Artificial intelligence jobs are growing quickly, but women are not sharing equally in the opportunity. New LinkedIn research shows that women accounted for only 26% of AI hires in the United States in 2025, compared with 50% of hires into non-AI occupations. Across 27 countries, women held just 13% of C-suite AI leadership positions at AI companies.
The figures matter because AI is no longer a small corner of technology. LinkedIn says US AI job postings have roughly doubled since 2023, while the typical AI job advert lists about $177,000 in compensation, compared with $80,000 for a typical non-AI role.
AI job growth is creating a widening opportunity gap
LinkedIn’s findings show that the imbalance appears at several stages of the AI talent pipeline. Women make up a smaller share of AI workers than of workers in non-AI roles, and their representation falls further in AI-focused companies and senior positions.
In some high-paying AI occupations, the difference is especially visible. Women account for 20% of Head of AI roles, 26% of Director of AI roles and 18% of Member of Technical Staff positions, according to LinkedIn. The latter role has expanded sharply, with the number of LinkedIn members carrying the title nearly tripling between 2021 and 2026, while women’s representation declined from 23% to 19%.
The World Economic Forum’s 2026 Global Gender Gap Report adds another layer. Across 19 economies, women account for 44.8% of data annotator roles, but only 19.3% of AI engineers and 20.6% of machine learning engineers. World Economic Forum report Data annotation is essential to AI development, but it is generally less specialised and lower paid than roles involved in building and deploying AI systems.
That distinction matters because women may be present in AI without having equal access to its best-paid and most influential roles.
Back story: the technology gender gap did not begin with AI
The current AI divide is developing on top of a long standing gender gap in technology and STEM. Women have historically faced barriers involving education, recruitment, workplace culture, professional networks and promotion into leadership.
The World Economic Forum says women account for fewer than one in five AI engineers globally and remain underrepresented across AI firms. World Economic Forum gender report and LinkedIn’s broader leadership figures show a similar pattern: women make up 46% of workers at entry level across 57 economies, but only 23% at C-suite level. At the current pace, the estimated time needed to reach leadership parity has nearly doubled to 90 years.
AI makes the old problem more urgent because the industry is changing at exceptional speed. New tools appear continuously, putting pressure on workers to keep learning. Without training and mentorship, people who step away can find it harder to return.
A Guardian report published on October 4, 2026, illustrated the problem through an AI engineering leader who returned from maternity leave to find that frameworks and model capabilities had changed dramatically. The Guardian report
Why this matters for Nigeria and Africa
For Nigeria and the wider African continent, this is not a distant Silicon Valley story. Africa’s digital economy will depend heavily on who gets access to AI skills, technology jobs and opportunities to build businesses around new tools.
The World Bank estimates that about 230 million jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa will require digital skills by 2030. It also reports a 37% gender gap in mobile internet use, with more than 190 million women not using mobile internet. Exclusion can therefore begin before a woman ever applies for an AI role.
UNESCO is supporting African women in technology and AI through training, mentorship and grants.
But access to courses alone will not be enough. Women need affordable connectivity, devices, quality technical education, professional networks, internships, funding and workplaces where advancement is possible.
The AI boom is still young enough for this pattern to change. What happens next will determine whether artificial intelligence becomes another technology-led opportunity where women participate mainly at the edges, or a genuine pathway to better jobs, higher incomes and greater influence.
