AI training data and specialist labor markets show high hourly rates

Recent market data reveals a diverse pricing landscape for AI training data and specialized human labor. Job listings for high-level expertise show contract rates reaching up to $400 per hour for civil rights attorneys, while condensed-matter experts have seen listings of $170 per hour and software engineers up to $120 per hour. These figures represent top-end rates for specific assignments rather than industry-wide averages.

Data from 973 published prices indicates that company records, such as CRM notes and internal documents, have emerged as a significant new market asset. Median prices for various data types include $118 per hour of audio for off-the-shelf speech datasets and $42 per hour of existing video footage. For human contributors, the median pay for voice recording work is $24 per hour.

The work varies significantly in complexity, ranging from simple image labeling and transcription to high-level tasks where professionals, such as radiologists or lawyers, judge the accuracy of AI responses or develop scoring guides known as ‘evals’ to train models.