AI Contract Job Trends in London

AI
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring AI skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 49 75
Rank change year-on-year +38 +26 +188
Contract jobs citing AI 2,465 664 542
As % of all contract jobs in London 12.48% 4.91% 3.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 14.03% 5.33% 3.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,595 450 408
10th Percentile £400 £363 £412
25th Percentile £475 £425 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £568 £565 £600
Median % change year-on-year +0.44% -5.83% -4.76%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £750
90th Percentile £800 £825 £825
England median daily rate £550 £558 £600
% change year-on-year -1.35% -7.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 4 8
10th Percentile £31.18 £28.90 £30.31
25th Percentile £32.87 £30.25 £35.00
Median hourly rate £40.98 £40.25 £38.52
Median % change year-on-year +1.81% +4.50% +10.04%
75th Percentile £51.10 £50.35 £44.00
90th Percentile £67.68 £51.44 £54.43
England median hourly rate £36.00 £54.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -33.33% +16.93% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
London

AI falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 17,566 12,468 15,436
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.96% 92.16% 88.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,659 8,340 10,970
10th Percentile £360 £331 £350
25th Percentile £444 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.18% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £763 £788 £800
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 235 285
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £16.24
25th Percentile £22.16 £24.66 £20.22
Median hourly rate £36.25 £32.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +11.54% +7.76% -27.33%
75th Percentile £58.75 £50.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.55 £69.20
England median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +88.87% -34.02% -6.09%

AI
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing AI relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

AI job vacancy trend in London

AI
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing AI.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing AI

AI
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing AI in London over the 6 months to 15 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for AI in London

AI
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing AI.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing AI

AI
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing AI in London over the 6 months to 15 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for AI in London

AI
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing AI within the London region over the 6 months to 15 July 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Central London +45 330 £550 -12.00% 238
West London +30 61 £603 +17.68% 47
South London +11 29 £575 -16.36% 19
North London 0 4 £450 -30.77% 7
East London -9 4 £525 -20.75% 45
AI
England

AI
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 78 (3.16%) SharePoint
2 57 (2.31%) Apache Spark
3 55 (2.23%) Confluence
4 45 (1.83%) Apache
5 40 (1.62%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
7 19 (0.77%) CMS
7 19 (0.77%) Jupyter
8 16 (0.65%) Appian
9 13 (0.53%) Palantir Foundry
10 10 (0.41%) WordPress
11 7 (0.28%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 6 (0.24%) IIS
13 5 (0.20%) Camunda
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.16%) CICS
15 2 (0.081%) Apache Synapse
15 2 (0.081%) Mendix
15 2 (0.081%) Moodle
Applications
1 61 (2.47%) Chatbot
2 47 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 31 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
5 20 (0.81%) Microsoft Project
6 15 (0.61%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.20%) Notion
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.12%) AutoCAD
8 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.12%) Sketch
8 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
9 2 (0.081%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.081%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.081%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.041%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.041%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.041%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.24%) OpenText MBPM
2 6 (0.24%) Oracle BPM
2 6 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.20%) Actimize
4 4 (0.16%) Shopify
4 4 (0.16%) Workfront
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle General Ledger
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.081%) IntelliMatch
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle FAH
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.081%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.081%) Sprinklr
6 2 (0.081%) Summit
7 1 (0.041%) Maximo
7 1 (0.041%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 744 (30.18%) Azure
2 588 (23.85%) AWS
3 261 (10.59%) Power Platform
4 259 (10.51%) GCP
5 151 (6.13%) GitHub
6 147 (5.96%) Azure AI
7 124 (5.03%) Microsoft Copilot
7 124 (5.03%) Serverless
8 112 (4.54%) Microsoft 365
9 105 (4.26%) Snowflake
10 93 (3.77%) SaaS
11 92 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
12 87 (3.53%) Amazon Bedrock
13 86 (3.49%) Amazon S3
14 77 (3.12%) Power Automate
15 74 (3.00%) AWS Lambda
16 69 (2.80%) Anthropic Claude
17 59 (2.39%) Entra ID
18 58 (2.35%) PowerApps
19 54 (2.19%) Amazon SageMaker
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.05%) Firewall
2 20 (0.81%) VPN
3 19 (0.77%) Network Security
4 16 (0.65%) DNS
5 14 (0.57%) Internet
6 13 (0.53%) WAN
7 11 (0.45%) Ethernet VPN
7 11 (0.45%) MPLS
8 9 (0.37%) BGP
8 9 (0.37%) OSPF
9 8 (0.32%) Cisco IPT
9 8 (0.32%) DHCP
9 8 (0.32%) SD-WAN
9 8 (0.32%) Wireless
10 7 (0.28%) TCP/IP
10 7 (0.28%) VXLAN
11 5 (0.20%) SSL
12 4 (0.16%) Cisco IOS
12 4 (0.16%) Ethernet
12 4 (0.16%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (7.10%) Power BI
2 88 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
3 86 (3.49%) Metadata
4 84 (3.41%) Data Lake
5 76 (3.08%) SQL Server
6 65 (2.64%) Tableau
7 61 (2.47%) Relational Database
8 49 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
9 42 (1.70%) BigQuery
10 41 (1.66%) NoSQL
11 39 (1.58%) Big Data
12 37 (1.50%) Pinecone
13 33 (1.34%) Amazon Athena
14 28 (1.14%) Weaviate
15 27 (1.10%) Delta Lake
16 24 (0.97%) Snowflake Schema
17 23 (0.93%) Oracle Database
18 22 (0.89%) Amazon Redshift
19 20 (0.81%) Neo4j
20 19 (0.77%) Redis
Development Applications
1 119 (4.83%) JIRA
2 117 (4.75%) Git
3 53 (2.15%) GitLab
4 50 (2.03%) Jenkins
5 33 (1.34%) MLflow
6 25 (1.01%) Claude Code
7 23 (0.93%) Selenium
8 19 (0.77%) REST Assured
9 18 (0.73%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.45%) JMeter
11 10 (0.41%) Appium
12 8 (0.32%) Gatling
12 8 (0.32%) PyCharm
13 7 (0.28%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.24%) ERwin
14 6 (0.24%) Visual Studio
15 5 (0.20%) Gradle
15 5 (0.20%) Maven
15 5 (0.20%) SonarQube
15 5 (0.20%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 693 (28.11%) Finance
2 576 (23.37%) Social Skills
3 315 (12.78%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (10.39%) Banking
5 153 (6.21%) Public Sector
6 93 (3.77%) Retail
7 85 (3.45%) Marketing
8 74 (3.00%) Legal
9 54 (2.19%) Financial Institution
10 51 (2.07%) Front Office
10 51 (2.07%) Investment Banking
11 47 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
12 44 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
13 43 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
14 40 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 35 (1.42%) Law
16 34 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
17 27 (1.10%) Aviation
18 24 (0.97%) Telecoms
19 22 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 374 (15.17%) Architect
2 340 (13.79%) Senior
3 244 (9.90%) Developer
3 244 (9.90%) Lead
4 225 (9.13%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 167 (6.77%) Analyst
6 127 (5.15%) Data Engineer
7 125 (5.07%) Solutions Architect
8 96 (3.89%) Data Scientist
9 90 (3.65%) Business Analyst
9 90 (3.65%) Consultant
10 88 (3.57%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 76 (3.08%) Software Engineer
12 61 (2.47%) Data Architect
13 58 (2.35%) Designer
13 58 (2.35%) Project Manager
14 51 (2.07%) Python Engineer
15 47 (1.91%) Product Manager
16 46 (1.87%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 46 (1.87%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 140 (5.68%) .NET
2 123 (4.99%) React
3 120 (4.87%) REST
4 97 (3.94%) LangChain
5 74 (3.00%) PyTorch
6 72 (2.92%) Model Context Protocol
7 67 (2.72%) Kafka
8 66 (2.68%) PySpark
9 56 (2.27%) LangGraph
10 51 (2.07%) TensorFlow
11 50 (2.03%) .NET Framework
12 44 (1.78%) scikit-learn
13 41 (1.66%) Pandas
14 40 (1.62%) AngularJS
15 38 (1.54%) FastAPI
15 38 (1.54%) LlamaIndex
15 38 (1.54%) OAuth
15 38 (1.54%) Playwright
16 37 (1.50%) Node.js
17 36 (1.46%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 306 (12.41%) AI Agents
2 248 (10.06%) Cloud Native
3 111 (4.50%) Onboarding
4 104 (4.22%) Product Ownership
5 95 (3.85%) Distributed Systems
6 53 (2.15%) Algorithms
7 52 (2.11%) Data Structures
7 52 (2.11%) Management Information System
8 51 (2.07%) Data Protection Act
9 40 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
10 39 (1.58%) Mobile App
11 37 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
12 35 (1.42%) Virtual Team
13 34 (1.38%) Security Posture
14 31 (1.26%) Taxonomies
15 29 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 29 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
15 29 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
16 28 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
16 28 (1.14%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 53 (2.15%) Linux
2 52 (2.11%) Windows
3 26 (1.05%) Android
4 19 (0.77%) Apple iOS
5 15 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.57%) Windows Server
7 12 (0.49%) Unix
8 7 (0.28%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.20%) VMS
10 4 (0.16%) zOS
11 3 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.081%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 736 (29.86%) Machine Learning
2 647 (26.25%) Generative AI
3 565 (22.92%) LLM
4 520 (21.10%) Analytics
5 519 (21.05%) CI/CD
6 491 (19.92%) Agile
7 405 (16.43%) DevOps
8 347 (14.08%) Data Science
9 333 (13.51%) Problem-Solving
10 325 (13.18%) Stakeholder Management
11 287 (11.64%) Software Engineering
12 274 (11.12%) Use Case
13 271 (10.99%) Roadmaps
14 269 (10.91%) Decision-Making
15 259 (10.51%) Data Engineering
16 255 (10.34%) Data Pipeline
17 238 (9.66%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
18 235 (9.53%) Continuous Improvement
19 232 (9.41%) Business Intelligence
20 229 (9.29%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 818 (33.18%) Python
2 443 (17.97%) SQL
3 168 (6.82%) Java
4 160 (6.49%) C#
4 160 (6.49%) TypeScript
5 97 (3.94%) JavaScript
6 72 (2.92%) PowerShell
7 30 (1.22%) Bash
8 29 (1.18%) R
9 28 (1.14%) T-SQL
10 23 (0.93%) PL/SQL
11 22 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 22 (0.89%) Kotlin
12 20 (0.81%) Bicep
13 17 (0.69%) Scala
14 14 (0.57%) Apex Code
15 12 (0.49%) Go
15 12 (0.49%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.49%) SPARQL
16 11 (0.45%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 265 (10.75%) Security Cleared
2 216 (8.76%) SC Cleared
3 203 (8.24%) Degree
4 79 (3.20%) Computer Science Degree
5 43 (1.74%) Master's Degree
6 41 (1.66%) DV Cleared
7 35 (1.42%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (1.38%) CISSP
9 33 (1.34%) Azure Certification
10 30 (1.22%) AWS Certification
11 22 (0.89%) PhD
12 21 (0.85%) CISM
13 20 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
13 20 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (0.69%) PMI Certification
15 13 (0.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (0.53%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 12 (0.49%) PMP
17 9 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 7 (0.28%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (7.87%) Data Quality
2 120 (4.87%) QA
3 97 (3.94%) GDPR
4 62 (2.52%) Accessibility
5 48 (1.95%) NIST
6 32 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 23 (0.93%) PMO
8 18 (0.73%) GRC
9 17 (0.69%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.65%) WCAG
11 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
12 14 (0.57%) EU AI Act
13 13 (0.53%) SLA
14 12 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 10 (0.41%) COBIT
16 7 (0.28%) HIPAA
16 7 (0.28%) NIST 800
16 7 (0.28%) Solvency II
17 6 (0.24%) ISO 20022
17 6 (0.24%) PERC
System Software
1 170 (6.90%) Docker
2 46 (1.87%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.28%) IAG
3 7 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.16%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.081%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.041%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.041%) Firmware
8 1 (0.041%) HDFS
8 1 (0.041%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 1 (0.041%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 249 (10.10%) Kubernetes
2 200 (8.11%) Terraform
3 47 (1.91%) Ansible
4 34 (1.38%) Grafana
5 30 (1.22%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (0.69%) Kubeflow
8 10 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.32%) SCCM
10 7 (0.28%) Puppet
11 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.24%) CASB
11 6 (0.24%) Kibana
12 4 (0.16%) Argo
12 4 (0.16%) systemd
13 3 (0.12%) Nagios
13 3 (0.12%) Podman
13 3 (0.12%) Salt
13 3 (0.12%) vMotion
13 3 (0.12%) yum
Vendors
1 380 (15.42%) Microsoft
2 162 (6.57%) OpenAI
3 146 (5.92%) Databricks
4 105 (4.26%) Google
5 87 (3.53%) Foundry
6 80 (3.25%) Salesforce
7 72 (2.92%) Oracle
7 72 (2.92%) ServiceNow
8 47 (1.91%) SAP
9 26 (1.05%) Adobe
10 23 (0.93%) Splunk
11 21 (0.85%) Citrix
12 19 (0.77%) UiPath
13 18 (0.73%) Sitecore
14 16 (0.65%) Dynatrace
15 15 (0.61%) Informatica
16 14 (0.57%) Palantir
16 14 (0.57%) Workday
17 13 (0.53%) Cisco
17 13 (0.53%) MuleSoft