AI hiring in Ireland doubles as adoption accelerates

New research shows that AI is rapidly reshaping the skills employers want most from workers – increasing the emphasis on human skills such as judgement, creativity and leadership.

PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer also shows that companies most able to use AI continue to expand hiring faster than their peers.

The barometer analysed more than one billion job ads across six continents, including Ireland.

It found that AI is driving a “two-track” global labour market with “professionalised” roles – in which AI automates routine tasks, placing greater emphasis on human judgement and expertise – are growing faster than roles “democratised” by AI – in which AI makes the role itself easier for non-experts to perform.

PwC said that AI hiring in Ireland almost doubled between 2024 and 2025 indicating increased AI adoption in the workforce.

As a result, the share of job postings requiring AI related skills reached 3.7% in 2025, up from around 2.3% in 2024.

It noted that jobs requiring specific AI skills are growing over five times (83%) faster since 2019 than the total jobs market (16%) in Ireland.

The research also shows that in Ireland, roles which include AI-related skills tend to be associated with higher advertised salaries, particularly in more AI-exposed industries such as technology and financial services.

These roles typically reflect a combination of in-demand capabilities, with AI skills acting as a key enabler that enhances productivity and complements other high-value expertise, PwC said.

Meanwhile, PwC said that more AI-exposed jobs are experiencing faster rates of skills transformation, with the most AI exposed jobs showing the largest skill shifts here.

It said that while AI user roles account for the majority of AI related jobs, growth has been strong across both AI user and developer roles – AI user roles increased 84% and AI developer roles increased 73% in 2025 over 2024 levels.

This stronger growth in user roles highlights that AI adoption is becoming increasingly widespread across the workforce, extending well beyond specialist technical roles and into the day-to-day work of a broad range of roles.

Laoise Mullane, Director, Workforce Consulting and AI Adoption Lead, PwC Ireland, said they are starting to see a clearer divergence in how organisations are using AI to create value across the global economy.

“Those seeing the strongest returns are using AI to amplify human expertise, accelerate innovation and unlock new sources of growth. As a result, they are pulling ahead not just on productivity, but on overall business performance, compared to those taking a more narrow, efficiency-led approach,” she said.

“In Ireland, we are seeing a similar pattern, with growing AI adoption across the workforce. However, the impact is more pronounced where organisations are using AI to rethink how work is done, rather than simply adding tools to existing processes,” she said.

“This means investing in skills and redesigning work to integrate AI in a meaningful way,” she stated.

Ms Mullane said that PwC’s recent AI Performance survey reinforces this, showing that leading organisations are significantly more likely to embed AI into how work is structured, rather than simply layering tools on top of existing processes.