People in Saudi Arabia are looking to AI (artificial intelligence) skills as essential, with nearly four in five saying they will be impacted within a year, according to a report by LinkedIn‘s proprietary platform data, which revealed the latest talent trends in the Kingdom.
With more than 9m members in the kingdom, LinkedIn’s latest data offers a look into the Saudi workforce as it undergoes a rapid transformation to meet the ambitions of Saudi Vision 2030 while taking advantage of the opportunities that emerge from the rise of artificial intelligence.
LinkedIn’s data shows that the workforce is increasingly adopting digital skills in line with economic transformation in the kingdom. Key observations include:
- Saudi Arabia ranks first in MENA in several disruptive digital skills such as Development Tools, Materials Sciences and Nanotechnology. These skills are associated with developing new technologies that are expected to impact the labour market in the coming years
- The country ranks second in the MENA region across all digital skills categories on an aggregate level, following the UAE
- It ranks in the upper percentile in applied digital skills like Animation and Computer Graphics within the MENA region and well above the global average in Animation
- Saudi Arabia is also above the global average in cybersecurity trends: 3.1 per cent compared to 2.5 per cent globally. Notably, the kingdom is also steadily catching up to global trends in gender diversity in this industry
AI skills in Saudi Arabia
Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is on the rise globally, and within Saudi Arabia 79 per cent of employees believe that AI will significantly change the way they work in the next year.
KSA is already on an upward trajectory in its AI talent, having doubled this talent pool between 2016 and 2023. This trend looks to be accelerating as well with the ratio of AI talent hiring relative to overall hiring growing 24 per cent year-over-year.
In terms of AI skills penetration, Saudi Arabia jumped ahead five positions in the last year alone to the 30th position (from 35th in 2023).
Part of this has been attributed to the increased migration of AI professionals into the country: LinkedIn data shows that KSA has a positive net flow of AI talent, ranking 15th globally in AI talent attraction relative to population size, up from 24th last year.
This upward trend is supported by new data that shows how AI skills are being adopted nationwide.
LinkedIn’s data highlights that the fastest-growing AI skills in Saudi Arabia are Reinforcement Learning, Pattern Recognition, Predictive Modelling, Supervised Learning, PyTorch; all of which support the development of Generative AI.
Ali Matar, EMEA Growth Markets Leader and Head of LinkedIn MENA, said: “The latest data on labour market trends provides further insights into how Saudi Arabia is transforming into one of the most attractive places to work in the region as it marches towards Vision 2030.
“The insights are indeed a nod to the kingdom’s efforts to establish itself as an AI and data leader and signal a growing tech industry that is curating a savvy and adaptive workforce”.