What Studies Find About Pay in AI Data Work

Method and definitions

The studies, reports and investigations themselves, each linked beside its figure; today's advertised rates from the job boards this site reads every day. Every row links the publication it is taken from, with the figure as that publication states it; nothing is estimated or converted. Each figure states what it includes beneath it.

Measured earnings

What a study found workers actually earned per hour (often counting unpaid time spent finding and qualifying for tasks), for its population, place and year.

Advertised pay

The hourly figure an open AI training role states (the middle of a stated range), on the last day of this site's live window. A median needs at least 8 roles stating a rate.

As published

Every figure keeps its study's own definition, currency and year: nothing is converted, deflated or pooled.

What this data cannot tell you

• Compiled from public sources: an event that was never announced or reported is missing, and private companies' figures are what they or the press stated, not audited.
• Studies measure different populations, years and definitions; set side by side they show a range, not a trend.
• Advertised pay is an offer for an accepted hour and leans towards the expert end of the work; measured earnings include unpaid time. The comparison shows the gap between the two, not one market's change.

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 is the dataset as last reviewed; new events are added as they are published. 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)As last reviewed

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.

@misc{aitrainingjobs_research_on_ai_data_work_pay_live,
  author = {{AITraining.jobs}},
  title = {What Studies Find About Pay in AI Data Work (live data, 1 Jan 2016 to 10 Oct 2026)},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.aitraining.run/research/research-on-ai-data-work-pay}},
  note = {Accessed 18 Oct 2026},
}

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• Who Is Buying AI Training DataWhich AI labs and data vendors have people whose job is to source, license or acquire training data right now?Read the report
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