research jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-09-30, research appears in 444 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — Product Designer has the most postings mentioning research, with demand share down 0.3% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-09-30
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Frequently asked questions about research
+Is research in demand in 2026?
Yes. research appears in 444 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-09-30. Product Designer accounts for the most postings mentioning research (26.4% of all postings mentioning research).
+What jobs require research?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-30, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning research are Business Analyst Intern (15.0% of that role’s postings mention research), AI Evaluation Expert (13.9% of that role’s postings mention research), Product Design Manager (9.5% of that role’s postings mention research).
+What skills are commonly paired with research?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-09-30), research most often appears alongside prototyping, product design, Data analysis, design systems, Interaction Design.
+Where is research most in demand?
As of 2026-09-30, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring research are New York City, London, San Francisco, Bengaluru, Berlin, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new research content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning research alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new research content from your Skillenai account.
+Which skills come before and after research?
The skill-flow chart shows skills documented in adjacent positions across observed employer changes. An outgoing skill is documented in the following position but not the preceding one. These are ideas to explore, not proven prerequisites, acquisition dates, or levels of mastery. Each ribbon counts employer moves with that skill pair; one move can contribute several pairs.
Weekly indexed postings requiring research — last 90 days
Salary distribution
Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized
Career paths around research
Skills documented before and after this skill across employer changes.
Historical career profiles · all locations
Skills before research
Skills after research
How to read this chart · view counts
Each side is an independent set of observed employer moves, not the same people followed through three stages. Ribbon widths compare move counts within that side. Internal moves are not included.
The following position documents a skill that the preceding position does not. Skills must be linked to both positions, with clear dates and no overlap. One move can connect several skill pairs. These patterns suggest skills to explore; they do not establish prerequisites, when a skill was learned, or a higher skill level.
Source: Skillenai talent graph, historical career profiles. Historical descriptions and coverage can change. Only the leading published connections are shown.
| Connection | Moves |
|---|---|
| Before: CSS | 3 |
| Before: prototypes | 3 |
| Before: Excel | 3 |
| Before: pandas | 3 |
| Before: JavaScript | 3 |
| Before: training | 3 |
| Before: web design | 3 |
| Before: usability testing | 2 |
| After: user research | 6 |
| After: data analysis | 4 |
| After: Prototyping | 4 |
| After: python | 3 |
| After: Competitive analysis | 3 |
| After: Powerpoint | 3 |
| After: HTML | 3 |
| After: R | 3 |
Roles most likely to require research
Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | % of role postings mentioning skill |
|---|---|---|
| Business Analyst Intern | 3 | 15.0% |
| AI Evaluation Expert | 5 | 13.9% |
| Product Design Manager | 2 | 9.5% |
| Digital Product Owner | 2 | 9.1% |
| Software Developer Intern | 3 | 7.3% |
| ML Research Engineer | 3 | 6.2% |
| AI Security Researcher | 1 | 4.8% |
| Commercial Analytics Manager | 1 | 4.5% |
| Product Designer | 117 | 4.2% |
| AI Response Evaluator | 1 | 3.7% |
Roles with the most research postings
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | Share of skill postings |
|---|---|---|
| Product Designer | 117 | 26.4% |
| Product Manager | 94 | 21.2% |
| Business Analyst | 11 | 2.5% |
| UX Designer | 10 | 2.3% |
| Program Manager | 6 | 1.4% |
| AI Evaluation Expert | 5 | 1.1% |
| Director, Insights & Analytics | 5 | 1.1% |
| Research Scientist | 5 | 1.1% |
| AI Data Contributor | 4 | 0.9% |
| Digital Product Manager | 4 | 0.9% |
Top companies posting jobs requiring research
Employers ranked by indexed job postings in the last 90 days.
| Company | Postings · 90 days |
|---|---|
| OpenBrain | 31 |
| Capital One | 12 |
| City of New York | 8 |
| Mercury | 6 |
| Highwire | 5 |
| Instana | 5 |
| Bah | 5 |
| Gearset | 4 |
| USAA | 4 |
| Asana | 4 |
Job postings indexed over the past 90 days, grouped by resolved employer. Counts are postings, not hires. Companies without a published page appear without a link.
Top metros hiring for research
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | 41 | 9.2% |
| London | 25 | 5.6% |
| San Francisco | 18 | 4.1% |
| Bengaluru | 13 | 2.9% |
| Berlin | 13 | 2.9% |
| Toronto | 8 | 1.8% |
| Barcelona | 4 | 0.9% |
| Chicago | 4 | 0.9% |
| Seattle | 4 | 0.9% |
Skills commonly paired with research
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How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-30. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Role prevalence divides postings mentioning research by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s research postings by all research postings, including postings without a role. Shares need not sum to 100% for the displayed roles. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills). Adjusted posting share: 0.2% to 0.2%. Demand share change is the relative percentage change between these adjusted shares. Each employer-and-ATS group has at least 10 postings in each 90-day window; its earlier posting count supplies the same weight in both windows. The panel includes 2,595 identified employers and covers 68% of earlier and 72% of latest indexed postings. Windows: 2026-06-02 to 2026-08-31 and 2026-06-30 to 2026-09-28 (UTC; end dates excluded). The windows overlap by 62 days. Dates reflect indexing, not the employer’s posting date. This measures posting mix, not total hiring or market-wide demand. Matching excludes entrants and exits; changes in crawl completeness within an employer or ATS can still affect the result.
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- f2cafab76e937d6e
- data_as_of
- 2026-09-30
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
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