Key findings
- 1
Multilingual & Localization was the largest kind of AI training work, with 760 of 2,729 open roles (27.8%) on 30 Sep 2026.
- 2
Between 1 Sep 2026 and 30 Sep 2026, on the platforms tracked throughout, Transcription, Audio & Speech grew fastest, from 119 to 177 open roles (+48.7%); AI Evaluation & Rating (RLHF) shrank the most, from 222 to 168 (-24.3%).
- 3
OpenTrain AI listed the most roles, 30.3% of all open roles on 30 Sep 2026; the five largest platforms together listed 80.0%.
- 4
From 1 Sep 2026 to 30 Sep 2026, 1,588 roles were newly listed and 1,746 removed, a net fall of 158.
- 5
Roles removed during the window had been listed for a median of 31.9 days, from 10.3 days for Agentic Tasks & RL Environments to 67 for Multilingual & Localization.
- 6
37.7% of open roles accept applicants from any country; residents of United States (1,930), India (1,658) and Germany (1,485) could apply to the most.
Figure 1
Open roles by kind of work
What kinds of AI training work are platforms hiring for, and which are growing?
| Kind of work | Open on 30 Sep 2026 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Multilingual & Localization | 760 | 27.8% |
| Law, Medicine & Finance | 629 | 23.0% |
| Transcription, Audio & Speech | 339 | 12.4% |
| Coding & Software Evaluation | 251 | 9.2% |
| AI Evaluation & Rating (RLHF) | 227 | 8.3% |
| Math & STEM | 220 | 8.1% |
| Data Annotation & Labeling | 115 | 4.2% |
| Agentic Tasks & RL EnvironmentsSmall sample | 54 | 2.0% |
| Writing & ContentSmall sample | 41 | 1.5% |
| Robotics & Physical-AI DataSmall sample | 39 | 1.4% |
| Red-Teaming & AI SafetySmall sample | 38 | 1.4% |
| Research Studies & SurveysSmall sample | 16 | 0.6% |
Sample. 2,729 roles open at the end of 30 Sep 2026 and 1,591 at the start of 1 Sep 2026, across the 16 platforms whose public job boards AITraining.jobs reads daily.
A role counts as open on a day if it was listed by then and was still in its platform's feed that day.
Change compares the same platforms at both ends. Welo Data and OpenTrain AI were first tracked during the window and are counted in the end total (1,073 roles) but not in the change.
Change is marked as a small sample where fewer than 30 roles were open at the start.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition.
Figure 2
New and removed listings by kind of work
Where is new hiring happening, and where are roles being taken down?
| Kind of work | New listings | Removed |
|---|---|---|
| Law, Medicine & Finance | 406 | 552 |
| Multilingual & Localization | 237 | 187 |
| AI Evaluation & Rating (RLHF) | 222 | 311 |
| Transcription, Audio & Speech | 166 | 98 |
| Coding & Software Evaluation | 154 | 159 |
| Math & STEM | 111 | 107 |
| Data Annotation & Labeling | 79 | 125 |
| Red-Teaming & AI Safety | 71 | 75 |
| Agentic Tasks & RL Environments | 54 | 50 |
| Robotics & Physical-AI Data | 37 | 30 |
| Writing & Content | 34 | 43 |
| Research Studies & Surveys | 17 | 9 |
Sample. 1,588 roles newly listed and 1,746 removed, from 1 Sep 2026 to 30 Sep 2026, across the 16 platforms whose public job boards AITraining.jobs reads daily.
New listing: a role first seen in the window on a platform already tracked before that week. A platform's first week in this dataset is its back catalogue, not new hiring, and is left out.
Removed: a role that left its platform's feed during the window. Platforms do not say whether a removed role was filled, paused or closed.
Net change can differ from the change in open roles: a role newly listed and removed inside the window counts in both columns.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition.
Figure 4
How long roles stay listed
How long does an AI training role stay open before it comes down?
| Kind of work | Median days listed |
|---|---|
| All kinds of work | 31.9 |
| Multilingual & Localization | 67.0 |
| Transcription, Audio & Speech | 59.0 |
| Data Annotation & Labeling | 58.5 |
| Math & STEM | 44.1 |
| Robotics & Physical-AI DataSmall sample | 41.0 |
| Coding & Software Evaluation | 36.4 |
| Writing & Content | 31.7 |
| AI Evaluation & Rating (RLHF) | 31.0 |
| Law, Medicine & Finance | 28.7 |
| Red-Teaming & AI Safety | 17.2 |
| Agentic Tasks & RL Environments | 10.3 |
| Research Studies & SurveysSmall sample | 9.8 |
Sample. 1,719 roles removed from 1 Sep 2026 to 30 Sep 2026 whose listing date is known.
Days listed: from the listing date the job board states (or the first day the role appeared in the feed) to the last day it was seen.
Medians resting on fewer than 30 removed roles are marked as a small sample.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition.
Figure 5
New listings per week
Is hiring for AI training work speeding up or slowing down?
| Week | New listings |
|---|---|
| 1 to 6 SepPartial week | 287 |
| 7 to 13 Sep | 576 |
| 14 to 20 Sep | 217 |
| 21 to 27 Sep | 366 |
| 28 to 30 SepPartial week | 142 |
Sample. Listings on the 16 platforms whose public job boards AITraining.jobs reads daily, 1 Sep 2026 to 30 Sep 2026, by ISO week (Monday to Sunday, UTC).
Each platform's first week in this dataset is left out of new listings (its back catalogue).
A week the month cuts is labelled with the days it covers and marked as partial.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition.
Figure 6
Where applicants may live
How many AI training roles are open to applicants anywhere in the world?
| Location rule | Open roles | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Open worldwide | 1,029 | 37.7% |
| Worldwide except listed countries | 198 | 7.3% |
| Only listed countries | 1,501 | 55.0% |
| No rule stated | 1 | 0.0% |
Sample. 2,729 roles open at the end of 30 Sep 2026.
The rule is read from each posting's location text (and, where a posting is silent, from what the platform states about where it hires).
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition.
Figure 7
Open roles a resident of each country can apply to
Which countries can apply to the most AI training roles?
| Country | Open roles | Share of all open roles |
|---|---|---|
| Any country (worldwide roles only) | 1,029 | 37.7% |
| United States | 1,930 | 70.7% |
| India | 1,658 | 60.8% |
| Germany | 1,485 | 54.4% |
| United Kingdom | 1,484 | 54.4% |
| Pakistan | 1,480 | 54.2% |
| Canada | 1,462 | 53.6% |
| Philippines | 1,462 | 53.6% |
| Singapore | 1,461 | 53.5% |
| Indonesia | 1,459 | 53.5% |
| Malaysia | 1,456 | 53.4% |
| Thailand | 1,448 | 53.1% |
| Vietnam | 1,439 | 52.7% |
| France | 1,436 | 52.6% |
| Italy | 1,421 | 52.1% |
| Mexico | 1,421 | 52.1% |
| Sri Lanka | 1,420 | 52.0% |
| Spain | 1,416 | 51.9% |
| Switzerland | 1,409 | 51.6% |
| Belgium | 1,408 | 51.6% |
| Netherlands | 1,406 | 51.5% |
Sample. 2,729 roles open at the end of 30 Sep 2026; the 20 countries with the most.
A country's count is the roles open worldwide, plus roles whose list names the country, plus roles whose exclusion list does not.
1 role states no location rule and is counted for no country.
Only countries that some posting names are listed. A resident of any other country can apply to the worldwide roles in the first row.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition.
For labs, data vendors and researchers
Buy the data behind this report
The figures above are a summary. Behind them are records we collect ourselves, every day:
9,572 roles tracked, each with its history
Every role on 29 job boards, read daily since 13 Jul 2026: its pay and place, and the first and last day it was open.
6,200 apply clicks in 28 days
Which roles people actually apply to, by field, pay and kind of work. It happens on this site, so nobody else can count it.
39 lab and vendor hiring boards
The job boards of 25 AI labs and 14 human-data vendors, read every day: who is hiring for human data, and who is hiring to buy it.
What you can buy
The records
The rows behind any figure, with their history, not only the totals.
A regular feed
The same figures every week or month, as files.
A custom cut or benchmark
Your countries, languages or fields, or your own platform against the market.
Method and definitions
The public job boards of the AI training platforms this site tracks, read every day. Every figure is computed by one database query over the window shown, the same query for the live report and for every edition. Each figure states its sample beneath it.
- Coverage
- The platforms whose public job boards AITraining.jobs reads in full every day. Each figure states how many were read.
- Open role
- A role listed by a given day and still in its platform's feed that day.
- New listing
- A role that first appeared during the window on a platform already tracked before that week. A platform's first week in this dataset is its back catalogue and is not counted as new.
- Removed listing
- A role that left its platform's feed during the window.
- Days listed
- From a removed role's listing date to the last day it was seen in its feed.
- Kind of work
- Each role is classified from its title and description into one of the twelve kinds of AI training work this site tracks, from AI evaluation and coding to multilingual and audio work. Every kind links to its own page.
- Listing date
- The date the platform's job board gives for the posting, or else the first day the role appeared in the feed. A role that arrived with a platform's back catalogue and gives no date has no known listing date.
- Location rule
- Read from each posting's location text and, where that names no country, from what the posting's own description states: open worldwide, worldwide except listed countries, only listed countries, or no rule stated.
- Window
- Live: the last 28 complete days, in UTC. Edition: one calendar month, in UTC.
What this data cannot tell you
- Platforms that recruit without a public job board are not counted. Several large ones invite workers to projects directly.
- A listing is not a hire. Some platforms keep evergreen roles open for months, and some post one listing per language or country.
- A removed listing may have been filled, paused or closed: platforms do not say which.
- Duplicate postings of the same role are merged when the feeds are read.
How the job feeds are read and roles are classified: site methodology. How fresh, complete and consistent the data is, checked every day: data quality and coverage.
Editions
The live report covers the last 28 complete days and changes every day. Each complete month is also published as an edition, frozen two days after the month ends, so a figure you cite from an edition never moves.
- Live dataLast 28 complete days, recomputed daily
- September 2026 editionFrozen 10 Oct 2026
- August 2026 editionFrozen 10 Oct 2026
Cite and reuse
Free to quote, chart and republish under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. This edition is frozen, so its figures will read the same later.
Citation
AITraining.jobs (2026). AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition. https://www.aitraining.team/research/hiring-activity/2026-09
BibTeX
@misc{aitrainingjobs_hiring_activity_2026_09,
author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
title = {AI Training Hiring Activity, September 2026 edition},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.aitraining.team/research/hiring-activity/2026-09}},
}More research
- AI Training Platforms ComparedHow do the AI training platforms compare on listings, pay, reach and turnover?Read the report
- The AI Training Jobs IndexIs the market for human AI training work growing, week by week?Read the report
- AI Training Market ConcentrationHow many platforms compete for each kind of AI training work, and how much of it does the leader hold?Read the report
- How Long AI Training Roles Stay OpenHow long do AI training roles stay listed, and which kinds of work turn over fastest?Read the report
- When AI Training Roles Are PostedWhen are AI training roles posted, and when do people apply?Read the report
- Where AI Labs Are Pushing: The Expertise Being Hired, Week by WeekWhich kinds of expertise are AI training platforms hiring more of, week by week?Read the report
- AI Training Vendor HealthWhich AI training platforms are growing, holding or shrinking their hiring, and how are their rates moving?Read the report
- The State of AI Training PayWhat does AI training work pay, by kind of work and by platform?Read the report