What 2,414 live job postings actually say in 2026
It is the question hanging over the whole industry right now, and almost every answer is an opinion: burnout threads, doom posts, course ads. We take a different route. Navisca counts real job postings from VFX, animation and games studios every week, so instead of a vibe we can give you a number. Everything below is dated to this week and links to the live page that proves it.
That is the count of open roles we can see this week across 179 hiring studios in 32 countries, refreshed every week. An industry that was over would not have a board this full. You can watch openings appear and close on our activity feed, and see exactly which studios are recruiting on the studios page.
Honesty note: our weekly total has risen over recent weeks, but that is mostly because we added more studios to our tracking, not proof the market is growing. So we lead with the snapshot above and the stable ratios below, never a rising line.
Of 2,414 open job specs, only 96 name any AI tool at all. So the idea that AI has already taken over the pipeline is not what studios are putting in their job ads. Read it carefully: this measures how often AI tools show up in hiring language, not total usage or future risk - it is a floor, not a ceiling. But it is a real, weekly-measured signal, which is more than the opinion posts offer.
We do not measure which tasks AI touches or how it is used day to day - only how often studios name an AI tool in a spec, which is 4.0% of open ads this week. We will not turn that into predictions. What the board shows is plain: the roles people fear for are still the ones being hired at the top of it.
Generative AI Artist is a new job title, and right now it has 5 open roles on our board. That is the other side of the coin people miss. We count new titles as they appear; we will not pretend to know the net effect on total jobs - nobody can yet. What we can tell you is that studios are already paying people to make art with generative tools.
Because the downturn has been real and loud: there have been high-profile closures and waves of layoffs, and that is what fills the feeds. We are not here to wave the fear away - it is well-founded.
But "the correction is real" and "there is no work" are not the same thing. Our live board still shows 2,414 open roles this week, and you can watch the work move between regions in our weekly country data. We show the hard part and the hiring side by side, never one without the other.
Games studios are a major part of the open board, not a vanishing one. The games layoffs have been brutal and widely reported, but on the live data there is still substantial games hiring among the open art and tech-art roles we track. The same pattern holds as in film VFX: consolidation and a tougher entry market, not an empty board.
Hiring is concentrated, and where the work sits shifts from week to week in our country data. If you are deciding where to apply, relocate or look for remote work, geography may be the single biggest lever on your odds.
These are not the numbers of a dead field. Salary aggregators swing wildly for the same title because they lean on self-reported surveys; we give a clean p25 / median / p75 band per role, pulled straight from the specs. Each figure is the role's top market - we never blend countries, since one number mixing markets is nobody's salary (the country sits next to each role):
Top-market median per role (the country with the most disclosed pay; no cross-country blend), with the sample size (n) next to each so you can judge confidence; some crafts sit on small samples this week. Tech-adjacent crafts cluster among the best-paid we track, though not the absolute top once engineering and management roles are included. Each role card has the full p25 / median / p75 band for every market.
This is the real squeeze, and it is bigger than AI. Where seniority is readable in the specs this week, openings run about 1020 senior to 114 junior - roughly 9 to 1, with 202 mid-level in between. So if you are a graduate hearing "we need someone with experience," the data is on the studios' side right now: they are hiring heavily for experience and thinly at the bottom.
Directional, not a census: this ratio is computed only on the postings where a level signal is present (a minority of all openings), and title words like director or lead count as senior - so treat it as a directional proxy. We started tracking the seniority split in 2026-W29, so this is a recent snapshot, not yet an established trend.
Concept art, 3D and animation are the crafts people worry about most - yet every one of them is still open and being paid for on our live board this week. We do not predict which roles AI will take; we just count the ones studios are hiring for. Pick a role to see its live openings, salary band and how AI shows up in its specs:
The bottom rung is the tight spot - openings run senior-heavy (see the squeeze above). We do not hand out generic break-in advice. What we can point you to is the live data worth aiming at: the crafts that actually have open seats right now, and the software studios are asking for this week.
No - it is consolidating. This week there are 2,414 open art, VFX, animation and games roles across 179 studios in 32 countries on our live board. There have been real, high-profile closures and layoffs, but studios are still hiring at scale. We report a weekly snapshot, not market growth.
Not on the evidence of the job ads. Of 2,414 open specs this week, only 96 (4.0%) mention any AI tool. We measure how often studios name AI in a spec, not which tasks it does - and the roles people fear for are still the ones being hired. It is even creating new titles such as Generative AI Artist, open on our board now.
This week we count 2,414 open art, VFX, animation and games roles across 179 studios in 32 countries, refreshed weekly. That is a cleaner, art-specific count than the mixed listings on general job boards.
For people who can get established, the pay holds up well (see our per-role medians from real postings). The catch is entry: openings are heavily weighted toward experienced roles right now, so breaking in is genuinely hard.
We do not measure why studios close - that is outside our data, so we will not put a reason on it. What we can show is where open work sits now and how it shifts between countries from week to week, in our country data.
They are squeezed, not gone. Where seniority is readable this week, openings lean heavily senior over junior - studios are hiring for experience and thinly at the bottom. It is a directional signal, not a census.
No - concept-artist roles are still open and being paid for on our live board this week. We do not measure which roles AI is 'most exposed' to; we count open roles and how often specs name an AI tool. Check the live role card before trusting the despair posts.
From real postings (USD, where we have at least five data points), median craft pay sits in the high five figures, with technical roles higher - see the per-craft table above for this week's figures. We publish a p25 / median / p75 band per role rather than the inconsistent averages on salary aggregators.
Entry is competitive right now: our board is senior-heavy. We do not measure age or hiring criteria, so we will not claim what gets you shortlisted - and we will not prescribe a single path. The useful move is to follow the live data on which crafts have open seats and which skills studios ask for most.
It is a job title built around generative AI tools - someone who makes art with them inside a studio pipeline. It has open roles on our board right now, which is the clearest sign in our data of AI adding a title, not only stirring fear.
We recount this every week.
Headlines change every week, and so does the number of open jobs. We recount every open art and VFX role across the studios we track and send the snapshot - openings, the AI footprint, the seniority split and salary moves - straight to your inbox. Stop trusting a single doom headline. Get the weekly read, free.