If finding a new job is on your to-do list in 2026, you might want to start with AI.
Artificial intelligence engineers top LinkedIn’s annual Jobs on the Rise list, which ranks the fastest-growing roles in the US over the past three years. The newly released findings also offer a snapshot of where employers are still hiring, from tech and infrastructure to sales and healthcare.
Just as AI appears to be buoying the stock market, it’s also supporting demand in various sectors of the labor market. There’s other welcome news for desk workers who have faced years of sluggish hiring: Not all of the AI roles are wholly technical.
The category of AI consultants and strategists was the second-fastest-growing in LinkedIn’s review.
That’s an indication that integrating AI more deeply into the workplace will require people whose expertise isn’t solely technical, said Laura Lorenzetti, a senior director at LinkedIn who worked on the list.
“There is also this whole adjacent system of how you implement AI; how you do culture change around AI; how you get people to really adapt and use it,” she told Business Insider.
Other roles related to AI also feature prominently on the ranking of fast-growing jobs. Data annotators, who help train and refine AI systems, were fourth on the list, while AI and machine learning researchers came in at No. 5.
Not all of the top spots were directly tied to AI, however. The third-fastest-growing job type was “new home sales specialists,” while healthcare reimbursement specialists were sixth.
More applications per role
Alongside the list, LinkedIn also reported on Wednesday that, in a November survey, more than half of workers — 56% — said they planned to look for a new job in 2026, although about three-quarters of respondents felt unprepared to do so.
They cited reasons such as being unsure about how to stand out or not being ready for how technology is shifting in-demand skills.
In a prior LinkedIn survey from about a year ago, a similar share of workers signaled their intent to hunt for a job — a reminder that looking isn’t the same as landing.
More than six in 10 of the 2,000 respondents said that finding a job had grown more challenging over the prior year. They cited factors such as competition, skills gaps, and uncertainty over which jobs they might be qualified for.
Other LinkedIn data highlighted the challenges in the job market for many people: The number of applicants per open role has, on average, more than doubled since the spring of 2022, while hiring was 23% below pre-pandemic levels as of November.
Giving up on full-time work
The difficulty in finding work, especially after years of cuts in Big Tech and as firms ramp up investments in AI, is causing some to reconsider their approach to their job hunt. Nearly half of job seekers — 46% — said in the survey that they’d gone from looking for full-time work to freelance, contract, or advising gigs.
Led by Gen Z, nearly one in five professionals who reported being unable to find a new job in 2025 said they had shifted to freelance or consulting work, or had started their own business.
That could be one reason the job title “founder” is surging on LinkedIn profiles — and appearing on the list of fastest-growing jobs for the first time, in the ninth spot.
LinkedIn reported in December that the share of US users who added founder to their profile had jumped 69% from the prior year.
“People are seeing that as a way to own their career and own their next step,” said Lorenzetti, referring to the interest in entrepreneurship.
Here are the 25 fastest-growing roles in the US, according to LinkedIn:
- AI engineers
- AI consultants & strategists
- New home sales specialists
- Data annotators
- AI/ML researchers
- Healthcare reimbursement specialists
- Strategic advisors & independent consultants
- Advertising sales specialists
- Founders
- Sales executives
- Commissioning managers
- Venture partners
- Field marketing representatives
- Fundraising officers
- Background investigators
- Business development executives
- Data center technicians
- Travel advisors
- Psychiatric nurse practitioners
- Quantitative researchers & analysts
- Financial advisors & planners
- Construction project leads
- Legal researchers
- Public affairs specialists
- Benefits advisors
Read the full article here
