What the data shows

1
With the employer panel held fixed, between the weeks of 28 Sep 2026 and 26 Oct 2026 the posted median for AV & Drone Operators rose 12.8% ($30 to $34/hr), while Embodied-AI Data Annotation fell 71% ($31 to $9/hr).
Figure 1
2
Of the 5 kinds of work that cleared the market-rate gate in both weeks, the middle one shifted its posted median by 9.1% either way; the smallest shift was 1.9% and the largest 71%.
Figure 1
3
AV & Drone Operators topped the posted medians in the week of 26 Oct 2026 at $34/hr.
Figure 1
4
The biggest swing in open roles came in Robot Fleet Operations: roughly 59 a day became 256 (+335.5%), employers that joined mid-period included.
Figure 4
5
Snapshots exist for 31 of the 31 days in 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026 (100%).
Figure 6

Figure 1

Like-for-like median posted rate in each kind of work

Holding the employer set fixed, which kinds of work are seeing their going rate climb or slip?

Kind of work	On 1 Oct 2026	On 26 Oct 2026	Change	Priced roles (latest)
AV & Drone Operators	$30	$34	+12.8%	47
Robot Teleoperation	$30	$28	-6.7%	13
Robot Fleet Operations	$26	$26	-1.9%	26
Data & Demonstration Collection	$28	$25	-9.1%	13
Embodied-AI Data Annotation	$31	$9	-71.0%	5

Base: Priced roles live as the first week began and as the last week began, drawn from a fixed panel: the 58 employers followed since 1 Oct 2026.

Each median requires 3 or more priced roles spread over 3 or more employers at both points in time, the one floor every pay figure here uses. Kinds that fall short are flagged as a small sample.

Quote this table rather than the next one. The next one takes in every employer followed on a given day, so a newcomer joining mid-period shifts its medians simply by changing which roles are in the mix.

Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition.

Figure 2

Daily-record median posted rate in each kind of work

Taking in whichever employers were followed on each day, what medians did the daily record log per kind of work?

Kind of work	Week of 28 Sep 2026	Week of 26 Oct 2026	Change	Employers (latest day)
AV & Drone Operators	$31	$29	-4.9%	19
Robot Teleoperation	$28	$29	+1.8%	11
Data & Demonstration Collection	$25	$28	+12.0%	10
Robot Fleet Operations	$22	$25	+15.2%	18
Egocentric & Wearable CaptureSmall sample	n/a	$10	n/a	6
Embodied-AI Data AnnotationSmall sample	$36	n/a	n/a	0
Robot Task Evaluation & QASmall sample	n/a	n/a	n/a	0

Base: 31 daily market snapshots from 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026. A week's value averages the days recorded in it.

The market-rate gate: a day only counts toward a kind of work if its median rests on 3 or more employers and 3 or more different advertised rates. A kind that misses the gate on every day of a week reads n/a there and is flagged as a small sample.

Shifts in which roles happen to be open move the median too, not only changes in pay.

Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition.

Figure 3

Weekly median posted rate

Which way has the posted rate for each kind of work drifted from one week to the next?

Week	AV & Drone	Fleet Operations	Egocentric Capture	Demonstration Collection	Teleoperation	Data Annotation
1 to 4 OctSmall sample	$31	$22	n/a	$25	$28	$36
5 to 11 Oct	$33	$22	n/a	$25	$27	n/a
12 to 18 Oct	$30	$22	n/a	$27	$28	n/a
19 to 25 Oct	$30	$26	$10	$28	$28	n/a
26 to 31 OctSmall sample	$29	$25	$10	$28	$29	n/a

Base: Limited to the six kinds of work with the largest number of open roles on the most recent day, 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026.

Weeks with under four recorded days, or clipped by the window edge, are flagged.

Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition.

Figure 4

Weekly open-role count in each kind of work

In which corners of robot training work are openings multiplying?

Week	AV & Drone	Fleet Operations	Egocentric Capture	Demonstration Collection	Teleoperation	Data Annotation
1 to 4 OctSmall sample	287	59	104	57	169	11
5 to 11 Oct	331	95	117	61	110	10
12 to 18 Oct	438	182	120	80	93	10
19 to 25 Oct	515	244	131	109	72	13
26 to 31 OctSmall sample	539	256	139	128	79	14

Base: Mean count of open roles across each week's recorded days, 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026.

Every followed employer is in here, newcomers from mid-period included. For a fixed panel of employers, see the jobs index.

Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition.

Figure 5

Spread of the central 50% of posted rates

In each kind of work, how far apart are the typical and the better-paid roles?

Kind of work	Latest week	Width	Change in width
AV & Drone Operators	$25 to $34	$9	$0
Robot Fleet Operations	$22 to $27	$5	+$1
Egocentric & Wearable CaptureSmall sample	$7 to $21	$14	n/a
Data & Demonstration Collection	$24 to $35	$11	+$2
Robot Teleoperation	$26 to $30	$5	$0
Embodied-AI Data AnnotationSmall sample	n/a	n/a	n/a

Base: The 25th and 75th percentile of posted rates, averaged per week, 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026.

Change in width sets the most recent week against the first. If the band got wider, typical and better-paid roles of that kind drifted further apart.

Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition.

Figure 6

Days recorded, week by week

Are there gaps in the day-by-day record these trends rely on?

Week	Days recorded	Open roles (average)
1 to 4 OctPartial week	4	699
5 to 11 Oct	7	735
12 to 18 Oct	7	934
19 to 25 Oct	7	1,092
26 to 31 OctPartial week	6	1,164

Base: 31 snapshots across a 31-day span, 1 Oct 2026 to 31 Oct 2026.

Each daily pass over the job boards ends by writing a snapshot. If a day has none, it shows as a gap; nothing is filled in.

Credit: RobotTraining.jobs Research, Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition.

Robotics labs · Fleet operators · Data vendors · Research teams

Buy the data behind this report

This report sums up records we gather ourselves, day after day:

1,432 robot training roles followed, history included
Every role on 100 employer job boards, read each day since 12 Sep 2026: its pay, its place, and the first and last day it was up.
536 apply clicks over 28 days
Which robot training roles people really apply to, by kind of work, pay and place. The clicks happen here, so no one else can count them.
25 sourced industry datasets
Funding, revenue, deals, fleets, deployments and prices across the robot training industry, each record linked to the publication it comes from.

On offer

The raw records
Every robot training role we track: title, employer, place, kind of work, pay as stated, and the days it was first and last open.
A regular feed
New and closed roles every week or month, as file drops or through the data endpoints.
A custom cut
Any figure here by country, city, kind of work, vehicle, employer or date, or your own hiring benchmarked against the market.

Need the people behind this data for your own robots? (you contract them yourself) or (we deliver the robot data).

Investing in robotics, AV or robot-data companies? The Robot hiring radar is these records role by role, every day, as files.

Robot hiring brief: free, once a month

The robot-training job market in figures, on the first weekday of each month: open roles, what opened and closed, who added and who cut, and posted pay by kind of work. To your work email.

How it was measured

The market snapshot saved after every daily read of the job boards, plus the role-by-role history underneath. A single database query produces each figure for the window shown, and the live page and every monthly edition run that identical query. The note under each figure gives its base.

Like for like: Medians for only those employers followed since the window began, reconstructed from role history as of the first week's start and the last week's start.
As recorded: The median saved in that day's market snapshot, covering every employer followed on that day.
Market rate: A median is shown only if it rests on 3 or more employers and 3 or more different advertised rates.
Advertised pay: The hourly rate a listing gives, using the midpoint when it gives a range. A median appears only when 3 or more roles state a rate, and the middle half spans the 25th to the 75th percentile.
Window: Live page: up to twelve full ISO weeks, counting from the week of 14 Sep 2026 (the first full week with snapshots). Edition: the weeks within one month.

Limits of this data

Hiring that happens off public job boards is invisible here, and some data-collection programs sign people up inside an app instead of posting a job.
A posting does not equal a hire. Certain employers leave evergreen roles up for months, and others post the same role once per city or country.
An advertised median moves with the mix of open roles, not only with rates. The like-for-like series strips out newly added employers, but not shifts in what each employer is hiring for.

Collection and classification of listings are explained on the methodology page. Freshness, completeness and consistency are tested daily in the data quality report.

Monthly editions

The live index spans the 12 most recent full weeks (none earlier than 14 Sep 2026, when this dataset's weekly series begins) and rolls forward each Monday. Every finished month also gets its own edition, locked two days after month end, so a number quoted from it stays fixed.

Live page12 most recent full weeks
October 2026 edition (you are here)Will lock when the next daily refresh runs

Quoting this report

You may quote, chart or republish these figures under CC BY 4.0, provided you link back to this page. This edition is locked: its numbers will not change.

Citation

RobotTraining.jobs (2026). Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition. https://robottraining.jobs/research/robot-training-pay-trends/2026-10

BibTeX

@misc{robottrainingjobs_robot_training_pay_trends_2026_10,
  author = {{RobotTraining.jobs}},
  title = {Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week, October 2026 edition},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://robottraining.jobs/research/robot-training-pay-trends/2026-10}},
}

Files: every figure in one CSV (a row per value) or as JSON, emailed to your work address.Other open data: datasets and API

Keep reading

Browse all 91 reports