The number of AI-related job vacancies in Switzerland surged to a record 25,000 in 2025, up by approximately 9,000 year-on-year, while globally, workers with AI skills now command an average wage premium of 62% over those without, according to PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, released Monday.
The annual report, which analysed more than one billion job advertisements across 27 countries, paints a picture of a labour market being fundamentally reshaped by artificial intelligence, and Switzerland is no exception.
In Switzerland, AI-related job postings rose from approximately 16,000 in 2024 to 25,000 in 2025, reaching their highest level on record. The growth rate of around 56% in a single year marks a sharp acceleration after a period of stabilisation: postings had peaked at 23,000 in 2022, dipped in 2023, and partially recovered to 20,000 in 2024.
Despite the record total, the figures also highlight how nascent AI hiring still is relative to the broader labour market. AI-related roles account for just 1.8% of all job postings in Switzerland. This means that for every AI job advertised, more than 54 non-AI jobs are being filled. The country is generating AI talent at scale, but the overall economy remains overwhelmingly composed of roles that do not yet require explicit AI skills.
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The Global Picture: A Two-Track Labour Market
PwC’s global findings introduce a concept that has significant implications for Swiss workers and employers: AI is splitting the labour market into two distinct tracks.
“Professionalised” roles such as radiologists, engineers or recruiters, are those in which AI automates routine tasks, amplifying the value of human expertise and judgement. These roles are growing faster in headcount and salary than the broader market.
“Democratised” roles such as IT service managers or medical secretaries, are those in which AI makes the job itself easier to perform without deep specialist knowledge, reducing the scarcity value of workers doing them. These roles are growing more slowly and seeing slower wage growth.
The gap between the two tracks is widening. Companies most exposed to AI recorded headcount growth of 52% since 2018, compared with 36% for the least AI-exposed. The top 20% of AI-adopting companies achieved labour productivity growth of 163% since 2018, nearly five times higher than the broader AI-exposed cohort.
The Wage Premium
For individual workers, the financial incentive to develop AI skills has never been greater. The average wage premium for roles requiring specific AI skills hit 62% globally in 2025, up from 57% the previous year. In some sectors, the premium reaches as high as 118% in consumer markets, while the public sector remains at the lower end, at around 16%.
AI-specific job postings, roles explicitly requiring skills such as prompt engineering or machine learning, are growing at roughly eight times the rate of total job postings globally: 69% growth versus 9% for the overall market.
As AI Jobs In Switzerland Rise, A Warning for Early-Career Workers
PwC’s Global Chief AI Officer Joe Atkinson said the findings point to a new divide: “The companies seeing the greatest returns on AI are using it to amplify human expertise, accelerate innovation and create entirely new sources of value.”
One of the more striking findings in this year’s barometer concerns entry-level roles. Based on analysis of 2.4 million entry-level job advertisements in the United States, PwC found that junior roles most exposed to AI are now seven times more likely to require traditionally senior-level skills, such as leadership, creativity, and face-to-face interactions, than entry-level roles less affected by AI.
Those “seniorised” entry-level roles grew by 35% since 2019, while other entry-level roles shrank by 10%. The implication is that AI is compressing the traditional apprenticeship ladder: the routine tasks that once helped junior workers develop expertise are increasingly being automated, raising the bar for those entering the workforce.
