AI consultants and strategists are the second fastest growing job in the US, per LinkedIn's 2026 Jobs on the Rise list resurfaced by unusual_whales
AI consultant and strategist is the second-fastest growing role in the US, per LinkedIn
Context
Demand is growing not just for people who build AI but for people who help companies adopt it, a sign that integration work is becoming a job category of its own.
LinkedIn's annual Jobs on the Rise list ranks the fastest growing roles in the US over the past three years, based on its own member data. The 2026 list was published in January, and unusual_whales shared the finding on October 12. AI engineers ranked first.
Deep dive
On October 12, unusual_whales posted that AI consultant and strategist is the second fastest growing role in the US, per LinkedIn. The ranking comes from LinkedIn's Jobs on the Rise 2026 list, published in January, not from a new report.
According to LinkedIn, AI consultants and strategists help organizations plan and implement AI technologies to improve operations and reach their goals. Their most common skills are large language models, MLOps and computer vision, and the most jobs are in San Francisco, New York City and Boston. LinkedIn said the role is 18 percent female and 82 percent male, with a median of 8.2 years of prior experience, and that people most often move into it from founder, software engineer and product manager roles. It said 30.3 percent of the jobs are remote and 32.8 percent hybrid.
AI engineers topped the list, followed by AI consultants and strategists, new home sales specialists, data annotators and AI and ML researchers, according to Business Insider. LinkedIn senior director Laura Lorenzetti told Business Insider that the ranking shows a whole adjacent system of how you implement AI, including culture change and getting people to adopt it.
LinkedIn also highlighted a rise in founders and independent consultants as a shift toward self employment.
What to expect next
Watch for LinkedIn's 2027 Jobs on the Rise list in January, which will show whether AI consultant roles keep growing or level off as companies build their own AI teams.
Also watch whether demand for AI adoption work holds up if AI agents take over more of that integration themselves, and whether entry level paths into these roles open up, given the median of eight years of prior experience.