Dive Brief:
- Machine learning engineers experienced a median salary growth of 6% year over year, more than double the 2.8% growth seen among copy editors, according to global staffing firm Aquent’s 2026 Salary Guide — highlighting the “stark divide” between in-demand roles and stagnating ones.
- The report, which tracks salary for marketing, creative and technology professionals in the U.S. and Canada, found that data scientists, data engineers and technical leads are among the fastest-growing roles, with year-over-year growth rates of between 5% and 5.5%, and median annual salaries of $131,935, $113,684 and $136,651, respectively.
- Leadership roles at the enterprise level, meaning at companies with 10,000 or more employees, saw the sharpest pay increases, with median base salaries registering 8.6% higher on average than at large companies. Overall director level and higher salary growth was 4.4% in the U.S. and 3.8% in Canada, per the report.
Dive Insight:
Year-over-year salary growth for individual contributors and managers has returned to pre-pandemic levels, at 3.8%, per Aquent. That figure is aligned with August data from compensation vendor Payscale that projected U.S. salary budget increases to remain steady at 3.5% in 2026, down 0.1% from 2025.
At enterprise companies, Aquent found that overall median base salaries in the U.S. were 42.8% higher than at large companies, on average.
The salary guide highlighted a disparity between growth areas and stagnating roles, according to a news release from Aquent. AI-adjacent skills, which were once considered “niche,” have become the primary drivers of compensation growth, the company said, while roles that are seen as “less connected to digital transformation,” as well as “roles easily replaced by automated tools” are seeing slower salary growth momentum.
“AI isn’t just reshaping jobs, it’s intensifying the competition for scarce skills,” John Chuang, CEO of Aquent, said in the release. “The fastest salary growth is flowing to roles that combine technical depth with the ability to apply AI at scale, and that gap will only widen. Business leaders must understand which skills will drive performance, and how to attract, retain and deploy that talent before competitors.”
At the leadership level, companies value employees “who can manage large and complex projects” while simultaneously implementing emerging technologies into business operations, per the release. The highest-growing roles at the director level or higher saw between 5.5% and 6% year-over-year growth, including CTO/head of engineering, with a median annual salary of $434,453; CMO/head of marketing, with a median annual salary of $417,881; and VP of engineering/software development, with a median annual salary of $395,396.
Aquent’s research also found a new category of high-paying emerging roles built around AI strategy and implementation. In this segment, AI product managers were the highest-paid, with a median base salary of $162,000. Other high-paying roles included natural language processing engineer, with a median base salary of $155,623; blockchain engineer, with a median base salary of $135,439; and AI domain specialist/trainer, with a median base salary of $115,000.
Aquent suggested that organizations align their pay framework with skills that drive AI performance, while strengthening their talent pipeline, because “slow entry-level wage growth threatens future leadership development,” per the release.
In addition, the report suggested that companies prioritize salary transparency to build trust and stay ahead of the sweeping wave of states with pay transparency laws.
Economic anxiety has become a top-of-mind concern for workers in 2026, according to Monster’s 2026 WorkWatch Report, which found that 73% of workers cited increased salary as one of their top priorities for the coming year.