Pilot hiring reports
Every month, what the operators WingJobs scans were actually asking for: how many vacancies were open, the hours they required, and how many took pilots without the type rating. Figures are measured from the ads, never estimated — free to quote, with a link.
Latest — October 2026
- 838 pilot vacancies were open at 137 operators on 31 October 2026.
- Outside the US, Canada and Australia, the median minimum asked was 2,000 total hours, across the 151 ads that stated one.
- Among them, first officer ads asked a median of 1,500 hours; captain ads, 3,000.
- Outside the US, Canada and Australia, 36% of the ads that took a position on the type rating did not require one, listed it as desirable, or funded it.
- Airlines took pilots without the type rating in 42% of those ads; business aviation operators in 22%.
- 11 open vacancies asked 500 hours or less — the lowest, 200 hours at Enter Air.
- 358 new adverts were published during the month and 393 closed.
Read the October 2026 report →
All reports
| Report | Open at month end | Median hours (international) | New adverts |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | 838 | 2,000 h | 358 |
| September 2026 | 731 | 2,000 h | 45 |
Quote these figures freely — just link to the report. Download every month in one CSV (CC BY 4.0).
How the figures are measured
Each report covers a closed month, so its figures do not move once published. A vacancy counts as open at the end of the month if a scan found it before the month ended and again after. Hours are the minimum total flight time stated in the ad; an ad that states none is left out of the medians rather than guessed. The United States, Canada and Australia are reported apart: they need their own licence and the right to work there, and the hundreds of US helicopter air-ambulance bases would otherwise drown every other figure.
When a new operator is added, its open vacancies enter the database on the day of the first scan. Those are counted as coverage, not as new adverts — otherwise every batch of new operators would read as a hiring boom.
Coverage
207 airlines, regional, ACMI and business aviation operators across Europe, the Gulf, the United States, Canada, Australia, Africa and the Caribbean, read from their own careers portals — the list is on the operators page, each with its own hiring history. Vacancies have been recorded since June 2026; a monthly report exists only once at least 50 operators were tracked by the end of the month, so that it describes a market rather than a handful of companies.
Update frequency
Careers portals are scanned every 3 hours. A report is published when its month closes and never changes afterwards; the series file gains that month at the same time. The live list is the only part that moves between reports.
Fields in the data files
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
month | Month covered, as YYYY-MM. |
section | How the row is grouped: all, market, then — international market only — operator_type, role, operator or aircraft. |
group | The group within the section: intl, us, ca or au for a market; airline or business; a role; an operator or aircraft family name. |
open_vacancies | Vacancies open on the last day of the month. |
operators | Operators with at least one of those vacancies open. |
median_min_hours | Median minimum total flight time asked, among the ads that state one. Empty under 10 ads. |
lowest_min_hours | Lowest minimum total flight time asked. |
ads_stating_hours | Ads that state a minimum total flight time. |
ads_stating_type_rating | Ads that take a position on the type rating. |
no_type_rating_required | Of those, ads that do not require the type rating, list it as desirable only, or fund it. |
no_type_rating_pct | That share, in percent. Empty under 10 ads. |
new_adverts | Series file only: adverts first published during the month. The vacancies found when an operator is added are not counted. |
closed | Series file only: adverts taken down during the month. |
operators_tracked | Series file only: operators scanned by the end of the month. |
source | Address of the report the row comes from — the link to give when you reuse it. |
The JSON file of a month carries the same tables, plus its key sentences and the lowest-hour vacancies. Data is under CC BY 4.0: reuse it freely, with a link to the report.
Limitations
- Only the operators listed are covered. Operators that recruit without publishing dated adverts, through a standing pool, are left out.
- Requirements are what the advert states. An ad that gives no hours is left out of the medians, never guessed; each figure on a job page shows the sentence it was read from.
- Reading is automatic. An unusual wording can be missed, which leaves a figure empty rather than wrong.
- Dates come from the scans, so an opening or a closing is placed within 3 hours. When an operator's site stops answering, or suddenly lists nothing, its vacancies stay open until a scan can confirm they are gone.
- A vacancy re-published under a new title counts as a new advert.