Upwork Monthly Hiring Insights: July 2026

AI demand is becoming more specialized

Upwork, the world’s human and AI-powered work marketplace, monitors hiring trends each month to uncover the skills that are in high demand across the freelance economy. Starting this month, the Monthly Hiring Insights report includes more skill-level demand data, providing a more granular view of how the labor market is shifting beneath broader category trends.

This month, we are also introducing a new section to the report, The AI Signal. Each month, we’ll share insights into how AI skills, roles, or tasks are evolving and emerging on the Upwork Marketplace. In July 2026, AI work is becoming more embedded in existing workflows, while searches for new AI-led roles are growing. 

“In June, we saw clients becoming more specific about what they wanted AI to produce. In July, we're seeing that trend move another step forward: clients are searching for the specialized roles and capabilities needed to put AI to work,” said Jennifer Brett, managing director of Upwork's Research Institute. “From AI UGC and video creators to AI integration and full-stack AI developers, the signal is increasingly about what AI can do, who can make it happen, and how it fits into the workflow.”

Hiring insights for July 2026

• Clients are searching for the people and capabilities behind AI. Three of the top ten AI searches are role-oriented, including AI video creator, AI developer, and AI engineer, suggesting clients increasingly know who they need to put AI to work.
• AI is becoming more specialized. AI UGC is the fastest-growing AI-related search, while searches for AI integration, full-stack AI development, and computer vision engineering point to growing demand for specialized talent and use cases.
• Creative work is accelerating alongside AI. Skills demand for video animation and social media design both grew and accelerated in July, even as AI video generation cooled month-over-month, suggesting demand is extending beyond individual AI tools into broader production workflows.

Where Hiring Demand Is Moving

The skills demand data below capture what Upwork Marketplace clients hired for in July, compared year-over-year and month-over-month. The quadrant chart surfaces skills that are growing or declining on a year-over-year basis, while also adding a layer of insight around where skills demand is accelerating or cooling on a month-over-month basis.

Figure 1. Skills demand momentum quadrant

Source: Upwork Marketplace data, July 2026 compared to July 2025 or June 2026

Creative Demand Is Accelerating

The strongest demand signals this month cluster around creative production and media skills. Video animation and social media design both grew year-over-year and accelerated month-over-month, a pattern that points to rising client demand for dynamic, visual content. This continues a trend from June, when AI creative search terms shifted from broad queries like "ai image" to specific production needs like "ai ugc video" and "ai animation." This suggests clients are becoming more specific about what they want.

Final Cut Pro, AI video generation, and internet marketing all surged over the past year but cooled on a month-over-month basis. This suggests demand may be moving from a recent spike toward a more stable level of hiring.

Not All Skills Are Moving Up

Accuracy verification, error detection, and web testing declined YoY and MoM, suggesting these tasks may be shifting as workflows and tooling evolve. Data annotation is an exception: while down YoY, it rebounded sharply MoM, consistent with the cyclical, project-based nature of model training and evaluation work.

‍Which AI Skills Are Showing Staying Power?‍

Beyond a monthly snapshot, persistence in demand for AI skills, defined as consecutive months of growth in contract starts, highlights skills with sustained hiring momentum rather than one-off spikes. 

Several AI skills are showing persistence, not just short-term spikes. Generative AI prompt engineering and AI consulting have each grown for three consecutive months, while AI Image Generator, Data Annotation, and Microsoft 365 Copilot have grown for two.

Figure 2: Persistent demand growth in AI-related skills, July 2026

The AI Signal

‍Client searches reveal rising AI roles and use cases

“AI automation” was the most-searched AI term in July, while three of the top ten searches were role-oriented, including AI video creator, AI developer, and AI engineer. We have known for some time that AI technology would create new roles, as well as change some and eliminate others. Now we're starting to see indicators of what some early AI-led roles will be. 

Figure 3: Top 10 AI-related search terms on the Upwork Marketplace, July 2026

Source: Upwork Marketplace data, July 2026

The fastest-growing AI searches point to even more specific needs. “AI UGC” - AI-generated creator-style video and media - was the fastest-growing AI-related search YoY, followed by AI video creator, AI video generation, and AI video ads. Technical implementation searches, including AI integration, full-stack AI developer, and computer vision engineer, also ranked among the fastest-growing terms.

Figure 4: Fastest-growing AI-related searches on the Upwork Marketplace, July 2026 vs. July 2025

Source: Upwork Marketplace data, July 2026

AI UGC is the fastest-growing AI-related search in July. Its rise alongside AI video creators, AI video generation, and AI video ads suggests growing demand for talent that can translate AI capabilities into production-ready marketing content. Even as AI video generation capabilities advance, clients are still searching for specialized talent to apply those tools to specific creative and marketing use cases. 

June’s search data showed clients becoming more specific about the outputs they wanted from AI. July’s data suggests the next stage: clients are becoming more specific about the roles and capabilities they need to deliver those outcomes.

Brett notes, “AI adoption on the Upwork Marketplace is becoming more mature and more specialized. In June, clients were becoming clearer about the outputs they wanted AI to produce. In July, that specificity extended to the people and capabilities needed to deliver them, from AI UGC and video creators to AI integration, full-stack development, and computer vision. At the same time, demand for traditional creative skills such as video animation and social media design is accelerating, suggesting AI is being integrated into existing production workflows alongside human expertise.”

About the Upwork Monthly Hiring Insights Report

The Upwork Monthly Hiring Insights Report provides an early signal of broader shifts in how business leaders are hiring. It offers a more comprehensive picture of trends in the U.S. labor market, with a focus on the independent talent economy.

Methodology

Skill demand quadrant methodology
Skills demand is measured by the number of distinct hired contracts whose job post mentions the skill in a given month, across U.S. marketplace clients. Each skill must meet minimum volume thresholds — at least 100 contracts in the current month and 50 in the comparison period. Year-over-year (YoY) change compares the current month's contract count to the same month one year prior. Month-over-month (MoM) change compares to the immediately preceding month. Skills are assigned to one of four quadrants based on the sign of each metric:

Growing & Accelerating

YoY Growth & MoM Growth — demand is higher than last year and still accelerating

Growing & Cooling

YoY Growth & MoM Decline — demand is higher than last year but cooling from a recent peak

Declining & Recovering 

YoY Decline & MoM Growth — demand is lower than last year but showing short-term recovery

Declining

YoY Decline & MoM Decline — demand is lower than last year and continuing to decline

Within each quadrant, the top 5 skills are ranked by a composite score suited to the quadrant's character: for the top left and bottom right quadrants, skills are ranked by the sum of their YoY and MoM change to surface those with the strongest combined signal; for the top right, by YoY change alone (since MoM is negative by definition); and for the bottom left, by MoM change alone (since YoY is negative by definition).

Demand persistence methodology
Demand persistence measures how many consecutive months a skill's hired contract count has increased, inclusive of the current month. A skill qualifies if it has at least 20 contracts in the current month and has gained at least 10 contracts in absolute terms over the duration of its streak. These lower thresholds (compared to the quadrant analysis) are intentional — persistent growth is most editorially interesting for emerging skills that have not yet reached mainstream volume. For the AI-specific persistence view, skills are further filtered to those matching a curated list of AI-related keywords.

Search data
AI-related search terms were identified by matching raw client search queries against a curated AI-related keyword list. The volume ranking reflects total search occurrences within the month. The growth ranking measures year-over-year changes and compares current-month search counts against the same month one year prior, filtered to queries with at least 50 current-month and 20 prior-year occurrences to exclude low-volume noise.