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Career Advice

Salaries and Wages

Want a Raise? Learning This Skill Could Earn You Up to 62% More

Money; illustration AI-generated with Gemini

Artificial intelligence has sparked plenty of anxiety around the possibility of a job apocalypse. But there’s another side of the story — the roles and raises the technology may help create.

PwC’s latest AI Jobs Barometer found that jobs requiring AI skills offer an average 62% wage premium over similar roles that don’t require those skills. Those jobs are also growing nearly eight times faster than the overall labor market, suggesting employers are willing to pay more as demand for AI-savvy workers outpaces supply.

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And it’s not just software engineers or machine learning experts seeing the benefits. From office workers using generative AI tools to streamline everyday tasks to electricians and construction workers helping build the infrastructure powering the AI boom, opportunities are emerging across a wide range of industries.

Should ordinary workers learn AI?

If your boss can't stop talking about the importance of AI fluency, you're not alone. It seems to be the 'it' skill nowadays.

In a separate PwC survey of more than 1,000 executives at large financial firms, 91% of business leaders said they’re increasing pay for employees with AI expertise, while more than half (58%) said compensation will increasingly reflect how effectively workers use AI to improve productivity. More than 80% also said AI training is “more valuable” than an MBA for many entry-level hires.

The push for AI adoption also reflects a broader change in how employers evaluate talent. As technology reshapes the workplace, companies are placing more emphasis on the skills workers can bring to a role — not just the degrees or credentials they have earned — and their ability to learn and adapt.

For most workers, the value of AI skills comes less from building the technology and more from knowing how to apply it. That means incorporating it into your existing role to automate routine tasks and improve workflows so you can spend more time on work that requires human judgment.

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That's why companies aren't just looking to hire AI specialists; they're also investing in their existing employees. PwC found that nearly two-thirds (62%) of financial services firms plan to hire employees with AI-specific skills in the coming year, while 61% plan to upskill or reskill current employees.

“Workers should be spending time developing basic AI fluency,” says Sam DeMase, ZipRecruiter's career expert. “Knowing how to use AI to automate and streamline basic tasks frees up your time to leverage your uniquely human skills — especially innovation. Leveraging AI strategically saves you time, mitigates burnout, and frees you up to work on high-impact projects."

Those expectations are not isolated to the financial sector. ZipRecruiter’s latest AI Employer Report found that 74% of employers consider AI skills either a significant advantage or a requirement for at least some positions. Simply experimenting with tools like ChatGPT may not be enough to stand out.

“Workers who leverage AI to build scalable, high-impact systems differentiate themselves from the rest,” DeMase says.

Don’t let AI replace your judgment

AI skills may help workers stand out, but it can become a slippery slope if you let the machines do too much for you. Experts say the biggest mistake is treating the technology as a replacement for human expertise. “When we develop an overreliance on AI, our sense of human judgment and creativity declines,” DeMase says.

PwC's research points to a so-called "two-track labor market" where AI may make some jobs more valuable while making others easier to perform. In "professionalized" roles, AI acts as a tool that enhances human expertise — for example, helping an accountant analyze data more efficiently while leaving more time for actual client advice. By contrast, "democratized" roles are those where AI lowers the skill barrier for completing certain tasks, making it easier for non-experts to perform parts of the job. Think someone without advanced data analysis skills using AI to help organize a data set or pull insights from a spreadsheet. Professionalized jobs are currently seeing stronger growth, with job volume increasing twice as fast and wages growing 42% more than democratized roles since 2021.

“Innovation and human creativity are not replaceable," she adds. "It’s important to exercise those muscles at work daily."

If you do master blending AI use with critical thinking and other human skills, the data suggests that employers are willing to reward you. But that advantage may not last forever. As AI becomes a standard part of more workplaces, it's likely that learning how to work effectively with it could shift from a competitive edge to more of a career necessity — much like proficiency with email, spreadsheets and Microsoft Office did in previous decades.