data annotation jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-08-25, data annotation appears in 62 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — most often required for AI Trainer roles, with demand up 136% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-08-25
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Frequently asked questions about data annotation
+Is data annotation in demand in 2026?
Yes. data annotation appears in 62 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-08-25, with demand up 136% vs the prior 4 weeks. It is most often required for AI Trainer roles (45% of AI Trainer postings list it).
+What jobs require data annotation?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-08-25, the job titles most likely to require data annotation are AI Trainer (45% of postings list data annotation), Technical Program Manager (10% of postings list data annotation), Applied AI Engineer (3% of postings list data annotation).
+What skills are commonly paired with data annotation?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-08-25), data annotation most often appears alongside linguistics, educational resource development, human evaluation, language vetting, quality assurance.
+Where is data annotation most in demand?
As of 2026-08-25, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring data annotation are Leisure World, San Francisco, New York City, Santa Clara, Seattle, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new data annotation content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning data annotation alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new data annotation content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring data annotation — last 90 days
Job titles most likely to require data annotation
| Role | Postings mentioning | % requiring |
|---|---|---|
| AI Trainer | 28 | 45.2% |
| Technical Program Manager | 6 | 9.7% |
| Applied AI Engineer | 2 | 3.2% |
| Computer Vision Scientist | 2 | 3.2% |
| Data Annotation Specialist | 2 | 3.2% |
| Research Scientist | 2 | 3.2% |
| AI Data Annotation Specialist | 1 | 1.6% |
| AI Data Infrastructure/Pipeline Engineer | 1 | 1.6% |
| AI Red Teamer | 1 | 1.6% |
| AI Researcher | 1 | 1.6% |
Top metros hiring for data annotation
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Leisure World | 23 | 37.1% |
| San Francisco | 5 | 8.1% |
| New York City | 3 | 4.8% |
| Santa Clara | 3 | 4.8% |
| Seattle | 3 | 4.8% |
| India Hook | 2 | 3.2% |
| Little Canada | 2 | 3.2% |
| Redwood City | 2 | 3.2% |
| Columbus | 1 | 1.6% |
Skills commonly paired with data annotation
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Explore related pages
- AI Trainer
- Technical Program Manager
- Applied AI Engineer
- Computer Vision Scientist
- Data Annotation Specialist
- Research Scientist
- AI Data Annotation Specialist
- AI Data Infrastructure/Pipeline Engineer
- linguistics
- educational resource development
- human evaluation
- language vetting
- quality assurance
- Python
- machine learning
- Data labeling
How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-08-25. 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
- a7ccce47304a1548
- data_as_of
- 2026-08-25
- 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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