For the second year in a row, being an AI architect is the highest paying among all non-executive professions, with seasoned architects earning over $200,000. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who has opened a newspaper recently.

According to Pluralsight’s 2025 Tech Skills Report, only 12% of IT professionals have significant experience working with AI, and four out of five AI projects fail due to a lack of knowledge and in-house preparation. As a result, we believe AI professionals will only become more in demand, not less. And of course, the higher the demand, the greater the bargaining power.

As we predicted last year, cybersecurity is growing in importance in businesses and public sector organizations. This is for a number of reasons, mainly AI-related. Threat actors now need fewer skills to carry out a cyberattack and can do so on a larger scale using AI. Additionally, businesses have inadvertently increased their exposure to cyber risks by implementing AI (and often poorly), making cybersecurity professionals even more valuable.

We also anticipate that data and cloud professionals will continue to grow in importance as organizations realize that clean data and a strong, resilient architecture are both essential to the success of their AI projects, while globally responsible.