Robert Half's 2027 Salary Guide puts national starting pay for an AI engineer between $154,500 and $196,750, and 92% of the technology leaders it surveyed say they are paying more for AI skills. The same guide projects that technology salaries will rise by just 2.1% on average. A 2027 plan built on the average will come up short on the roles you most need to fill.
On October 1, 2026, Robert Half announced its 2027 Salary Guide. The headline number is a calm one. Average starting salaries across the seven professional fields the firm covers are projected to rise by 1.9% next year, while technology and IT salaries are projected to rise by 2.1%.
The numbers underneath are less calm. In the technology edition of the same guide, 65% of technology leaders say they are offering salaries above their planned range, citing the need to secure candidates with specialized skills as a top reason. 92% say they offer higher pay for relevant AI skills, and 60% say they offer more for AI expertise than for other tech skills.
The average is flat. The AI seats are not.
A disclosure before the numbers. Robert Half is a staffing firm, and so are we. Both of us benefit when companies conclude that talent is scarce and expensive. Robert Half bases its benchmarks on the pay of people it has placed, checked against third-party job posting data, and the pages we cite do not say how many technology leaders sit behind its technology percentages. So this piece sets its figures alongside government and nonprofit sources and flags the commercial interests of the others.
What Should You Pay AI Engineers in 2027?
Robert Half's 2027 Salary Guide puts the national starting salary for an AI engineer at $154,500 for someone new to the role, $175,000 for a candidate with moderate experience, and $196,750 for one with extensive experience. AI architects run from $145,250 to $204,000, and machine learning engineers earn $124,250 to $177,000, before bonuses.
They are national starting salaries. Robert Half states that the guide shows pay for someone new to the role or company, without bonuses or annual merit increases. The figures are national averages, and the guide lets you select your city.
The three levels describe experience, not percentiles. The low figure is for a candidate who is new to the role or has limited experience and is still developing core skills. The middle figure is for someone with moderate experience who meets most requirements. The high figure is for extensive experience and advanced skills, often with specialized certifications or industry background.
The comparison within the same guide is the useful part. Robert Half lists a software engineer at $111,500, $146,250, and $179,000 across the same three levels. At the mid-level, an AI engineer starts at $28,750 higher, which, by our calculations, is close to 20%. The gap is not constant. On the same arithmetic, it is about 39% at the low level and about 10% at the high level. A machine learning engineer at the mid-level sits about 6% above a software engineer, and a data scientist about 9%. "AI" is not a premium, and it narrows as experience rises.
Government data gives a rough check. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $135,980 for software developers in May 2025, $140,300 for computer and information research scientists, and $120,230 for data scientists. Those are medians for everyone working in the occupation, not starting offers, and the handbook has no AI engineer profile, so the comparison is loose. Even so, Robert Half's figure for an AI engineer new to the role sits above the median software developer wage.
How Big Is the AI Skills Premium, Really?
It is real; every source points in the same direction, and the size depends on what is being measured.
Across all professional fields, 72% of the managers Robert Half surveyed say they are increasing pay for relevant AI skills, and 42% say AI expertise commands more than other technical skills. Among technology leaders, as noted above, the figures are higher.
The Conference Board, a nonprofit business research group, reaches a similar conclusion. Its US salary increase budgets report, published September 3, 2026, found that AI skills are the leading skill category driving base-pay adjustments, cited by 37.8%, ahead of leadership and people-management skills at 30.7% and data science and advanced analytics at 30.4%. The published summary states neither the survey's sample size nor whom those percentages are a share of.
PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, released June 15, 2026, reports an average wage premium of 62% for workers with AI skills, up from 57% a year earlier, based on more than one billion job advertisements in 27 countries and territories. That is a global figure built from job advertisements; the release gives no wage premium for the United States, and PwC sells AI consulting.
A FEDS Note by Federal Reserve Board economist Maria D. Tito, published September 30, 2026, and limited to manufacturing job postings, found that postings requiring AI skills advertised wages that were, on average, around 70% higher than those for manufacturing postings overall. The author cautions that the gap may also reflect differences in the positions, locations, and employers involved, and only about half of recent postings list a wage. The finding matters because it comes from outside the technology sector. We looked at the competition for AI engineers, based on August data. September employment moved the other way, as the next section shows, so no single month should set a budget.
Our read: for a US engineering budget, the most usable figure is the role-to-role comparison inside one dataset. Plan on roughly 20% above a comparable software engineer at the middle level and closer to 10% for the most experienced hires, less for adjacent roles, and treat the larger headline premiums as evidence of direction.
Why Does a 2.1% Average Not Cover This?
Because the average and the premium apply to different people.
The Conference Board projects median salary increase budgets to remain at 3.5% in 2027, unchanged from 2026. Salary increase budgets cover raises for people already on your payroll. Robert Half projects a 2.1% rise in starting salaries across technology roles. Neither number describes what happens when you need one specific AI engineer in one specific quarter. The 65% offering above their planned range does.
The demand data explains why. CompTIA's analysis of September data, published October 2, 2026, counted 349,821 active job postings requiring AI-related skills, an increase of 32,327 from August, and 625,633 active technology postings overall, the highest total in more than three years. In the same month, unemployment among tech workers edged up to 3.3%, and employment in tech occupations across all industries fell by roughly 6,000 positions. This is one month of data from an organization that sells certifications, so read it with care. What it describes is employer demand for AI skills concentrating in a month when tech employment itself slipped.
There is a second cost that no survey here measures, and we raise it from our own recruiting work: pay compression. When a new hire comes in above the band, the engineers already doing similar AI work tend to find out. Paying the premium at the door and ignoring it inside the building turns a hiring problem into a retention problem.
What Does an AI Engineer Cost Beyond Base Salary?
More than the offer letter says.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in June 2026, wages and salaries accounted for 70% of employer compensation costs for private-industry workers, while benefits accounted for the remaining 30%. Each dollar of wages came with about 43 cents of benefit costs.
That ratio covers all private industry, so treat what follows as an illustration, not a benchmark. Applied to a $175,000 base salary, it implies roughly $250,000 in employer-paid compensation costs. Equity, recruiting fees, equipment, and the months before a new hire is fully productive all sit on top of that. Part of any cash bonus is already inside the BLS figure, which counts supplemental pay as a benefit cost.
For an AI engineer, there is one more line: AI tooling spend, which belongs in the same budget as the salary. We made that case in why AI teams are getting smaller and more senior.
How Should You Set Your 2027 AI Pay Bands?
Price the work, not the title. Decide whether the seat builds production AI systems, trains and tunes models, or analyzes their output, which is how we read the three titles. Robert Half's middle figures for AI engineer, machine learning engineer, and AI and machine learning analyst are $175,000, $154,500, and $150,000. A requisition that blurs them will be priced wrong.
Budget the level you will actually hire. In our recruiting work, teams often describe the high level in the job post and budget the middle one. If the role needs someone who has shipped and operated an AI system before, plan for the high figure from the start.
Build the exception into the plan. If 65% of technology leaders are already going above range, an above-range offer is not an exception. Set a pre-approved band for AI seats so each offer is not a new negotiation with finance.
Check your current team before you post the role. Compare the new band with what your existing engineers doing AI work earn, and close the gap on purpose. Training the people you have is the other half of this, and it is what our AI fluency program is for.
Decide which seats need a permanent premium. Robert Half, which also supplies contract talent, notes that many organizations are turning to it for roles in AI governance, automation, and cloud initiatives. A dedicated AI team is another way to add senior capacity without committing to a permanent band, and our AI staffing models guide compares the structures. One caution: we know of no independent 2026 dataset on AI engineering pay in Latin America comparable to the sources above. Anyone quoting precise nearshore savings is quoting their own book of business, and that includes us. Ask for rates in writing and hold them against these benchmarks.
Common Questions About AI Engineer Pay in 2027
What is the starting salary for an AI engineer in 2027?
Robert Half's 2027 Salary Guide lists national starting salaries for an AI engineer at $154,500 for someone new to the role, $175,000 for someone with moderate experience, and $196,750 for someone with extensive experience. These are starting salaries that exclude bonuses and annual merit increases, and they are national averages that should be adjusted for your city.
How much more do AI skills pay than other tech skills?
It depends on the measure. In Robert Half's 2027 guide, an AI engineer at the middle experience level starts about 20% above a software engineer, and about 10% above at the high level. PwC reports a 62% average global premium based on job advertisements in 27 countries and territories. For a US engineering budget, the role-to-role comparison is the more practical guide.
Are tech salaries rising in 2027?
Modestly on average. Robert Half projects technology and IT starting salaries to rise 2.1% in 2027, and The Conference Board projects median salary increase budgets to hold at 3.5%. Specialized roles pay above average, and 65% of technology leaders told Robert Half they are offering salaries above their planned ranges.
Is base salary the full cost of hiring an AI engineer?
No. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that wages and salaries accounted for 70% of employer compensation costs for private industry workers in June 2026, with benefits accounting for the remaining 30%. Equity, recruiting costs, and AI tooling spend come on top, so plan for a total well above the base figure.
If you are setting 2027 pay bands for AI roles and want a second opinion on which seats to hire, train, or staff flexibly, talk to the Golabs team. We will start with the work each seat does, not with a rate card.