialist credential reserved for engineers.
