The UK could be starting to fall behind in the race for AI talent, with a new report from CBRE ranking Britain a distant third behind the US and India.

CBRE’s latest Global Tech Talent study reveals that while the US and India have the largest AI-development workforces, at approximately 406,000 and 375,000, respectively, the UK is lagging behind with an AI talent pool standing at just 72,000 professionals.

Meanwhile, demand is growing fast across Europe, particularly in France, Germany and Poland, where the number of AI-related job postings has grown to reach thousands of professionals.

However, according to CBRE’s report, the largest talent markets outside of the US are now in India, with cities like Delhi and Hyderabad the home base for tens of thousands of AI professionals, and one, Bengaluru, even beating out the San Francisco Bay Area, at 94,000 AI pros to Silicon Valley’s 71,000.

Elsewhere, the study identifies European markets like Belgrade, Leipzig, Lille, and Katowice in Poland as emerging in the tech talent space, with growth being driven by advancing education and tech skills, business-friendly environments, lower operating costs and an attractive quality of life.

Despite the rapid expansion of international AI talent markets, London still retains its status as a technology powerhouse.

According to CBRE, that’s mostly thanks to its strong financial sector and connections with other global markets, with the city a key centre for fintech and digital innovation, hosting companies such as DeepMind and Revolut.

London’s combined tech talent workforce sits between 300,000 – 500,000, a similar scale to New York, Paris, the San Francisco Bay Area and Toronto, with the city enjoying tech employment growth over the last five years at a similar rate to the likes of Tokyo, Milan and Copenhagen at 4.6%, though surprisingly slightly behind Manchester’s 4.7%.

While the report shows that tech talent, and more specifically those working in AI, are still concentrated in traditional tech strongholds, CBRE predicts that new tech clusters will begin to emerge over the next few years.

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The success of those clusters, however, will depend on several factors, including support for startups, scaleups and incubators, the introduction of government incentives and policy initiatives, a rapid build-up of tech education and skills, as well as improved quality of life to attract mobile tech talent and digital nomads. 

“The rise of global mobility has seen the available tech talent pool expand, as location becomes less relevant in a hybrid world,” said Mike Gedye, head of tech, media & telecoms in Europe for CBRE.

“This has also enabled smaller European towns and cities to emerge as competitive markets in this space. Emerging deep technology innovation is also set to become an even larger engine for growth, particularly across the European region.”