Germany Is Looking For AI Experts: 9,000 Vacancies In The IT Sector Alone

With the AI competency monitor presented in September 2025 by the Berlin personnel market research company Index Research, AI references can be identified in job advertisements. In addition to almost 200 print media, over 300 online job exchanges and the websites of 880,000 German companies, the employment agency database is also scanned.

Competition for AI talent is increasing

According to this AI competency monitor, the demand for AI know-how on the German labor market has recently continued to rise sharply. In the IT sector alone, companies advertised almost 9,000 positions requiring AI skills in the first quarter of 2026.

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According to the analysis, AI is now used in almost all areas of work. “Companies are specifically looking for skilled workers who can develop and use AI applications,” as Jürgen Grenz, CEO of the Index Group, explains. The competition for these talents is increasing noticeably, said Grenz.

Companies rely on recruiting partners

According to the AI Competence Monitor, companies would rely on external recruiting partners, especially for key positions that are difficult to fill. Accordingly, personnel service providers are the second largest industry with over 6,000 published AI-related job offers. Hundreds of AI experts are also being sought in schools, law firms and in research and development.

When it comes to individual AI skills and tools, the term machine learning was mentioned most frequently in job advertisements between January and March 2026 (almost 12,000 mentions). The term artificial intelligence was mentioned around 8,000 times and the keyword generative AI was mentioned almost 6,000 times.

Tool ranking: ChatGPT ahead of Copilot and Claude

The Index Group has also listed the AI assistants most frequently mentioned in the respective ad texts. Accordingly, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot shared the top position with almost 4,000 mentions each. Claude followed in third place with around 1,000 entries. Among the coding agents, Cursor (933 mentions) was ahead of Claude Code (836) and GitHub Copilot (767).

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Incidentally, the most AI experts in Germany are being sought in southern Germany. In Bavaria alone, almost 10,000 AI-related job advertisements were placed in the first quarter of 2026. There were 7,000 corresponding job applications in North Rhine-Westphalia and over 6,000 in Berlin.

There was the lowest demand for AI in Saarland

The AI Competence Monitor counts the fewest AI advertisements in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (340), Saxony-Anhalt (273) and Saarland (240). The three companies with the largest number of job advertisements with AI knowledge are Siemens, Adesso and Allianz.