AI work directory Red Pen Jobs
Search roles

Pay rates October 2026

What AI training work paid, by profession: October 2026

The figures as they stood on , from 642 open micro1, Mercor, Terac, AfterQuery, Turing and SME Careers roles that stated an hourly rate. This page won't change. Today's figures are on the live page.

Hourly ranges, highest first

Each bar runs from the lowest to the highest rate listed in that profession, on one shared scale. A wide bar means the same profession advertises very different money at each end of the range.

  1. Doctors and clinicians Listed pay Up to $450 / hr 1,304 openings from 42 roles
  2. Lawyers Listed pay Up to $400 / hr 2,258 openings from 49 roles
  3. Data analysts Listed pay $30 to 350 / hr 313 openings from 11 roles
  4. Marketing professionals Listed pay $20 to 350 / hr 28 openings from 9 roles
  5. Business and operations specialists Listed pay $18 to 350 / hr 918 openings from 48 roles
  6. Accountants and finance experts Listed pay $30 to 300 / hr 1,246 openings from 42 roles
  7. Software engineers Listed pay $25 to 300 / hr 2,839 openings from 81 roles
  8. Machine learning engineers Listed pay $30 to 280 / hr 2,334 openings from 18 roles
  9. Researchers and academics Listed pay $45 to 250 / hr 1,470 openings from 29 roles
  10. IT support specialists Listed pay $30 to 250 / hr 356 openings from 8 roles
  11. Engineers Listed pay Up to $200 / hr 14,092 openings from 55 roles
  12. Life scientists Listed pay Up to $200 / hr 5,951 openings from 17 roles
  13. Physicists Listed pay Up to $200 / hr 2,041 openings from 10 roles
  14. Bilingual speakers Listed pay Up to $200 / hr 1,346 openings from 88 roles
  15. Medical coders and auditors Listed pay $20 to 190 / hr 193 openings from 6 roles
  16. Generalists Listed pay $8 to 180 / hr 45,932 openings from 46 roles
  17. QA engineers Listed pay $20 to 175 / hr 681 openings from 4 roles
  18. Designers Listed pay $21 to 170 / hr 136 openings from 10 roles
  19. Sales and CRM specialists Listed pay $20 to 150 / hr 798 openings from 9 roles
  20. Voice and audio recorders Listed pay $15 to 150 / hr 402 openings from 26 roles
  21. CAD and manufacturing specialists Listed pay Up to $150 / hr 553 openings from 17 roles
  22. Writers and editors Listed pay $15 to 140 / hr 182 openings from 12 roles
  23. Video editors and animators Listed pay Up to $100 / hr 13 openings from 3 roles
  24. Mathematicians and statisticians Listed pay $40 to 80 / hr 4 openings from 4 roles
  25. Transcribers Listed pay $8 to 36 / hr 141 openings from 14 roles
  26. Video recorders Listed pay $5 to 20 / hr 8,655 openings from 11 roles

Ranked by the top of each range; a tie goes to the profession with the higher bottom. The scale runs from $0 to $450 an hour, the highest rate listed anywhere in the data. Each profession links to its open roles. To cite one row, add # and the profession to the address, as in #lawyers.

One profession with no listed pay

This profession has no range above because no open role in it states a rate, and we do not estimate one. It stays on this page so you can see what is quiet rather than wonder whether we looked.

Cite this month

Red Pen Jobs, “What AI training work pays, by profession”, October 2026 (checked 13 Oct 2026). https://redpenjobs.com/pay/2026-10/

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit Red Pen Jobs with a link to this page. These are rates the postings advertise, not what people earned. Roles that state no rate are left out. The full method is on the live page.

This page carries no referral links and nothing to apply to.