Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning roles now account for the largest share of job openings at major U.S. companies, according to a February 2026 report on corporate hiring trends.
The study was conducted by digital business card provider Wave Connect and looked at 400 recent job postings from eight large employers.
These include NVIDIA, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Mastercard. Researchers analyzed 50 job openings from each company, grouping roles into standard categories and comparing salaries, availability, and search interest.
Research, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) roles account for 18.25% of all job openings surveyed. This equates to 73 roles, or nearly one in five vacancies.
There are 5,736 such positions in the U.S. job market overall. These jobs have the highest average pay, at $275,000 per year. Employers typically look for skills in Python, TensorFlow, or PyTorch, data analysis, and deep learning. The report also shows 75,200 monthly searches for these roles.
Software engineering follows with 17.5% of job openings, with 70 roles listed at surveyed companies. The average salary is $260,000. However, the competition is much higher. More than 700,000 people are looking for software engineering jobs every month.
Hardware and engineering roles, including silicon and chip design, account for 14.25% of vacancies. The companies surveyed had 57 such positions listed, with an average salary of $245,000.
There are approximately 40,000 similar job openings nationwide. However, only about 33,000 people search for it each month. This gap suggests that demand exceeds interest.
Product and program management positions account for 11.25% of vacancies. 8 companies listed 45 positions in this category. The average salary reaches $230,000. In addition to these companies, there are nearly 27,000 similar jobs available across the country. Interest in search is high, with nearly 350,000 monthly queries.
Infrastructure, IT, cloud, network, security, and data center roles account for 8.5% of corporate hiring. The company posted 34 jobs with an average salary of $235,000. There are approximately 4,000 equivalent roles on the market. Still, about 250,000 people are looking for these jobs every month, and it’s hard to get in.
Other categories show lower demand. Customer support and service positions account for 7.5% of job openings and have an average salary of $95,000.
Operations, manufacturing and quality roles follow at 7.25%, with salaries around $135,000. Sales and business development roles account for 6.25%, with an average salary of $210,000.
Data and analytics roles account for 3.25% of job openings and offer approximately $220,000. Legal, corporate, human resources, policy, and compliance roles are the lowest at 3%, with an average salary of $200,000.
George El-Hage, founder and CEO of Wave Connect, said more than 1 million Americans seek jobs in the legal, human resources and compliance fields each month. However, these roles only account for 3% of company vacancies and are not in high demand in the broader market.
“What this tells us is that jobs that were popular a few years ago are not necessarily still available today. However, many of us are still unaware of this. Therefore, it may be worth looking into where companies actually post jobs and adjusting your job search accordingly. ”
