Upwork Monthly Hiring Insights: August 2026

AI automation leads client searches as AI video hiring accelerates

Businesses are becoming more specific about the AI expertise they need. Upwork’s August data points to two leading areas of activity: specialists who can automate workflows and integrate AI into business systems, and creative professionals who can turn output from AI tools into finished video and visual content. 

The findings come amid uneven growth in the broader labor market. U.S. payroll employment increased by 162,000 in August, but gains were concentrated in food services and local government education. Employment changed little in professional and business services and declined in information. Upwork Marketplace data adds a more granular view of the specific capabilities businesses are hiring for within this environment.

“In August, we continued to see clients seeking talent to get more value from AI video tools,” said Jennifer Brett, managing director of the Upwork Research Institute. “Rather than removing the need for human creative expertise, these tools are increasing demand for talent who can deliver high-quality output.”

Hiring insights for August 2026

• Automation is becoming a leading AI implementation need. “AI automation”, using AI to automate complex tasks and streamline workflows, remained the most-searched AI term, while AI automation expert, AI workflow automation, and AI automation engineer occupied three of the top four fastest-growing AI searches year over year.
• Demand for AI video skills is growing. AI Video Generation ranked first among skills growing both year over year and month over month. AI-generated video, image, and art also recorded two consecutive months of contract growth. AI video production hiring is outpacing hiring in the overall video production category.
• Demand remains highly selective. Influencer Outreach, Mobile App Testing, and Opinion Survey grew across both time periods, while skills including iOS, API, Data Scraping, Accuracy Verification, and Infographic declined.

Where hiring demand is moving

AI Video Generation and AI-Generated Image ranked among the fastest skills growing both year-over-year and month-over-month. Demand also accelerated for Influencer Outreach, Mobile App Testing, and Opinion Survey, pointing to continued hiring for targeted marketing, testing, and research capabilities.

Other areas showed more mixed momentum. Final Cut Pro, Claude, CAD, Internet Marketing, and B2B Lead Generation remained above year-earlier levels but cooled from July. Meanwhile, iOS, Accuracy Verification, API, Data Scraping, and Infographic declined on both measures. Accuracy Verification, the systematic checking of data, models, or systems against verified sources, declined for the second month in a row. This could indicate that businesses are increasingly automating this task with AI.

Figure 1: Skills demand momentum quadrant

Source: Upwork Marketplace data, August 2026 compared with August 2025 and July 2026

AI creative skills show continued momentum

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. AI-Generated Video, AI-Generated Image, and AI-Generated Art each recorded two consecutive months of contract growth (see figure 2 below). AI Builder also grew for a second month.

These are early signals rather than established long-term trends. However, their appearance in figure 2, alongside AI Video Generation as the top-ranked skill in the Growing & Accelerating quadrant in figure 1, suggests businesses are increasingly hiring for finished creative production, not simply experimenting with AI tools. Overall, on the Upwork Marketplace, growth in AI video production hiring is outpacing hiring in the overall video production category.

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

Source: Upwork Marketplace data, August 2026

The AI Signal

Client searches point to automation, integration, and production

“AI automation” remained the most-searched AI term on the Upwork Marketplace for the second consecutive month, reflecting sustained demand for talent who can apply AI, machine learning, and natural language processing to automate complex tasks and streamline workflows. The related search “AI and machine learning” ranked ninth. AI-based roles also appeared in the top 10, including “AI developer” and “AI engineer.”

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

Source: Upwork Marketplace data, August 2026

The fastest-growing searches show an increasingly operational focus and reinforce business interest in AI automation: AI automation expert, AI workflow automation, and AI automation engineer occupied three of the top four positions. AI integration and AI full-stack developer also ranked in the top 10.

AI video formed a second cluster. AI video creator, AI video, and AI video generator were among the highest-volume searches, while AI video ads, AI video generation, and AI UGC were among the fastest-growing. The presence of AI video across both search and hired-contract data indicates that businesses are seeking talent for increasingly defined production needs and to work alongside AI video tools.

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

Source: Upwork Marketplace data, August 2026 compared to August 2025

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 complementary, more granular 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 changes 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.