Australian workers with genuine AI skills are now commanding a 62 per cent wage premium, and the gap between AI-exposed employers and everyone else is widening fast.
That is the headline from PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, an annual analysis the firm frames this year around “two futures” for work: one where AI augments people and lifts their pay, and one where it hollows roles out. For Australia, the data leans firmly toward the first story, at least for those with the right skills.
The Australian numbers
Employers most exposed to AI are pulling away. According to PwC’s Australian findings, their headcounts have soared 52 per cent while wages have lifted 24 per cent, outpacing less AI-exposed firms on both measures. The wage premium for workers with specific AI skills sits at 62 per cent, up from 57 per cent a year earlier, with the richest premiums in technology, media and telecommunications, manufacturing, and financial services.
Demand is broadening, too. AI-related job postings in Australia climbed from about 20,000 in 2024 to 41,000 in 2025, following several years of flat growth. The pattern echoes the global picture, where jobs requiring AI skills have grown roughly eight times faster than the overall market.
Not just prompt engineers
The more interesting finding is what employers are paying for. PwC’s data shows the most AI-exposed businesses seeing stronger productivity growth alongside rising demand for distinctly human capabilities: judgement, creativity and empathy. In other words, the premium is not only for people who can operate the models, but for people who can pair them with skills the models lack. The firm’s global chief AI officer has described the emerging split as “a new divide”, between the workers and firms that harness AI and those left behind.
Why it matters
For Australian workers and employers, the barometer turns a vague anxiety into a concrete incentive. AI fluency is now measurably rewarded in the pay packet, and organisations that build it across their teams are growing faster than those that do not. That is precisely the case for treating workforce AI training as core capability rather than a nice-to-have. The uncomfortable flip side is the divide itself: the same data that promises higher wages for the AI-skilled implies a widening gap for those who never get the chance to reskill.
Sources: PwC Australia and PwC Global, 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer.
