data annotation jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-05-17, data annotation appears in 564 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — most often required for AI Data Specialist roles, with demand down 69% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-05-17
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Frequently asked questions about data annotation
+Is data annotation in demand in 2026?
Yes. data annotation appears in 564 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, with demand down 69% vs the prior 4 weeks. It is most often required for AI Data Specialist roles (12% of AI Data Specialist postings list it).
+What jobs require data annotation?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, the job titles most likely to require data annotation are AI Data Specialist (12% of postings list data annotation), AI Trainer (9% of postings list data annotation), AI Content Evaluator (7% of postings list data annotation).
+What skills are commonly paired with data annotation?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-05-17), data annotation most often appears alongside machine learning, data labeling, data collection, Python, quality assurance.
+Where is data annotation most in demand?
As of 2026-05-17, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring data annotation are San Francisco, London, Leisure World, Little Canada, Mountain View, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new data annotation content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning data annotation alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new data annotation content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring data annotation — last 90 days
Job titles most likely to require data annotation
| Role | Postings mentioning | % requiring |
|---|---|---|
| AI Data Specialist | 66 | 11.7% |
| AI Trainer | 51 | 9.0% |
| AI Content Evaluator | 39 | 6.9% |
| AI Data Annotator | 27 | 4.8% |
| Software Engineer | 22 | 3.9% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 18 | 3.2% |
| AI Data Contributor | 14 | 2.5% |
| Labeler / Annotator | 12 | 2.1% |
| Data Annotation Specialist | 11 | 2.0% |
| AI Evaluation Specialist | 9 | 1.6% |
Top metros hiring for data annotation
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 29 | 26.4% |
| London | 18 | 16.4% |
| Leisure World | 13 | 11.8% |
| Little Canada | 13 | 11.8% |
| Mountain View | 9 | 8.2% |
| New York City | 9 | 8.2% |
| Nairobi | 7 | 6.4% |
| Palo Alto | 6 | 5.5% |
| Paris | 6 | 5.5% |
Skills commonly paired with data annotation
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How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills).
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- a7ccce47304a1548
- data_as_of
- 2026-05-17
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
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