CEOs have been warning professionals that AI won’t take their jobs — it’ll actually be their tech-savvy coworkers snatching up opportunities. Now, those who aren’t riding the wave of the AI job boom may be leaving $100,000 on the table, especially women.
AI job postings in the U.S. have doubled since 2023, according to a recent LinkedIn analysis, but women only accounted for 26% of hires in jobs that required AI skills last year, compared to their 50% representation rate in non-AI roles. And moving up the totem pole, they’re even less likely to be included; across 27 countries in the world, women hold only 13% of tech-related C-suite positions at AI companies. However, it isn’t for a lack of trying.
“The findings suggest that while AI is becoming an increasingly important source of career growth and economic opportunity, women aren’t being afforded these opportunities,” the LinkedIn report says.
Women are missing out on thousands of dollars each year thanks to the gender imbalance in the AI job market. The professional platform’s study found that AI is pumping out some of the “fastest-growing and highest-paying opportunities in today’s labor market”; the average AI job posting offers an annual salary of around $177,000, compared to non-AI roles which typically pay roughly $80,000.
Of course, women are already well-acquainted with being underpaid and undervalued — the gender wage gap even widened slightly last year, as women earned 18.6% less than men for doing the same work. Now they’re being boxed out of lucrative AI jobs while professionals in the male-dominated industry reel home $100,000 more each year.
Fewer women are occupying high-level AI jobs that pay $300K
AI’s gender opportunity gap isn’t just about whether women are using AI. It all starts with who is given access to high-level positions, where tech skills can translate into serious earning power.
It should be noted that women tend to view AI more negatively than men. Working women are more concerned for their career security, skeptical that the risks outweigh the benefits, and wary of harmful bias reverberating throughout the algorithms. They’re twice as likely as men to say that AI will negatively impact them over the next two decades, as opposed to leaving a positive mark. So it checks out that women are 22% less likely than men to be regular AI users at work.
But skepticism around the technology doesn’t fully explain the gap. Even women who make it into the AI workforce are less likely to land roles with the biggest paychecks and influence. LinkedIn found that women only make up 20% of head of AI roles, which typically pay $236,000 a year. They also only account for 26% of director of AI positions (around $300,000 annually), and 18% of member of technical staff jobs (roughly $245,000 each year).
And just like the C-suite trends seen across real estate, tech, and finance, women’s representation is whittled down at each layer. In general, women’s occupation in AI roles is 10% lower than their share in jobs unrelated to the tech. And at AI-focused companies, women account for 5% less of the workforce compared to businesses outside of the industry. LinkedIn says the biggest gap appears at the top level: a “leadership penalty” may be holding them back from bigger titles. The gender gap for C-suite roles is 15% wider than for roles below the executive level.
Together, three “Triple Penalty” barriers have been keeping women back from thriving professionally in the AI era: working in leadership roles, working in AI jobs, and working at AI companies. Closing those gaps is critical to ensure that women aren’t left behind in the very economy they’re helping build.
“AI is creating some of the fastest-growing and highest paying jobs in the economy,” the August LinkedIn report said. “Yet women remain less represented in many of the jobs, companies, and leadership roles shaping AI’s future.”
Written by Emma Burleigh for Fortune as “Women only accounted for 26% of hires in jobs with AI skills — and they could be missing out on a $100K salary difference” and republished legally through syndication agreement with Reuters Connect.
