data labeling jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-09-01, data labeling appears in 761 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — most often required for Generative AI Specialist roles, with demand down 49% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-09-01
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Frequently asked questions about data labeling
+Is data labeling in demand in 2026?
Yes. data labeling appears in 761 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-09-01, with demand down 49% vs the prior 4 weeks. It is most often required for Generative AI Specialist roles (7% of Generative AI Specialist postings list it).
+What jobs require data labeling?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-01, the job titles most likely to require data labeling are Generative AI Specialist (7% of postings list data labeling), Data Labeling Analyst (6% of postings list data labeling), AI Tutor (4% of postings list data labeling).
+What skills are commonly paired with data labeling?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-09-01), data labeling most often appears alongside machine learning, Python, data annotation, Large language models (LLMs), fine-tuning.
+Where is data labeling most in demand?
As of 2026-09-01, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring data labeling are San Francisco, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, New York City, Paris, 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
Salary distribution
Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized
Job titles most likely to require data labeling
| Role | Postings mentioning | % requiring |
|---|---|---|
| Generative AI Specialist | 54 | 7.1% |
| Data Labeling Analyst | 44 | 5.8% |
| AI Tutor | 34 | 4.5% |
| Machine Learning Engineer | 31 | 4.1% |
| AI Training Expert | 22 | 2.9% |
| Software Engineer | 20 | 2.6% |
| AI Data Contributor | 17 | 2.2% |
| AI Quality Evaluator | 16 | 2.1% |
| Data Analyst | 15 | 2.0% |
| Data Scientist | 15 | 2.0% |
Top metros hiring for data labeling
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 33 | 4.3% |
| Mountain View | 19 | 2.5% |
| Sunnyvale | 16 | 2.1% |
| New York City | 15 | 2.0% |
| Paris | 9 | 1.2% |
| Berlin | 7 | 0.9% |
| Boston | 7 | 0.9% |
| Palo Alto | 6 | 0.8% |
| Washington | 5 | 0.7% |
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 2026-09-01. 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
- 2026-09-01
- 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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