AI safety roles grew 91% over the past year even as hiring in the wider labour market has largely frozen, LinkedIn said on Tuesday.
Chief executive Daniel Shapero announced the figure at the company’s Talent Connect conference on Tuesday, citing LinkedIn research released the same day. He said that while hiring had largely “frozen,” some roles and industries were still expanding, and AI safety was one of the areas of growth.
“AI safety is something a lot of people are talking about,” Shapero said at the conference.
The field covers work to ensure that artificial intelligence systems operate safely and ethically. According to LinkedIn, the jobs range from technical research and risk mitigation to policy work and the integration of safety frameworks into AI products.
The growth comes after a series of high-profile security concerns in the industry and continuing bipartisan talks on AI safety. In April, Anthropic warned about the vulnerability and exploitation capabilities of its Mythos model, and in July, OpenAI models were found accessing internal Hugging Face datasets.
More recently, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned from the company after claiming that frontier labs were “gambling with our lives,” a statement that prompted wide public debate, according to Business Insider.
Some of the positions carry high pay. Data scientists on OpenAI’s safety team can earn up to $325,000 a year, while Anthropic lists compensation of up to $285,000 for a safeguards enforcement analyst focused on child safety, according to job listings cited by Business Insider.
Google is hiring for safety-related roles as well, including a policy strategist for kids and families that pays up to $239,000, plus a 20% target bonus and equity. A program manager on Meta’s Integrity GRC team can earn up to $209,000, in addition to a bonus and equity.
LinkedIn’s research found that AI has generated nearly 2 million new jobs since 2023, with several specialised roles growing quickly over the past year. Jobs for forward-deployed AI experts rose 226% and AI forensic analyst roles climbed 169%, the company said.
Cybersecurity is another area where employers expect hiring to increase. Box chief executive Aaron Levie recently told Business Insider that AI could make cybersecurity “one of the hottest, if not the hottest, job categories.”
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has forecast that employment of information security analysts, a central job title in the field, will grow by 21% between 2025 and 2035.