Nearly 30% of Chinese companies have added AI-related roles to campus recruitment, with 56.8% of them reporting higher demand from a year earlier, according to a 51job report based on more than 8,000 company and individual survey responses.

AI application development engineers are 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 showed a sharp salary divide within AI roles. Large-model algorithm engineers led with a median monthly salary of 27,329 yuan, while multimodal and deep-learning roles both exceeded 26,000 yuan. AI data trainers had a median monthly salary of 8,977 yuan, less than one-third of the top-paying role.