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# Prompt engineering rose to 10.1% of generative AI skill mentions in US AI job postings in 2025
- URL: https://aiadoption.org/data/generative-ai-skill-share-us-job-postings/
- Published: 2026-10-19T16:26:29.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-21T06:02:18.000Z
- Description: Prompt engineering made up 10.1% of generative AI skill mentions in US AI job postings in 2025, up from 6.2%, and retrieval-augmented generation 5.7%. The generic 'generative AI' skill fell to 62.6%.
- Author: Manu
- Tags: Data, AI Jobs, Generative AI, AI in the US, #chart, #ai-index-2026, #hub-jobs, #country-us, #topic-generative-ai

10.1%

prompt engineering's share of generative AI skill mentions in US AI job postings in 2025, up from 6.2% in 2024

Prompt engineering's share

202510.1%

20246.2%

## What the chart shows

Within the generative AI skills that US AI job postings ask for, the mix shifted in 2025\. Prompt engineering rose from 6.2% to 10.1% of mentions and retrieval-augmented generation almost doubled, from 2.9% to 5.7%.

The generic skill ‘generative AI’ still accounted for most mentions, but its share fell from 66.1% to 62.6%, the 5% decline the AI Index reports. Large language modelling slipped from 19.2% to 17.5%.

## Key numbers

| Measure                              | Value  |
| ------------------------------------ | ------ |
| Generative AI, 2025                  | 62.62% |
| Generative AI, 2024                  | 66.08% |
| Large language modelling, 2025       | 17.46% |
| Prompt engineering, 2025             | 10.07% |
| Prompt engineering, 2024             | 6.20%  |
| Retrieval-augmented generation, 2025 | 5.71%  |

## How to read it

- The AI Index labels the measure ‘skill share in AI job postings’ without defining the base. The ten shares add up to 99.1% in 2025 (98.6% in 2024), so we read them as shares of all generative AI skill mentions in US AI job postings.
- Changes in the text are in percentage points; the AI Index’s percentage changes (−5% for generative AI) are relative changes.
- Counts for the same skills are in the [related chart](https://aiadoption.org/data/generative-ai-skills-us-job-postings/).

**Source:** [Lightcast](https://aiadoption.org/sources/#lightcast), 2025, via the AI Index Report 2026 (Stanford HAI), figure 4.4.6: *Share of generative AI skills in AI job postings in the United States, 2024 vs. 2025*. Chart and text by AI Adoption.  
Numbers checked against the published data on 20 October 2026.  
[Download the data (CSV)](https://charts.aiadoption.org/ai-index/csv/generative-ai-skill-share-us-job-postings.csv?ref=aiadoption.org) · [Cite this chart](#source)