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Research report ยท September 2026 edition

AI Training Job Titles

On 30 Sep 2026, AI training roles were most often titled "Specialist", "Expert or SME" and "Trainer"; roles titled "Lead or manager" advertised the highest median pay ($78/hr).

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

Data window
1 Sep 2026 to 30 Sep 2026
30 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 30 Sep 2026
2,729
title words tracked
16
of roles are titled "Specialist"
23%
median for "Lead or manager" titles
$78/hr

Key findings

  1. 1

    The most common title words were Specialist (22.7% of open roles), Expert or SME (21.7% of open roles) and Trainer (21.1% of open roles).

    Figure 1
  2. 2

    Roles titled "Lead or manager" advertised the highest median ($78/hr); roles titled "Rater" the lowest ($10/hr).

    Figure 2
  3. 3

    Only 2.1% of open roles carry a senior, staff or principal title; they advertised a median of $85/hr against $55/hr for roles with no level in the title.

    Figure 4
  4. 4

    19.6% 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
Specialist
620
22.7%
Expert or SME
593
21.7%
Trainer
577
21.1%
Evaluator or reviewer
342
12.5%
Quality assurance
217
8.0%
Annotator or labeler
176
6.4%
Engineer or developer
174
6.4%
Voice actor or speaker
158
5.8%
Analyst or researcher
144
5.3%
Lead or manager
133
4.9%
Contributor or participant
114
4.2%
Writer or editor
81
3.0%
Rater
72
2.6%
Linguist or translator
37
1.4%
Tutor
30
1.1%
Red teamer or tester
11
0.4%

Sample. 2,729 roles open at the end of 30 Sep 2026, by the words in their titles; 86.1% 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, September 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
Lead or manager
$78
$55 to $90
Engineer or developer
$75
$55 to $100
Expert or SME
$65
$38 to $95
Specialist
$65
$37 to $65
Trainer
$65
$37 to $65
Evaluator or reviewer
$48
$24 to $80
Linguist or translator
$46
$30 to $65
Tutor
$40
$40 to $40
Writer or editor
$38
$23 to $65
Voice actor or speaker
$36
$28 to $38
Contributor or participant
$30
$30 to $34
Analyst or researcher
$27
$15 to $45
Annotator or labeler
$23
$19 to $34
Quality assurance
$18
$10 to $32
Rater
$10
$5 to $23

Sample. Roles open on 30 Sep 2026 that state an hourly rate; title words with at least 8 of them.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Job Titles, September 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
OpenTrain AIEvaluator or reviewer
33.1%
InvisibleTrainer
98.3%
micro1Expert or SME
24.8%
MercorExpert or SME
40.0%
Welo DataAnalyst or researcher
27.9%
AfterQueryExpert or SME
71.2%
Sigma AILinguist or translator
30.3%
BraintrustExpert or SME
26.7%
TransPerfect DataForceVoice actor or speaker
25.8%
AlignerrAnnotator or labeler
55.3%
AppenVoice actor or speaker
34.4%
xAI (SpaceXAI)Tutor
93.5%
TeracEvaluator or reviewer
27.8%
Outlier (Scale AI)Small sampleEvaluator or reviewer
83.3%
Handshake AISmall sampleTrainer
75.0%
RemotasksSmall sampleSpecialist
33.3%

Sample. 2,729 roles open at the end of 30 Sep 2026, by the words in their titles.

Source. AITraining.jobs Research, AI Training Job Titles, September 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 principal56
2.1%
$85
Lead or manager138
5.1%
$67
Junior, entry or associate27
1.0%
$73
Intern or studentSmall sample2
0.1%
n/a
None of these words2,508
91.9%
$55

Sample. 2,729 roles open at the end of 30 Sep 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, September 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
Freelance535
19.6%
$65
Contract17
0.6%
$100
Part-timeSmall sample3
0.1%
n/a
Full-timeSmall sample0
0.0%
n/a
Remote145
5.3%
$23
On-site or hybrid21
0.8%
n/a
None of these words2,019
74.0%
$50

Sample. 2,729 roles open at the end of 30 Sep 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, September 2026 edition.

For labs, data vendors and researchers

Buy the data behind this report

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

  • 9,572 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, September 2026 edition. https://aitraining.run/research/ai-training-job-titles/2026-09

BibTeX

@misc{aitrainingjobs_ai_training_job_titles_2026_09,
  author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
  title = {AI Training Job Titles, September 2026 edition},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://aitraining.run/research/ai-training-job-titles/2026-09}},
}
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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