Key findings
- 1
Between the week of 3 Aug 2026 and the week of 5 Oct 2026, open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling on the platforms tracked since 3 Aug 2026 went up 34.8%, from about 30 to 40, against +10.5% for all AI training work on the same platforms; platforms first tracked later, left out of this panel, listed about 79 more in the week of 5 Oct 2026.
- 2
20 platforms listed the 139 open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling; Welo Data held 26.6% and the three largest 50.4% (HHI 1,250, unconcentrated, against 742 for all AI training work).
- 3
92 of the 139 open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling (66.2%) stated an hourly rate, with a median of $30/hr (middle half $18 to $45), 54% below the $65/hr of all AI training work.
- 4
Each open role in Data Annotation & Labeling drew 0.96 apply clicks a week on AITraining.jobs, 2.54x the average AI training role: the 2nd highest of 12 kinds of work with enough clicks to rank.
- 5
33.1% of the 139 open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling accepted applicants from any country, against 28.5% of all AI training roles; of the 20 countries compared, residents of the United States (100), India (61) and the United Kingdom (60) could apply to the most, and residents of Palestine to the fewest (48).
- 6
The words used most in the titles of open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling were Annotator or labeler (46), Specialist (30) and Quality assurance (27), of 139 open roles.
- 7
Of the 118 open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling with a full description, 2.5% mention a PhD or master's degree, 1.7% a professional credential and 17.8% an assessment or test; the 27 stating years of experience ask for a median of 2 years.
- 8
Over the 28 days from 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026, open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling on the platforms tracked at its start went down 12.2% (115 to 101): platforms listed 85 new roles and removed 98, and a removed role had been listed for a median of 32 days (33 across all AI training work).
Figure 1
Open roles, week by week
Is the number of open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling rising or falling?
| Week | Open roles (fixed panel) | Index |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to 9 Aug | 30 | 100.0 |
| 10 to 16 Aug | 29 | 95.7 |
| 17 to 23 Aug | 29 | 95.2 |
| 24 to 30 Aug | 30 | 99.0 |
| 31 Aug to 6 Sep | 29 | 95.2 |
| 7 to 13 Sep | 30 | 100.5 |
| 14 to 20 Sep | 34 | 113.3 |
| 21 to 27 Sep | 41 | 137.6 |
| 28 Sep to 4 Oct | 40 | 132.9 |
| 5 to 11 Oct | 40 | 134.8 |
Sample. Average open roles in Data Annotation & Labeling over each week's days, on the 17 platforms tracked since 3 Aug 2026 (the fixed panel; 12 of them list this work), 3 Aug 2026 to 11 Oct 2026.
The index is the panel's open roles against the week of 3 Aug 2026 (100), beside the same index for all AI training work on the same platforms.
OpenTrain AI (first tracked 5 Sep 2026), Welo Data (first tracked 8 Sep 2026), Perle Labs (first tracked 10 Oct 2026), SuperAnnotate (SME) (first tracked 10 Oct 2026), Turing (first tracked 10 Oct 2026) and RemoExperts (first tracked 10 Oct 2026) list this work but were added to the dataset later, so they are left out of the panel and counted only in the last column: a platform's arrival never reads as growth.
Weeks with fewer than 10 open roles on the panel, or cut by the span, are marked.
The series starts in the week of 3 Aug 2026 at the earliest: before it, this dataset's feeds were still being added and tuned.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 2
Listings added and removed
How fast do roles in Data Annotation & Labeling turn over, and is the stock growing on the same platforms?
| Work | Open on 20 Sep 2026 | Open on 17 Oct 2026, same platforms | Change | New listings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Annotation & Labeling | 115 | 101 | -12.2% | 85 |
| All AI training work | 2,595 | 2,690 | +3.7% | 2,252 |
Sample. Roles listed from 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026: 237 in Data Annotation & Labeling, 5,849 across all AI training work.
Change compares the roles open on the first and the last day of the window on the platforms tracked when it opened, so a platform added during the window does not read as growth.
A new listing first appeared in the window on a platform already tracked before that week; a platform's first week (its back catalogue) is not counted.
Median days listed runs from a removed role's listing date to its last sighting, for removed roles with a known listing date (at least 10; 94 here).
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 3
Who lists it
Which platforms list roles in Data Annotation & Labeling, and what does each advertise?
| Platform | Open roles | Share of open roles | Median per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Welo Data | 37 | $29 | |
| Alignerr | 20 | $40 | |
| micro1 | 13 | $43 | |
| Turing | 12 | n/a | |
| Claru | 10 | $30 | |
| TransPerfect DataForce | 9 | n/a | |
| SuperAnnotate (SME) | 7 | n/a | |
| OneForma | 5 | n/a | |
| OpenTrain AI | 5 | n/a | |
| Braintrust | 4 | n/a | |
| Invisible | 4 | n/a | |
| Appen | 2 | n/a | |
| Handshake AI | 2 | n/a | |
| Mercor | 2 | n/a | |
| RemoExperts | 2 | n/a | |
| AfterQuery | 1 | n/a | |
| Perle Labs | 1 | n/a | |
| Remotasks | 1 | n/a | |
| Terac | 1 | n/a | |
| Vetto | 1 | n/a |
Sample. 139 roles in Data Annotation & Labeling open at the end of 17 Oct 2026, by the platform that lists them: HHI 1,250 (unconcentrated), against 742 for all AI training work.
HHI: the sum of every platform's squared percentage share of the open roles, 0 to 10,000; under 1,500 is unconcentrated, 1,500 to 2,500 moderately and above 2,500 highly concentrated (US merger-guideline thresholds).
Shares are of listings, not of people hired or money paid: a platform posting one role per language or country weighs more here than its hiring may.
A median needs at least 8 roles stating an hourly rate.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 4
What it pays
What do roles in Data Annotation & Labeling advertise per hour, against AI training work as a whole?
| Work | Median per hour | 25th percentile | 75th percentile | Stating an hourly rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Annotation & Labeling | $18 | $45 | 66.2% | |
| All AI training work | $36 | $85 | 82.6% |
Sample. Roles open on 17 Oct 2026: 139 in Data Annotation & Labeling, 92 of them stating an hourly rate; 3,668 across all AI training work.
Pay is the hourly figure the posting advertises (the middle of a stated range). The middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
Roles paid per task or per project, or that state no figure, do not state an hourly rate. A median needs at least 8 roles stating one.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 5
How its rates are distributed
What share of roles in Data Annotation & Labeling pay $50 an hour or more?
| Advertised rate | Open roles | Share of priced roles | All AI training work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $15/hr | 19 | 20.7% | 5.7% |
| $15 to $25/hr | 19 | 20.7% | 8.2% |
| $25 to $35/hr | 18 | 19.6% | 9.2% |
| $35 to $50/hr | 15 | 16.3% | 16.4% |
| $50 to $75/hr | 8 | 8.7% | 25.4% |
| $75 to $100/hr | 10 | 10.9% | 14.4% |
| $100 to $150/hr | 3 | 3.3% | 16.8% |
| $150/hr or more | 0 | 0.0% | 3.9% |
Sample. 92 roles in Data Annotation & Labeling open on 17 Oct 2026 that state an hourly rate, against 3,031 across all AI training work.
Each role counts once, at the middle of its advertised range. The bands are those of the pay-transparency report.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 6
Applicant demand per open role
Do roles in Data Annotation & Labeling draw more or fewer applicants per opening than the average AI training role?
| Roles | Clicks per role a week | Index |
|---|---|---|
| Data Annotation & Labeling | 0.96 | 2.54x |
| All AI training work | 0.38 | 1.00x |
| Its roles stating an hourly rate | 0.99 | 2.62x |
| Its roles stating no hourly rate | 0.89 | 2.36x |
| Its roles open worldwide | 2.23 | 5.89x |
| Its roles limited by country | 0.64 | 1.69x |
Sample. Apply clicks on a specific role on AITraining.jobs, from 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026: 473 on roles in Data Annotation & Labeling, against the days those roles were open.
Clicks per role a week = apply clicks / (open role-days / 7). Index 1.00 is the rate of every role on the site.
Rows with fewer than 30 clicks or 3 roles open on an average day are marked as a small sample.
Apply clicks measure interest among visitors to AITraining.jobs, who see roles open in their country and recent, priced roles first. Clicks are never split by platform.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 7
Applicant demand by listing age
Do newer roles in Data Annotation & Labeling draw more applicants than older ones?
| Listing age | Clicks per role a week | Index (this work = 1) |
|---|---|---|
| Listed during the window | 3.65 | 3.81x |
| Listed up to 4 weeks before it | 1.25 | 1.30x |
| Listed 4 to 12 weeks before itSmall sample | 0.18 | 0.19x |
| Listed more than 12 weeks before it | 0.44 | 0.46x |
Sample. Apply clicks on roles in Data Annotation & Labeling, from 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026, by when each role was listed relative to the window's first day (20 Sep 2026).
Listing date: the date the job board gives for the posting, or else the first day the role appeared in the feed. A role that arrived with a platform's back catalogue and gives no date has none.
The index divides each row's rate by the rate of all roles in this kind of work, so it reads within the kind.
Rows with fewer than 30 clicks or 3 roles open on an average day are marked as a small sample.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 8
Who may apply: location rules
Can people apply to roles in Data Annotation & Labeling from anywhere?
| Location rule | Open roles | Share of its open roles | All AI training work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open worldwide | 45 | 32.4% | 28.5% |
| Worldwide except listed countries | 6 | 4.3% | 9.3% |
| Only listed countries | 87 | 62.6% | 61.9% |
| No rule stated | 1 | 0.7% | 0.4% |
Sample. 139 roles in Data Annotation & Labeling open at the end of 17 Oct 2026, against 3,668 across all AI training work.
The rule is read from each posting's location text, then, where that names no country, from what the posting's own description states, and where both are silent from what the platform states about where it hires.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 9
Who may apply: roles open to each country
How many roles in Data Annotation & Labeling can a resident of each country apply to?
Sample. 139 roles in Data Annotation & Labeling open at the end of 17 Oct 2026, for residents of a fixed set of 20 countries.
A country's count is the roles open worldwide (including roles that state no rule, as on the job board), plus roles whose list names it, plus roles whose exclusion list does not.
The 20 countries are the same in every report of this series: those named most often by the location rules of open AI training roles on 9 Oct 2026, either as the only countries accepted or as excluded.
Median pay is over the roles open to that country that state an hourly rate (at least 8).
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 10
What the roles are called
What are roles in Data Annotation & Labeling called: annotator, evaluator, expert or trainer?
| Title word | Open roles | Share of its open roles |
|---|---|---|
| Annotator or labeler | 46 | 33.1% |
| Specialist | 30 | 21.6% |
| Quality assurance | 27 | 19.4% |
| Analyst or researcher | 25 | 18.0% |
| Evaluator or reviewer | 16 | 11.5% |
| Voice actor or speaker | 14 | 10.1% |
| Contributor or participant | 13 | 9.4% |
| Trainer | 8 | 5.8% |
| Rater | 5 | 3.6% |
| Expert or SME | 3 | 2.2% |
| Lead or manager | 2 | 1.4% |
| Writer or editor | 1 | 0.7% |
Sample. 125 of the 139 roles in Data Annotation & Labeling open on 17 Oct 2026 name one of these words in their title (89.9%); 12 title words are named.
A title can use several of these words ('Expert AI Trainer') and counts for each. The vocabularies are those of the job-titles, languages and expert-fields reports.
Median pay needs at least 8 roles stating an hourly rate.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
Figure 11
What the descriptions ask for
Do roles in Data Annotation & Labeling ask for degrees, credentials, experience or tests?
| Requirement | Roles | Share of described roles |
|---|---|---|
| Mentions a PhD | 1 | 0.8% |
| Mentions a PhD or master's | 3 | 2.5% |
| Mentions any degree | 26 | 22.0% |
| Mentions a professional credential | 2 | 1.7% |
| States years of experience | 27 | 22.9% |
| Asks for 5 years or more | 0 | 0.0% |
| States weekly hours | 43 | 36.4% |
| Mentions an assessment or test | 21 | 17.8% |
| Mentions an AI-led or video interview | 1 | 0.8% |
| Mentions a background check | 0 | 0.0% |
Sample. 118 roles in Data Annotation & Labeling open on 17 Oct 2026 whose job board publishes a full description (AfterQuery, Appen, Braintrust, Claru, Handshake AI, Invisible, Mercor, micro1, OneForma, OpenTrain AI, Perle Labs, RemoExperts, Remotasks, SuperAnnotate (SME), Terac, TransPerfect DataForce, Turing, Vetto and Welo Data), 84.9% of its open roles; 3,260 described roles across all AI training work.
A mention can be a requirement or a preference ('a PhD is a plus'): the figure counts both. The patterns are those of the requirements report.
Only some platforms publish full descriptions, so this figure describes their roles, not every platform's.
Source. AITraining.jobs Research, The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work, live data.
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10,289 roles tracked, each with its history
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Method and definitions
The public job boards of the AI training platforms this site tracks, read every day. Apply clicks are made on AITraining.jobs; full descriptions come from the platforms whose boards publish them. 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.
- Kind of work
- Each role is classified from its title and description into one of the twelve kinds of AI training work this site tracks; this report counts the roles classified as Data Annotation & Labeling.
- Fixed panel
- The platforms already tracked when the weekly series opens. The index follows their open roles, so a platform added later (such as OpenTrain AI and Welo Data in September 2026) never reads as growth.
- Index
- The panel's average open roles in a week, divided by the same in the base week, times 100; shown beside the same index for all AI training work on the same platforms.
- Open role
- A role listed by a given day and still in its platform's feed that day.
- New listing
- A role that first appeared during the window on a platform already tracked before that week. A platform's first week in this dataset is its back catalogue and is not counted as new.
- Removed listing
- A role that left its platform's feed during the window.
- Days listed
- From a removed role's listing date to the last day it was seen in its feed. A median needs at least 10 removed roles.
- HHI
- Herfindahl-Hirschman Index: the sum of every platform's squared percentage share of open roles, 0 to 10,000. Under 1,500 unconcentrated, 1,500 to 2,500 moderately, above 2,500 highly concentrated.
- 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.
- Clicks per open role a week
- Apply clicks on AITraining.jobs on a specific role, divided by the days the roles were open, times 7.
- Demand index
- Clicks per open role a week divided by the same rate across every role on the site. Above 1, the roles draw more applicants than the average role.
- Listing age
- When a role was listed relative to the window's first day: during the window, up to 4 weeks before it, 4 to 12 weeks before or longer. The listing date is the job board's posting date, or else the first day the role appeared in the feed.
- Location rule
- Read from each posting's location text and, where that names no country, from what the posting's own description states: open worldwide, worldwide except listed countries, only listed countries, or no rule stated.
- Open to a country
- A role is open to residents of a country if it is open worldwide, its list names the country, or its exclusion list does not. The 20 countries compared are the same in every report of the series.
- Window
- Live: the last 28 complete days, in UTC, and the last twelve complete ISO weeks (from the week of 3 Aug 2026 at the earliest) for the weekly series. Edition: one calendar month, in UTC, and its weeks.
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.
- Apply clicks measure interest among the people who use AITraining.jobs, and what is shown first gets clicked more. Clicks are never published by platform.
- Full descriptions are published by a few platforms only, so the requirements figure describes their roles and appears only when at least 10 roles of this kind are described.
- A kind of work with few open roles gives figures that move with a handful of postings: rows on too little data are marked as a small sample.
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.
- Live data (this page)Last 28 complete days, recomputed daily
- September 2026 editionFrozen 10 Oct 2026
- August 2026 editionFrozen 10 Oct 2026
Cite and reuse
Free to quote, chart and republish under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. Live figures change daily: cite a monthly edition for numbers that will read the same later, or keep the access date.
Citation
AITraining.jobs (2026). The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work (live data, 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026). https://www.aitraining.run/research/data-annotation-market (accessed 18 Oct 2026)
BibTeX
@misc{aitrainingjobs_data_annotation_market_live,
author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
title = {The Market for Data Annotation & Labeling Work (live data, 20 Sep 2026 to 17 Oct 2026)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.aitraining.run/research/data-annotation-market}},
note = {Accessed 18 Oct 2026},
}More research
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