AI is raising the bar for entry-level jobs, according to a new PwC analysis of global job ads.
Employers in AI-exposed fields are increasingly looking for entry-level workers to have the skills that they previously expected from senior workers, including emotional intelligence, judgment, and leadership.
The findings come from PwC’s 2026 AI jobs barometer, released on June 15th, which analyzed over 1 billion job advertisements globally.
Analysis of 2.4 million entry-level roles in the US found that AI-exposed roles are seven times more likely to list “traditionally senior” skills than they were in 2019.
The skills now expected of less experienced staff include motivational leadership, team building, people and stakeholder management, process management, mentorship, and data-driven decision-making.
PwC defined a skill as “traditionally senior” if it appeared more than 50 times in experienced, non-entry-level, high AI exposure job postings in 2019, but fewer than five times in entry-level, high AI exposure postings in 2019.
“The good news is that many junior workers will be spared years of drudgery on basic, repetitive tasks. The tough news is that those same workers need to quickly step up to demonstrate skills like leadership and strategic thinking,” PwC said in the report.
AI has become increasingly capable of performing repetitive, data-intensive tasks that once made up much of junior white-collar work. That shift has contributed to an overall slowdown in entry-level hiring.
Globally, PwC’s AI jobs barometer found that entry-level roles highly exposed to AI have flatlined. PwC itself has reduced hiring for entry-level workers by a third over the next three years in the US, Business Insider reported in August.
In the US job market, the report found that not all AI-exposed junior roles are shrinking: those with higher skill expectations are thriving.
AI-exposed entry-level jobs that had been “seniorized” — meaning they added more than 10 traditionally senior skills — grew 35% between 2019 and 2025. Comparable AI-exposed entry-level roles that had not been seniorized fell 10%.
The changing nature of the work is also pushing companies to overhaul their training and people programs to help young workers adapt.
PwC US introduced a new workplace training initiative in February and has reduced the number of locations where its entry-level consultants can work from 72 to 13 offices.
The isolation of the COVID years, combined with the way that AI is changing the nature of work, has chipped away at some of PwC’s sense of connection around learning and development, especially for younger employees, Yolanda Seals-Coffield, chief people and inclusion officer for PwC US, told Business Insider in February.
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