There are 1.6 million open AI and machine learning roles in the world right now. There are 518,000 qualified candidates. That is a 3.2 to one shortfall, and it is quietly rewriting what ML engineers get paid.

If you are learning this stack, this is the window.

The money is moving. Fast.

Qubit Labs’ 2026 global AI salary report puts global AI pay up 67 percent across all regions. In North America, senior AI engineers now clear 216,000 dollars in total compensation. OpenAI’s average stock-based pay per employee landed around 1.5 million dollars in 2025. In Eastern Europe, Poland’s senior AI roles jumped 52 percent year on year. In Romania, mid-level large language model specialists jumped 47 percent. UK senior professionals saw a quieter 13 percent, which looks modest only until you remember the base was already high. Even Latin America posted 25 percent gains at the senior end.

The pattern is not “AI is rich”. The pattern is “AI is paying a premium everywhere, with the biggest multiples in the markets that were underpaying”.

How to capitalise

The window favours people who can position fast. Four moves:

• Put production ML on your CV. Not notebooks. Not kaggle. A model that handles real data from real users, however small.

• Pick a specialism before the market picks for you. LLM ops, recommender systems, computer vision, safety. The generic “ML engineer” still gets hired. The specialist closes faster and higher.

• Make yourself findable passively. Most hiring in this market is companies hunting, not candidates applying. A clean GitHub, a tidy LinkedIn, and one shipped project page do more than 40 applications.

• Choose where you are paid, not where you are located. Remote offers from US and UK companies land in cheaper cost-of-living markets every day. The 67 percent uplift is not evenly distributed, and that gap is a lever.

At Amsterdam Tech

Our Bachelor in AI and Machine Learning Engineering is built to ship, not just to teach. Students build models on real data and finish with production work on their CV. The programme is online, so where you live stops gating what you can earn.

Which part of the ML stack would you want to own in 24 months? Our AI and Machine Learning Engineering brochure walks through the full build.