A 51job report, cited by Jiemian News, found that nearly 30% of Chinese companies have added AI-related roles to campus recruitment, with 56.8% of firms reporting higher demand than a year earlier. The findings are based on responses from more than 8,000 companies and individuals.

AI application development engineers were the most in-demand role, cited by 53.9% of surveyed companies.

Employers placed the greatest emphasis on mathematics and statistics skills, at 58.9%, followed by machine-learning theory and practice, at 46.5%.

The report also highlighted a wide salary gap across AI roles. Large-model algorithm engineers posted a median monthly salary of 27,329 yuan, while multimodal and deep-learning positions both exceeded 26,000 yuan. AI data trainers had a median salary of 8,977 yuan per month, far lower than the top-paying roles.