data labeling jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-05-17, data labeling appears in 633 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — most often required for AI Data Specialist roles, with demand down 68% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-05-17
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Frequently asked questions about data labeling
+Is data labeling in demand in 2026?
Yes. data labeling appears in 633 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, with demand down 68% vs the prior 4 weeks. It is most often required for AI Data Specialist roles (10% of AI Data Specialist postings list it).
+What jobs require data labeling?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, the job titles most likely to require data labeling are AI Data Specialist (10% of postings list data labeling), Generative AI Engineer (6% of postings list data labeling), Machine Learning Engineer (6% of postings list data labeling).
+What skills are commonly paired with data labeling?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-05-17), data labeling most often appears alongside Python, machine learning, data annotation, data collection, data evaluation.
+Where is data labeling most in demand?
As of 2026-05-17, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring data labeling are San Francisco, New York City, Austin, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new data labeling content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning data labeling alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new data labeling content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring data labeling — last 90 days
Job titles most likely to require data labeling
| Role | Postings mentioning | % requiring |
|---|---|---|
| AI Data Specialist | 61 | 9.6% |
| Generative AI Engineer | 38 | 6.0% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 37 | 5.8% |
| AI Trainer | 35 | 5.5% |
| Software Engineer | 32 | 5.1% |
| Data Scientist | 23 | 3.6% |
| AI Data Annotator | 13 | 2.1% |
| AI Data Contributor | 13 | 2.1% |
| Data Collector | 13 | 2.1% |
| ML Engineer | 13 | 2.1% |
Top metros hiring for data labeling
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 61 | 39.4% |
| New York City | 37 | 23.9% |
| Austin | 13 | 8.4% |
| Mountain View | 10 | 6.5% |
| Sunnyvale | 9 | 5.8% |
| Palo Alto | 8 | 5.2% |
| Columbus | 6 | 3.9% |
| London | 6 | 3.9% |
| Redwood City | 5 | 3.2% |
Skills commonly paired with data labeling
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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
- 6210150622556b0b
- 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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