Art Jobs Report
September 2026

Motion and graphic design surged to 33% of roles in September, up from 24% in August, driven mostly by graphic design openings (612 roles on their own). 3D art edged past animation for second place (15% vs 14%), VFX held near 6%, and 2D art and illustration eased to 5%. Technical, environment, and concept art each held a 2-3% share of a much larger total.

Game art outsourcer Side led September with 30 roles across character, environment, concept, and cinematic lighting, posted for teams in several countries. EPAM Systems (28) followed with UI and technical art roles for its games work, ahead of Electronic Arts and Magic Media at 16 each. Outsourcing and co-development studios (Side, Magic Media, Keywords Studios) fill much of the top ten, alongside VFX houses Framestore and Rodeo FX, a sign that a large share of new art hiring is flowing through service studios.

16.6% of September listings included salary data (470 of 2,826), up sharply from August's 4.2% and July's 7%. Transparency remains highest in North America and the UK. To keep the ranges comparable, the cards below use the 321 listings from North America and Western Europe, normalized to USD equivalents with hourly and monthly rates annualized, and show the middle 80% of each discipline's listed pay.

September front-loaded its hiring: Weeks 1 and 2 (754 and 783 jobs) were the two busiest weeks in any ArtBlast report so far, before volume settled to 564 and 536 in Weeks 3 and 4, close to August's busiest week (559). The two-day final stretch (September 29-30) added 189.