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Research report ยท August 2026 edition

AI Training Job Titles

On 31 Aug 2026, AI training roles were most often titled "Trainer", "Specialist" and "Expert or SME"; roles titled "Analyst or researcher" advertised the highest median pay ($100/hr).

Read the month's story: The AI Training Job Market in August 2026

Data window
1 Aug 2026 to 31 Aug 2026
31 days, UTC
Frozen
10 Oct 2026, 08:03 UTC
These figures will not change
Source
The public job boards of the AI training platforms this site tracks, read every day.
Method
Version 1. Definitions
CC BY 4.0, how to cite

Every figure on this page as CSV and JSON, sent to your work email.

open roles on 31 Aug 2026
1,591
title words tracked
16
of roles are titled "Trainer"
33%
median for "Analyst or researcher" titles
$100/hr

Key findings

  1. 1

    The most common title words were Trainer (33.2% of open roles), Specialist (29.9% of open roles) and Expert or SME (26.9% of open roles).

    Figure 1
  2. 2

    Roles titled "Analyst or researcher" advertised the highest median ($100/hr); roles titled "Annotator or labeler" the lowest ($26/hr).

    Figure 2
  3. 3

    Only 2.0% of open roles carry a senior, staff or principal title; they advertised a median of $85/hr against $65/hr for roles with no level in the title.

    Figure 4
  4. 4

    33.5% of open roles say "freelance" in the title itself.

    Figure 5

Figure 1

What AI training roles are called

Is the work posted as trainer, tutor, rater, annotator or expert?

Title wordOpen rolesShare of open roles
Trainer
528
33.2%
Specialist
476
29.9%
Expert or SME
428
26.9%
Voice actor or speaker
98
6.2%
Evaluator or reviewer
93
5.8%
Engineer or developer
84
5.3%
Contributor or participant
36
2.3%
Linguist or translator
35
2.2%
Lead or manager
30
1.9%
Analyst or researcher
27
1.7%
Writer or editor
27
1.7%
Annotator or labeler
26
1.6%
Tutor
26
1.6%
Quality assurance
20
1.3%
Rater
4
0.3%
Red teamer or tester
2
0.1%

Sample. 1,591 roles open at the end of 31 Aug 2026, by the words in their titles; 83.3% use at least one of these words.

A title can use several words ('Expert AI Trainer') and counts for each.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Job Titles, August 2026 edition.

Figure 2

Advertised pay by title word

Does it pay more to be called an expert than a rater?

Title wordMedian per hourMiddle half
Analyst or researcher
$100
$75 to $120
Evaluator or reviewer
$100
$50 to $100
Lead or manager
$80
$59 to $90
Engineer or developer
$78
$55 to $100
Expert or SME
$75
$55 to $99
Specialist
$65
$37 to $65
Trainer
$65
$37 to $65
Writer or editor
$48
$37 to $69
Tutor
$40
$40 to $40
Voice actor or speaker
$36
$36 to $42
Contributor or participant
$30
$30 to $65
Quality assurance
$30
$22 to $68
Annotator or labeler
$26
$16 to $42

Sample. Roles open on 31 Aug 2026 that state an hourly rate; title words with at least 8 of them.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Job Titles, August 2026 edition.

Figure 3

Each platform's word for the work

Which title does each platform use most?

PlatformMost-used title wordIts share of the platform's roles
InvisibleTrainer
98.3%
MercorExpert or SME
43.1%
micro1Expert or SME
31.5%
AfterQueryExpert or SME
86.3%
Sigma AILinguist or translator
29.1%
BraintrustSpecialist
21.7%
TransPerfect DataForceVoice actor or speaker
29.0%
xAI (SpaceXAI)Tutor
92.6%
AppenVoice actor or speaker
62.5%
TeracEngineer or developer
22.2%
AlignerrWriter or editor
35.3%
MindriftEngineer or developer
61.5%
Outlier (Scale AI)Small sampleEvaluator or reviewer
77.8%
RemotasksSmall sampleSpecialist
33.3%

Sample. 1,591 roles open at the end of 31 Aug 2026, by the words in their titles.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Job Titles, August 2026 edition.

Figure 4

Seniority words in titles

How many AI training roles are senior, and how much more do they pay?

LevelOpen rolesShare of open rolesMedian per hour
Senior, staff or principal32
2.0%
$85
Lead or manager29
1.8%
$80
Junior, entry or associateSmall sample8
0.5%
$89
Intern or studentSmall sample3
0.2%
n/a
None of these words1,520
95.5%
$65

Sample. 1,591 roles open at the end of 31 Aug 2026, by the words in their titles.

Median pay needs at least 8 roles stating a rate.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Job Titles, August 2026 edition.

Figure 5

Engagement words in titles

How many roles say freelance, contract, part-time or remote in the title?

WordOpen rolesShare of open rolesMedian per hour
Freelance533
33.5%
$65
ContractSmall sample8
0.5%
$88
Part-timeSmall sample0
0.0%
n/a
Full-timeSmall sample0
0.0%
n/a
Remote107
6.7%
$35
On-site or hybrid10
0.6%
n/a
None of these words942
59.2%
$75

Sample. 1,591 roles open at the end of 31 Aug 2026, by the words in their titles.

Median pay needs at least 8 roles stating a rate.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Job Titles, August 2026 edition.

For labs, data vendors and researchers

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The figures above are a summary. Behind them are records we collect ourselves, every day:

  • 10,289 roles tracked, each with its history

    Every role on 29 job boards, read daily since 13 Jul 2026: its pay and place, and the first and last day it was open.

  • 6,200 apply clicks in 28 days

    Which roles people actually apply to, by field, pay and kind of work. It happens on this site, so nobody else can count it.

  • 39 lab and vendor hiring boards

    The job boards of 25 AI labs and 14 human-data vendors, read every day: who is hiring for human data, and who is hiring to buy it.

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Method and definitions

The public job boards of the AI training platforms this site tracks, read every day. Every figure is computed by one database query over the window shown, the same query for the live report and for every edition. Each figure states its sample beneath it.

Title word
A role counts for a word when its title contains it (whole words, case-insensitive), with its plural and close variants; a title can count for several.
Advertised pay
The hourly figure a posting states (the middle of a stated range). Medians need at least 8 roles stating a rate; the middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
Open role
A role listed by a given day and still in its platform's feed that day.
Window
Live: the last 28 complete days, in UTC. Edition: one calendar month, in UTC.

What this data cannot tell you

  • Platforms that recruit without a public job board are not counted. Several large ones invite workers to projects directly.
  • A listing is not a hire. Some platforms keep evergreen roles open for months, and some post one listing per language or country.

How the job feeds are read and roles are classified: site methodology. How fresh, complete and consistent the data is, checked every day: data quality and coverage.

Editions

The live report covers the last 28 complete days and changes every day. Each complete month is also published as an edition, frozen two days after the month ends, so a figure you cite from an edition never moves.

Cite and reuse

Free to quote, chart and republish under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. This edition is frozen, so its figures will read the same later.

Citation

AITraining.jobs (2026). AI Training Job Titles, August 2026 edition. https://aitraining.run/research/ai-training-job-titles/2026-08

BibTeX

@misc{aitrainingjobs_ai_training_job_titles_2026_08,
  author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
  title = {AI Training Job Titles, August 2026 edition},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://aitraining.run/research/ai-training-job-titles/2026-08}},
}
Data: every figure as CSV (one line per value) and JSON, sent to your work email.Pay and open-roles data

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