2026-W38 · 2026-09-14 to 2026-09-20
What AI training work listed, week of 2026-09-14
This edition is frozen. It says what the feeds showed during that week and is never recomputed, so the figures below will read the same in a year as they do now. The current week is at the live briefing.
- Across 2,937 open roles, typical top rates of $45–$120/hr (median $80/hr, from 537 distinct listed rates across 13 platforms).
- 476 roles first appeared in the 7 days to 2026-09-21.
- Highest new listing in the last 7 days: Management Consulting Expert on micro1 at $350/hr.
- Best-paying field right now is software engineering, median $100/hr (highest $400/hr, n=91).
- AfterQuery median moved up 10% since 2026-09-13, $100 to $110/hr (as of 2026-09-21).
- Terac median moved up 13% since 2026-09-13, $80 to $90/hr (as of 2026-09-21).
- 257 listings closed in the 7 days to 2026-09-21. Roles fill, so apply the same day when one fits.
Correction, 24 September 2026: the best-paying field line above named the field holding the single highest listed rate, with ties going to the larger sample. It did not compare medians, so another field may have had a higher median that week. The median and sample it quotes are right for the field it names. The live briefing now names the field with the highest median in the pay index's field table, which still lists fields by their highest listed rate.
Correction, 24 September 2026: the platform count in the first line above counted only the platforms with at least 5 distinct listed rates, the rows of the pay index's platform table. The distinct rates in that line came from more platforms than that. The rates, the range and the median it quotes are right.
Correction, 28 September 2026: the best-paying field line above took its median and n from the pay index's field table, which until 28 September counted a pay band posted in more than one field only once, in whichever field's listing it read first. So that field's own page listed more distinct rates than the n quoted, and the median of all of them may differ from the one quoted. The live briefing now measures each field from the rates its own page shows.
Frozen 2026-09-21 · CC BY 4.0, quote it freely with a link · this edition as JSON