Key findings
- 2
32 open roles state no arrangement in their title, location or workplace field, 62.5% of them at TransPerfect DataForce, so the remote share is a floor.
- 3
Research Studies & Surveys has the largest on-site share of any kind of work with at least 10 open roles (14.7%, 5 roles); 7 kinds of work have any on-site roles at all.
- 5
On-site roles are open in 7 countries; the United States has the most (57, 68.7%), and the place named most is the San Francisco Bay Area (48 roles).
- 6
Read from their titles, the largest groups of on-site roles are in-person data collection (22 roles, 26.5%) and data labelling and quality work (16, 19.3%).
- 7
Within the same kind of work, on-site roles advertise 17.4% more than remote ones on average (weighted by on-site roles, across 3 kinds of work with at least 8 priced roles on each side: Law, Medicine & Finance $85 against $70, Data Annotation & Labeling $34 against $25 and Transcription, Audio & Speech $28 against $30).
- 8
On the platforms tracked throughout, on-site roles went from 77 on 20 Sep 2026 to 83 on 17 Oct 2026 (+7.8%), with 23 new on-site listings in the window.
Figure 1
On-site, remote or not stated, by kind of work
Which kinds of AI training work have to be done at a site rather than from home?
| Kind of work | On-site or hybrid | Remote | Not stated |
|---|---|---|---|
| All kinds of work | 2.3% | 96.9% | 0.9% |
| Research Studies & Surveys | 14.7% | 85.3% | 0.0% |
| Data Annotation & Labeling | 13.7% | 84.2% | 2.2% |
| Transcription, Audio & Speech | 2.9% | 95.2% | 1.9% |
| Multilingual & Localization | 2.5% | 96.9% | 0.6% |
| AI Evaluation & Rating (RLHF) | 2.1% | 97.2% | 0.7% |
| Robotics & Physical-AI Data | 1.5% | 96.9% | 1.5% |
| Law, Medicine & Finance | 1.4% | 97.8% | 0.8% |
| Agentic Tasks & RL Environments | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Coding & Software Evaluation | 0.0% | 99.6% | 0.4% |
| Red-Teaming & AI Safety | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Math & STEM | 0.0% | 99.5% | 0.5% |
| Writing & Content | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
Sample. 3,668 roles open at the end of 17 Oct 2026; 83 on-site or hybrid.
On-site or hybrid: the title or location names a site ('Onsite', 'On-site London', 'In-person', 'Hybrid'), or a job board that publishes a workplace field (Lever, Ashby, Mercor's own board) marks the role not remote. Remote: the title or location says remote, or the board flags the role remote.
Not stated: neither the title, the location nor a workplace field says how the work is done. Most such roles are country-level freelance listings whose full description says remote further down, so both the on-site and the remote shares are floors, not estimates of the rest.
Hybrid roles are counted with on-site ones: the listing fields do not separate them.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, On-Site AI Training Work, live data.
Figure 2
On-site, remote or not stated, by platform
Which platforms list AI training work that has to be done in person?
| Platform | On-site or hybrid | Remote | Not stated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Welo Data | 14.0% | 86.0% | 0.0% |
| TransPerfect DataForce | 30.3% | 39.4% | 30.3% |
| Mercor | 6.1% | 93.9% | 0.0% |
| Sigma AI | 13.3% | 86.7% | 0.0% |
| Handshake AI | 2.4% | 97.6% | 0.0% |
| Invisible | 0.0% | 99.8% | 0.2% |
| Alignerr | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| SuperAnnotate (SME) | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Mindrift | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| micro1 | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| AfterQuery | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Turing | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Anyone AI | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Braintrust | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Perle Labs | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Claru | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Appen | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Babel Audio | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| OpenTrain AI | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| RemoExperts | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| OneForma | 0.0% | 95.8% | 4.2% |
| Terac | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Sovrano AI | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Vetto | 0.0% | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| xAI (SpaceXAI) | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Pasiflora AISmall sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Outlier (Scale AI)Small sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| Pila8Small sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| RemotasksSmall sample | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
Sample. 3,668 roles open at the end of 17 Oct 2026, by the platform that lists them (listings, not hires).
On-site or hybrid: the title or location names a site ('Onsite', 'On-site London', 'In-person', 'Hybrid'), or a job board that publishes a workplace field (Lever, Ashby, Mercor's own board) marks the role not remote. Remote: the title or location says remote, or the board flags the role remote.
Not stated: neither the title, the location nor a workplace field says how the work is done. Most such roles are country-level freelance listings whose full description says remote further down, so both the on-site and the remote shares are floors, not estimates of the rest.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, On-Site AI Training Work, live data.
Figure 3
Where on-site AI training roles are, by country
In which countries is in-person AI training work open?
| Country | On-site roles | Share of on-site roles |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 57 | 68.7% |
| United Kingdom | 14 | 16.9% |
| India | 6 | 7.2% |
| Spain | 2 | 2.4% |
| Singapore | 2 | 2.4% |
| France | 1 | 1.2% |
| Norway | 1 | 1.2% |
Sample. 83 on-site or hybrid roles open at the end of 17 Oct 2026, by the country their location names.
Read from the location text the posting publishes. A role open at sites in two countries counts once in each, so shares can add up to more than 100%.
A city's country is taken from the location itself (the country or US state beside it, or the one country its list names). Two capital letters after a city are read as a US state. A city that cannot be matched is listed with no country.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, On-Site AI Training Work, live data.
Figure 4
Cities with on-site AI training roles
Which cities have the most in-person AI training work?
| City or metro area | Country | On-site roles | Naming only this city |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco Bay Area | United States | 48 | 20 |
| Seattle area | United States | 34 | 6 |
| Los Angeles | United States | 27 | 1 |
| New York City | United States | 27 | 0 |
| London | United Kingdom | 14 | 14 |
| Austin | United States | 8 | 0 |
| Pune | India | 4 | 4 |
| Washington, D.C. | United States | 3 | 0 |
| Barcelona | Spain | 2 | 2 |
| Hyderabad | India | 2 | 2 |
| Singapore | Singapore | 2 | 2 |
| Atlanta | United States | 1 | 1 |
| Bergen | Norway | 1 | 1 |
| Paris | France | 1 | 1 |
| San Diego | United States | 1 | 1 |
| Chicago | United States | 1 | 0 |
Sample. 83 of the 83 on-site roles open at the end of 17 Oct 2026 name a city; the 25 cities named most.
A role that may be worked at any of several sites counts once in each city, so 'Naming only this city' counts the roles tied to that city alone.
Cities of one metropolitan area are merged: Sunnyvale, Burlingame, Santa Clara and San Francisco count as the San Francisco Bay Area; Redmond and Bellevue as the Seattle area; Brooklyn as New York City.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, On-Site AI Training Work, live data.
Figure 5
What on-site AI training roles are
What do the AI training roles that must be done in person involve?
| Work, read from the title | On-site roles | Share of on-site roles |
|---|---|---|
| In-person data collection (studies, recording sessions and their moderators) | 22 | 26.5% |
| Data labelling and data quality | 16 | 19.3% |
| Domain expert evaluation | 14 | 16.9% |
| Linguistic and language projects | 14 | 16.9% |
| Speech and voice analysis | 12 | 14.5% |
| Model policy and safety evaluation | 4 | 4.8% |
| Robotics data collection and engineering | 1 | 1.2% |
Sample. 83 on-site or hybrid roles open at the end of 17 Oct 2026.
Each role counts once, in the first group whose words its title contains, in the order listed in the method (robotics first, then data collection, speech and voice, labelling, linguistic, policy, expert work).
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, On-Site AI Training Work, live data.
Figure 6
Advertised pay of on-site and remote roles, within each kind of work
Does in-person AI training work advertise more than remote work of the same kind?
| Kind of work | On-site median (per hour) | Remote median (per hour) | On-site against remote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law, Medicine & Finance | $85 | $70 | +21.4% |
| Data Annotation & Labeling | $34 | $25 | +36.0% |
| Transcription, Audio & Speech | $28 | $30 | -7.7% |
| Multilingual & LocalizationSmall sample | n/a | $65 | n/a |
| AI Evaluation & Rating (RLHF)Small sample | n/a | $51 | n/a |
| Robotics & Physical-AI DataSmall sample | n/a | $10 | n/a |
| Research Studies & SurveysSmall sample | n/a | $100 | n/a |
Sample. Roles open at the end of 17 Oct 2026 that state an hourly rate, in the kinds of work with on-site roles.
Medians need at least 8 roles stating a rate on each side; the comparison is made within each kind of work so the mix of work is not read as a premium.
On-site roles advertising an annual salary, a fee per session or no figure are not in the medians.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, On-Site AI Training Work, live data.
Figure 7
On-site roles over the window, like for like
Is in-person AI training work growing or shrinking?
| Work arrangement | Open on 20 Sep 2026 | Open on 17 Oct 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-site or hybrid | 77 | 83 | +7.8% |
| Remote | 2,494 | 2,586 | +3.7% |
| Not stated | 24 | 21 | -12.5% |
| All roles | 2,595 | 2,690 | +3.7% |
Sample. Roles open at the start of 20 Sep 2026 and at the end of 17 Oct 2026 on the platforms tracked throughout; new listings over the whole window.
Open counts compare only platforms tracked before the window opened, so a platform added during it does not read as growth.
New listings: roles first seen in the window on a platform already tracked before that week (a platform's first week is its back catalogue).
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, On-Site AI Training Work, live data.
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The public job boards of the AI training platforms this site tracks, read every day: each open role's title, its location text and the workplace field its board publishes. 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.
- On-site or hybrid
- The role must be done at a named place at least part of the week: its title or location says so ('Onsite', 'On-site London', 'In-person', 'Hybrid'), or a job board that publishes a workplace field of its own (Lever, Ashby, Mercor's board) marks it not remote. Hybrid roles are counted here because the listing fields do not separate them from on-site ones.
- Remote
- The role's title or location says remote (or work from home, worldwide), or its board flags it remote.
- Not stated
- Neither the title, the location nor a workplace field says how the work is done. On most boards the stored remote flag is inferred from the word 'remote' near the top of the posting, so a missing word is not read as on-site.
- City or metro area
- Read from the location text: a city's country is the country or US state beside it, or the one country its list names, never guessed. Cities of one metropolitan area are merged (Sunnyvale and Burlingame count as the San Francisco Bay Area, Redmond as the Seattle area). A role open at several sites counts once in each.
- Work, read from the title
- Each on-site role falls in the first of these groups whose words its title contains: robotics; in-person data collection (collection, study, recording, participants, moderators); speech and voice; labelling and data quality; linguistic projects; policy and safety evaluation; domain expert work; other.
- Advertised pay
- The hourly figure a posting states (the middle of a stated range), compared within each kind of work. Medians need at least 8 roles stating a rate on each side.
- 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.
- Open role
- A role listed by a given day and still in its platform's feed that day.
- Window
- Live: the last 28 complete days, in UTC. Edition: one calendar month, in UTC.
What this data cannot tell you
- Both shares are floors. When this report was built (10 Oct 2026), a check of the full descriptions of the largest group of 'not stated' roles found nearly all of them say remote further down the posting, and a few postings that require an on-site session say so only in their description.
- Hybrid and fully on-site roles cannot be told apart from the listing fields: descriptions of some roles counted on-site ask for on-site days each week rather than every day.
- Location text says where a role is worked or where its applicants must live, and the two are not always distinguishable; two capital letters after a city are read as a US state.
- Platforms that recruit without a public job board are not counted. Several large ones invite workers to in-person studies directly.
- A listing is not a hire, and some platforms post one listing per language or site, which weighs a city with many such listings more.
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.
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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.
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- 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. Live figures change daily: cite a monthly edition for numbers that will read the same later, or keep the access date.
Citation
AITraining.jobs (2026). On-Site AI Training Work (live data, 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026). https://www.aitraining.team/research/on-site-ai-training-work (accessed 18 Oct 2026)
BibTeX
@misc{aitrainingjobs_on_site_ai_training_work_live,
author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
title = {On-Site AI Training Work (live data, 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.aitraining.team/research/on-site-ai-training-work}},
note = {Accessed 18 Oct 2026},
}More research
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