How High Are the Salaries of Workers with AI Skills?—Understanding the True Nature of the "Wage Premium" with the Latest Data

Introduction: Why Consider the "AI Skills Wage Premium" Now

An article published by Gizmodo on September 7, 2025 (Japan time) succinctly organized the impact of AI skills on wages by cross-referencing multiple primary sources. This article directly examines those references, verifies and expands on the major facts, and organizes them systematically in Japanese. The "premium" ranging from **27% to 56%** varies depending on the region, data source, and estimation method. Therefore, we first clarify "what is being measured and how."Gizmodo

1. How is the "Wage Premium" Measured? — Indicators and Limitations

• Job Listing-Based Comparison: Lightcast analyzed over 1.3 billion job listings and estimated that "job listings specifying AI skills = 28% higher wage offers (approximately $18,000 more)." Job listings serve as signals of future demand and may differ from actual payouts, but they have the advantage of easily capturing the tendency of companies to "incorporate a premium into the base salary."LightcastPR Newswire

• Wage Comparison from the Worker's Perspective: PwC compared "workers within the same occupation differing only in the presence of AI skills" and estimated an average of 56% higher wages. This design focuses on the structure of wages paid rather than job listings, making it easier to directly capture the market value of "usable talent."PwC+ 1

• Distinguishing Skills vs. Qualifications: According to Foote Partners' IT Skills & Certifications Pay Index, practical **"work skills" receive a premium of 19-23%**, while **AI qualifications remain at 9-11%**. Although there is variability depending on the brand, the trend of practical applicability > titles is becoming clear.footepartners.it-news-and-events.info

In summary, **job listings indicate the "willingness to add a premium to the base salary,"** **worker comparisons show the "actual wage gap,"** and **skill/qualification analysis shows "how the premium is applied"**—by aligning the perspectives of the three, the "real demand" for AI skills becomes more three-dimensional.

2. Key Facts: What's Happening Now (Confirmed with Primary Sources)

1. Average 28% Job Listing Premium (approximately $18,000)
   confirmed by Lightcast's large-scale job listing analysis. Job listings specifying AI skills offer higher wages. While the same ratio cannot be directly applied in Japan, the point that "AI is a lever for business value" is universal.LightcastPR Newswire
   
   

2. Wages for AI Skill Holders are 56% Higher on Average
   PwC's AI Jobs Barometer 2025. The comparison within the same occupation where only skills differ provides strong practical implications. The point is that a premium is occurring in every industry.PwC
   
   

3. Expansion to Non-IT Jobs: Over Half of AI Job Listings are "Non-Tech"
   Lightcast shows that 51% in 2024 are non-IT, non-CS jobs. It is penetrating white-collar roles such as marketing, HR, finance, education, and sales. The growth rate of generative AI skill job listings is also rapidly increasing in non-IT fields.datocms-assets.com
   
   

4. UK: AI Skills Earn More than Degrees
   Based on reports related to the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), it is shown that the wage premium for AI skills is 23%, while a master's degree is 13% and a doctorate is 33%, indicating that the **"AI premium is added on top of the 'educational premium.'"**hrdive.comOII Oxford
   
   

5. Skills > Qualifications: The "Quality" Difference in Premiums
   According to Foote Partners, practical skills 19-23% > qualifications 9-11%. Qualifications measured by pass/fail have limited market value growth, and workplace applicability is what is being valued.footepartners.it-news-and-events.info

3. Why is There a Premium? — Consider from the Perspective of Corporate Profit and Loss

• Nonlinear Effects on Productivity: Generative AI simultaneously boosts individual output, speed, and quality, creating scenarios where "one person's salary can achieve the results of 1.3 to 1.6 people." PwC's demonstration of productivity acceleration in AI-intensive sectors supports the source of wage premiums.PwC

• Scarcity Premium: When demand > supply, wages tend to stick to the upper end. Talent capable of safely and reliably implementing AI skills in the field is still scarce.

• Value of Risk Reduction: The ROI of AI implementation is determined by risk management in areas such as hallucination/security/copyright. It is natural for there to be a price for the **"peace of mind that it will be done."**

4. Three Scenarios Where Premiums Are High

1. Designing and Operating Workflows of Task Decomposition → Automation → Verification - Examples: RAG, prompt chains, agents, audit logs.
   

2. Applying AI to Tasks with Strict Regulatory and Quality Requirements - Examples: Designing safety measures in finance, legal, and medical fields.
   

3. Acting as a "Translator" of AI × Business Domains to Mobilize Organizations - Examples: Marketing/HR/Finance internalizing use cases according to their department's KPIs.
   

5. Implementation Tips for Japanese Readers by Job Type (Non-IT Focused)

Marketing/Public Relations

• Daily Operations: Multivariate generation of advertising copy → Human guardrails for selection → Automated reporting.

• Necessary Skills: Prompt design, A/B test design, brand safety, copyright knowledge.

• Evaluation Metrics: CPC/CPA, CVR, brand match rate.

Human Resources (HR)

• Daily Operations: Automated JD generation, candidate screening assistance, interview guide automation, fairness audits.

• Necessary Skills: AI governance, bias verification, personal information protection, evaluation metric design.

Finance/Corporate Planning

• Daily Operations: Drafting financial notes, detecting differences, summarizing competitor disclosures, scenario analysis.

• Necessary Skills: RAG, summary accuracy evaluation, alignment with internal controls.

Education/Training

• Daily Operations: Personalization based on learner data, problem generation, automated feedback.

• Necessary Skills: Learning science, evaluation rubrics, AI utilization policies.

In these roles, the ability to "master" rather than "create" models is rewarded. Reproducibility and safety in practice are the sources of wage premiums.

6. Skill Map: Increase "What You Can Do" Rather Than Qualifications

Practical Skills Prone to Premiums (Examples)

• Prompt Design/Evaluation: Guardrails, Few-shot, evaluation metrics (hallucination rate, factual consistency).

• RAG Foundation##HTML_TAG_494