AI Engineer salary

What an ai engineer actually earns, from 895 live job postings blended with the official US OEWS (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) wage anchor. Pick a market for its median and range, then read the seniority split, the trend, and the country comparison below. Updated 2026-09-06.

Pay in6 markets measured
$141,460Median (blended)
$116,439$176,050Typical range (25th–75th)
3.3%Unemployment 2025

Switch the market above to see ai engineer pay in the 6 countries our sources cover, each with its own cost of living. The trend, seniority, and state detail below are United States data, where the official record runs deepest.

United States pay over time · 25th–75th band · official OEWS with the live 2026 read
Trend chart loads once the OEWS annual history is ingested. Current bands are shown below.

What the number means

An ai engineer earns a blended US median near 141,460 dollars, with the typical middle running from 116,439 dollars to 176,050 dollars. By seniority, posted pay runs from roughly 100,267 dollars to 136,436 dollars. Demand is rated high, and 7% of postings are fully remote. The nearest adjacent move on our skill graph is prompt engineer, at 62 percent coverage; the instrument maps the rest.

Open ai engineer roles

Live openings tagged to this occupation, from company career pages and remote boards. Apply at the source.

See all 393 ai engineer jobs

By seniority

Posted-median pay by seniority signal in the title, from our corpus. Noisy at the edges where sample sizes are small.

  • Mid$100,267
  • Senior$115,971
  • Lead$136,436

By country

  • United States$116,439$141,460$176,050
  • Canada$74,555$97,932$120,433
  • United Kingdom$80,312$95,506$124,444
  • France$58,399$68,678$89,788
  • Spain$87,599$91,979$118,922
  • India$14,093$18,791$25,576

Switzerland · official wage bands

median CHF 9'949/month

Swiss postings do not state pay, so these are not posted salaries: they are the federal wage survey (Lohnstrukturerhebung 2024) for the ISCO group 25 Spezialisten in der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie: standardized gross monthly, full-time, 13th salary included pro rata. The band covers the whole occupation group, which is coarser than this occupation alone.

  • P10CHF 6'592
  • P25CHF 8'079
  • MedianCHF 9'949
  • P75CHF 11'957
  • P90CHF 15'079

Annual ≈ CHF 119'388 at the median. Source: Bundesamt für Statistik, LSE 2024.

Roles that pay more, that these skills already reach

Median pay from each destination’s own postings, with the readiness an ai engineer profile already covers.

Every measured move out of this role, ranked by readiness: alternative careers for an ai engineer.

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Related salaries

Quick answers

How much does an ai engineer make?

The blended US median is about 141,460 dollars, with a typical range from 116,439 dollars to 176,050 dollars.

Is ai engineer a good career in 2026?

Demand for the role is rated high in our July 2026 corpus, with 7% of postings fully remote. The pay is shown above by seniority and by country.

What can an ai engineer move into?

The nearest adjacent role on our skill graph is prompt engineer, at 62 percent skill coverage. Run the instrument for the full set of reachable moves.

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Method: bands are the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of live US postings with stated pay, shrunk toward the official OEWS anchor by sample size (the “blended” figure). Trend is the OEWS annual median for SOC (Standard Occupational Classification) code null. Unemployment is the 2025 BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) CPS (Current Population Survey) annual-average rate for “Software developers.” Live corpus 895 observations, 2026-09-06. Definitions in the glossary.

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