Machine Learning Scientist Contract Job Trends in London

Machine Learning Scientist
England > London

The median Machine Learning Scientist daily rate in London is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 March 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 395 345 395
Rank change year-on-year -50 +50 +121
Contract jobs requiring a Machine Learning Scientist 7 5 3
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.042% 0.039% 0.017%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.045% 0.042% 0.018%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 0 3
10th Percentile - - £531
25th Percentile £525 - £597
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 - £712
75th Percentile £575 - £746
90th Percentile - - £763
England median daily rate £550 - £631

All Contract IT Job Roles
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in London with a recognized job title 15,566 11,900 16,836
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.57% 93.60% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,413 8,153 12,158
10th Percentile £350 £340 £325
25th Percentile £425 £430 £443
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 150 341
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.19 £16.00
25th Percentile £22.00 £24.66 £19.57
Median hourly rate £35.71 £35.00 £27.81
Median % change year-on-year +2.03% +25.85% -20.54%
75th Percentile £62.13 £51.80 £47.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £67.50 £65.00
England median hourly rate £41.26 £34.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +19.58% +6.15% -23.53%

Machine Learning Scientist
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Machine Learning Scientist' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Machine Learning Scientist job vacancy trend in London

Machine Learning Scientist
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Machine Learning Scientist job vacancies in London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Machine Learning Scientist job vacancies in London

Machine Learning Scientist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 30 March 2026, Machine Learning Scientist contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the London region featuring Machine Learning Scientist in the job title.

1 7 (100.00%) AI
1 7 (100.00%) AWS
1 7 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 7 (100.00%) Data Science
1 7 (100.00%) Machine Learning
1 7 (100.00%) MLOps
1 7 (100.00%) Natural Language Processing
1 7 (100.00%) Python
2 6 (85.71%) API Design
2 6 (85.71%) AutoML
2 6 (85.71%) Databricks
2 6 (85.71%) DevOps
2 6 (85.71%) Generative AI
2 6 (85.71%) Jenkins
2 6 (85.71%) MLflow
2 6 (85.71%) Test Automation
2 6 (85.71%) Unit Testing
2 6 (85.71%) Workflow
3 1 (14.29%) Analytics
3 1 (14.29%) AWS Fargate
3 1 (14.29%) AWS Lambda
3 1 (14.29%) Azure
3 1 (14.29%) Computer Science
3 1 (14.29%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (14.29%) Containerisation
3 1 (14.29%) Degree
3 1 (14.29%) GCP
3 1 (14.29%) Gradient Boosting
3 1 (14.29%) Infrastructure as Code
3 1 (14.29%) Master's Degree

Machine Learning Scientist Skill Set
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:

Cloud Services
1 7 (100.00%) AWS
2 1 (14.29%) AWS Fargate
2 1 (14.29%) AWS Lambda
2 1 (14.29%) Azure
2 1 (14.29%) GCP
2 1 (14.29%) Serverless
Development Applications
1 6 (85.71%) Jenkins
1 6 (85.71%) MLflow
General
1 1 (14.29%) Retail
1 1 (14.29%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (14.29%) Polars
1 1 (14.29%) PySpark
1 1 (14.29%) Ray
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (100.00%) AI
1 7 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 7 (100.00%) Data Science
1 7 (100.00%) Machine Learning
1 7 (100.00%) MLOps
1 7 (100.00%) Natural Language Processing
2 6 (85.71%) API Design
2 6 (85.71%) AutoML
2 6 (85.71%) DevOps
2 6 (85.71%) Generative AI
2 6 (85.71%) Test Automation
2 6 (85.71%) Unit Testing
2 6 (85.71%) Workflow
3 1 (14.29%) Analytics
3 1 (14.29%) Computer Science
3 1 (14.29%) Containerisation
3 1 (14.29%) Gradient Boosting
3 1 (14.29%) Infrastructure as Code
3 1 (14.29%) Mathematics
3 1 (14.29%) Statistics
Programming Languages
1 7 (100.00%) Python
2 1 (14.29%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (14.29%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (14.29%) Degree
1 1 (14.29%) Master's Degree
1 1 (14.29%) PhD
Systems Management
1 1 (14.29%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (85.71%) Databricks