AI is creating some of the fastest-growing, highest-paying jobs in the labour market. The typical AI role in the US lists $177,000 in compensation, more than double the $80,000 offered for non-AI positions. Postings have roughly doubled since 2023. The opportunity is real — and it is not reaching women.
This sits alongside other research showing the AI job market is bifurcating sharply. Young workers who can land AI roles are thriving, while those who cannot face the toughest job market in years. But LinkedIn’s new data reveals a second divide — gender — that cuts across every age group and career stage.
New LinkedIn research, published August 18, finds that women accounted for just 26% of US AI hires in 2025, compared with 50% of hires into non-AI occupations. The gap widens at the top: across 27 countries, women hold only 13% of C-suite AI leadership roles at AI companies. The data covers both the rapid expansion of AI jobs and the barriers preventing those opportunities from reaching everyone equally.
What is LinkedIn’s AI hiring research?
LinkedIn analysed its platform’s hiring data across the US and 27 countries to track who is getting hired into AI roles, what those roles pay, and how the gender and education composition of the AI workforce compares to the broader labour market. The research is part of LinkedIn’s ongoing series examining how AI is reshaping the job market, and it draws on the platform’s data on job postings, member profiles, and hiring patterns.
The Numbers Behind the Gap
The headline figure is stark enough. But the detail is worse:
- Women hold only 20% of Head of AI roles and 26% of Director of AI positions.
- At the technical level, women account for just 18% of “Member of Technical Staff” hires — one of the most common entry points into AI engineering.
- Women’s share in AI roles is approximately 10 percentage points lower than their share in non-AI roles across the board.
- The “AI company penalty”: women make up roughly 5 percentage points less of the workforce at AI-focused companies than at comparable non-AI companies.
- The “leadership penalty”: the gender gap is approximately 15 percentage points wider for C-suite roles than for roles below the executive level.
The pipeline narrows at multiple stages, with the biggest drop appearing at leadership. Women are not just underrepresented at the top — they are progressively squeezed out as they move up.
Education Reinforces the Divide
AI jobs remain heavily concentrated among workers with university degrees. LinkedIn found that 91% of AI workers hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. In the best-paid AI occupations — Head of AI, Director of AI, and Member of Technical Staff — that figure rises above 95%.
This creates a double barrier. A worker without a degree is largely locked out of AI roles regardless of skill. A woman with a degree is still competing in a hiring environment where her representation drops with every rung on the ladder.
The DataCamp analysis of two million job postings found that AI engineering roles grew 255% year on year — the highest growth rate of any role analysed. The demand is extraordinary. The question is who gets to fill it.
What Is Driving the Gap
LinkedIn’s research does not attribute the gap to a single cause. The data suggests multiple compounding factors:
Pipeline supply. Women remain underrepresented in computer science and engineering programmes, the most common educational pathways into AI roles. This is a long-standing pattern in the tech industry that predates the AI boom.
Hiring bias. Even where qualified women exist, the hiring process appears to filter them out at higher rates. The gap between AI and non-AI hiring — 10 percentage points — suggests something specific to AI roles, not a general labour market pattern.
Company culture. The “AI company penalty” — women’s workforce share being 5 points lower at AI-focused companies — points to workplace environment as a factor. AI companies, particularly startups, have been criticised for culture issues that disproportionately affect women.
Network effects. AI hiring happens heavily through referrals and existing networks. If the current AI workforce is 74% male, the referral network is 74% male. The cycle reinforces itself.
The Broader Pattern
The LinkedIn findings align with other research showing that the benefits of AI-driven job growth are not evenly distributed. Visier’s workforce analysis of 3.6 million employee records found that while overall hiring rates have dropped 24%, companies are prioritising experienced, mid-career employees between ages 35 and 50. The share of AI engineers hired increased 251%, while the share of data scientists fell 32% in the same period.
The AI job market is not a single market. It is a set of rapidly diverging tracks — and gender, education, and age all determine which track you land on.
Why It Matters for NZ
New Zealand’s AI workforce is small enough that the gender gap is less well-documented, but the structural factors are the same. SEEK currently lists hundreds of AI-related roles across the country, concentrated in Auckland and Wellington. Air New Zealand is actively recruiting senior AI engineers, and the major banks are building AI teams.
PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer, which includes a New Zealand edition, found that workers with AI skills command a significant wage premium in NZ, as they do globally. If the hiring patterns LinkedIn describes in the US hold here — and there is no obvious reason they would not — the gender gap in NZ’s growing AI sector is a question worth asking now, not after the industry matures.
❓ FAQ
What percentage of AI hires are women? Women accounted for 26% of US AI hires in 2025, compared with 50% of non-AI hires, according to LinkedIn research published August 2026.
How much do AI jobs pay compared to non-AI roles? The typical AI job posting in the US lists $177,000 in compensation, compared with $80,000 for a non-AI role, according to LinkedIn data.
What is the gender gap at the top of AI companies? Women hold only 13% of C-suite AI leadership roles across 27 countries, according to LinkedIn’s research. The gap widens at every career stage, with the largest drop at the executive level.
Is the AI gender gap improving? LinkedIn’s research does not provide longitudinal trend data in this release, but the structural factors — pipeline supply, hiring bias, company culture, and network effects — suggest the gap will persist without targeted intervention.
🔍 THE BOTTOM LINE
AI is creating the highest-paying, fastest-growing job market in technology. It is also replicating and amplifying the gender disparities that have plagued the industry for decades. When 74% of the workforce in the most rapidly expanding sector is male, the question is not whether the market is growing — it is whether the growth is reaching the people who need it. LinkedIn’s data is a baseline. Whether it becomes a floor or a ceiling depends on what companies do with it.
