Job postings for AI roles at banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Capital One have surged 49% this year compared with 2025, hitting 139,819 listings, according to an analysis by enterprise hiring data firm Draup shared with CNBC. The fastest-growing area is agent orchestration, a skill that helps AI agents work together on a task.
“This is arguably the hottest skill on Wall Street,” Draup CEO Vijay Swaminathan said. “It’s a massive opportunity. They need people who understand data and people who understand AI and where to put it.”
What Agent Orchestration Does
Inside a financial institution, deploying AI usually involves linking several specialized agents into a chain. One agent inspects raw data. Another analyzes documents. A third checks compliance with regulations. The workers who manage this process, often called forward-deployed engineers, require both technical abilities and deep knowledge of a specific business or function, from trading desks to back-office operations and human resources.
“There is a lot of complexity in an enterprise,” Swaminathan said. “Sometimes these complexities are visible, but many times they are hidden. It takes a long time even to automate a simple process.”
Agent orchestration works by determining which agents are required, their individual duties, and the technology to employ. It also makes judgments about when human supervisors should take over.
The Numbers Behind the Surge
Draup culls data from public job posts and platforms including LinkedIn. References to agent orchestration jumped 1,721% this year. That is the largest surge in the analysis.
Several other AI tools also saw substantial improvements. LangGraph, designed for constructing multistep workflows, climbed 679%. LlamaIndex, which links AI applications to data, rose 291%. Retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, a method for supplying AI models with information from company databases, climbed 259%.
| Skill | Growth |
|---|---|
| Agent orchestration | +1,721% |
| LangGraph | +679% |
| LlamaIndex | +291% |
| RAG | +259% |
Soft Skills Are Back in Demand
Job listings increasingly stress so-called soft skills alongside technical abilities. These include problem solving, creativity, the capacity to ask tough questions, and being assertive about process understanding.
Swaminathan pointed to the complexity of automating a simple approval process, like employee vacation requests. “There is a lot of complexity in an enterprise,” he said. “Sometimes these complexities are visible, but many times they are hidden.”
Risk and Control Is a Big Category Too
This year saw a sharp rise in job postings linked to “responsible AI”, with positions referencing AI governance climbing 657% and postings for risk management jumping 394% and 359%, respectively. The security field is concentrating on preventing third-party tools or outside model connections from opening up systemic vulnerabilities.
The number of references in Draup data linked to governance skills has climbed past 16,000, which is nearly twice the roughly 8,400 tied to building, deploying and running models.
“There is a lot of focus on making sure that the third parties that we are using in these products are not going rogue from a cybersecurity standpoint,” Swaminathan said.
Pay and the Reskilling Gap
According to Draup, positions centered on generative AI and agents generally carry higher compensation than tech work found elsewhere within finance, with generative AI managers earning a median base salary of roughly $190,000.
Swaminathan said filling these specialized roles is still a challenge, and he noted that major banks are relying on internal reskilling programs to train existing developers and domain experts.
As more work gets handed over to AI, the build-out will set off a chain reaction. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has described “huge redeployment plans” as part of what that shift means.
“I think the more we prioritize those soft skills with the right amount of technical skills, people will adapt and learn,” Swaminathan said. “It’s a very exciting time for the right talent.”
What This Means for Banks
The banking sector is pushing past simple chatbots toward a future where vast numbers of agents take on more and more work. The person who brings that future about works at the point where data, AI models, and business processes all meet.
A rise in mentions of agent orchestration jobs signals a move toward putting AI to work. Rather than merely employing engineers to construct models, banks are now hiring individuals who can place AI into particular business lines and bring together several specialized agents to manage tasks that previously needed human effort.
It remains uncertain whether the sector can recruit workers quickly enough to match its automation ambitions.
Source material: “How AI is redefining Wall Street jobs — and boosting demand for this new 'hottest skill' by 1,721%,” CNBC.
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