AI trainers emerge as fastest growing cross border role in global hiring

Global hiring patterns are shifting as companies look beyond cost savings and increasingly search for specialised expertise across borders. New data from Deel’s 2025 State of Global Hiring Report suggests artificial intelligence related roles, particularly AI trainers, are emerging as a significant part of this shift.

The report analyses more than one million worker contracts across over 37,000 companies in more than 150 countries. It identifies structural changes in the global labour market, including the rise of AI training roles, changes in cross border hiring strategies, the return of remote workers to cities, and new payment behaviours among contractors.

AI trainers emerge as a new global profession

One of the report’s most notable findings is the rapid emergence of AI trainers as a new category of work. According to the analysis, more than 70,000 workers are now involved in training AI systems across over 600 organisations, contributing tasks that range from data annotation to expert feedback in fields such as medicine, economics and translation.

Demand for these roles is accelerating. General AI trainer positions hired from abroad grew 283% in 2025, making them the fastest growing cross border role on Deel’s platform.

Asia Pacific markets are already participating in this trend. India and the Philippines represent the second and third highest shares of global AI trainers on the platform, while Singapore and New Zealand command the highest median hourly rates in the region at US$25.20.

Singapore also stands out as the leading employer hiring AI trainers globally when compared with other markets in the region. The data indicates growing demand for workers capable of shaping how AI systems are trained and refined.

Compensation for these roles varies widely. Around 30% of AI trainers earn between US$15 and US$20 per hour for annotation work, while 19% earn between US$50 and US$75 per hour and 6% earn more than US$100 per hour for specialised expertise.

Product and customer roles drive salary growth in Singapore

The report also highlights changing compensation patterns in Singapore. Salary growth has concentrated in senior and revenue linked positions rather than purely technical roles.

Product managers in Singapore recorded 70% compensation growth between 2024 and 2025. Customer service representatives and sales account managers also saw strong increases, with growth of 31.6% and 28.4% respectively for employer of record roles.

Karen Ng, Regional Head of Expansion – Enterprise – North and South Asia, Deel, said: “Singapore is now backing its AI ambitions with serious institutional muscle. At the same time, the emergence of AI trainers as a specialised profession and the growth of strategic roles like product leaders are important signals in their own right. AI trainers embed human judgement into how models learn and improve, while product managers sit at the intersection of customer insight, technology and growth. Together, they underline that even in an AI-enabled economy, it is human expertise that ultimately sets the direction for how these tools are built and how they create value. This is the kind of specialised talent that companies are increasingly hiring across borders to stay competitive.”

Globally, the report finds that salary growth is often concentrated in leadership and operational roles. Project managers recorded the highest compensation growth at 24.5%, followed by chief operating officers at 21.6% and chief executives at 20%.

Cross border hiring shifts from cost to capability

Among high growth startups, cross border hiring strategies are also evolving. For companies founded between 2020 and 2025 that have raised US$100 million or more, hiring abroad increasingly targets specialised talent rather than lower labour costs.

In these firms, hiring patterns favour high income economies such as the UK, Canada and Germany. This challenges the long standing assumption that international hiring primarily reflects outsourcing to lower cost markets.

Software developers account for 28% of cross border hires among top startups, followed by technology sales roles at 6.2%, business development at 4% and AI engineers at 2%.

Across Asia Pacific, software developers remain the most in demand cross border hires in markets including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. High growth startups are 13.6 percentage points more likely to recruit developers internationally than smaller businesses.

Seven of the ten most common cross border roles globally are also in sales, marketing or other customer facing functions. The pattern suggests companies continue to prioritise roles that require local market understanding and commercial relationships, even as AI adoption increases.