The most in-demand skills in 2026, counted from 35,000 open jobs

The most in-demand skills in open job postings right now are Python, Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft Excel and SQL. In 35,419 open jobs counted on 17 October 2026, 14% asked for Python, 9% for Artificial Intelligence and 8% for Microsoft Excel. And 19% of all open jobs, 1 in 5, named at least one AI skill.

This is the short version of Rezifi's October 2026 jobs report, which has every chart, India and the US side by side, and a download of every count behind them.

The skills open jobs ask for most

A job counts a skill once, whether it names it once or five times, and a skill is counted only when the posting's own words name it. Python leads by a wide margin. Office tools sit high on the list because almost every kind of job asks for them: 35% of finance jobs ask for Microsoft Excel.

AI is now a skill in every kind of job

An AI skill here is any skill about building, using or governing AI, from machine learning and large language models to tools named by brand. Engineering asks for it most (34% of engineering jobs), but it reaches well past engineering: product management jobs name an AI skill more often (34%) than backend engineering jobs (19%).

Much of it is a nice to have: 34% of the jobs that name an AI skill list it only as nice to have. Indian postings name it less often than US ones (15% against 20%).

Employers now name AI tools by brand

A posting that asks for "experience with AI tools" increasingly names them. Claude comes up in 565 open jobs from 150 employers, ahead of OpenAI API (296), GitHub Copilot (211), Cursor (185). If you use one of these tools at work, name it on your resume the way the posting does.

Required or nice to have

A job names a median of 7 skills, and 66% of the skills named are required. The rest are nice to have. When a job asks for them, it most often requires Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Java, and most often lists AI Agents, SaaS and Large Language Models only as nice to have. A missing nice to have is a reason to say what you do have, not a reason to skip the job.

What this means for your resume

1. Use the posting's own words. If it says Amazon Web Services, write Amazon Web Services (AWS), not just cloud. A recruiter searching for a skill searches for its name, and so does the applicant tracking system (ATS) behind the careers page.
2. Put the must haves where a machine reads them: in your skills section and in the bullets that prove them, not only in a summary.
3. Name the AI tools you really use, by brand, with what you did with them. Never add a tool you have not used.
4. Check what an ATS reads. Rezifi's free ATS check scores your resume out of 100 the way an ATS and a recruiter read it and shows what a machine reads, with no sign-up.
5. Tailor it to each job. Rezifi's resume tailor rewrites your bullets, summary and skills in each job's own keywords, and never invents an employer, role, date or credential.