Machine Learning Engineer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Machine Learning Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 388 353 394
Rank change year-on-year -35 +41 +85
Contract jobs requiring a Machine Learning Engineer 5 4 7
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.028% 0.027% 0.036%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.031% 0.029% 0.038%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 4 5
10th Percentile - £255 £618
25th Percentile £463 £300 £625
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -26.92% -3.70%
75th Percentile £606 £684 £675
90th Percentile £678 £746 £735
UK median daily rate £700 £625 £588
% change year-on-year +12.00% +6.38% -12.96%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding 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 the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 16,356 13,848 18,397
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.08% 92.36% 93.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,052 8,265 12,022
10th Percentile £210 £213 £213
25th Percentile £369 £363 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -2.20% -
75th Percentile £575 £591 £600
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,646 795 1,208
10th Percentile £13.85 £15.41 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.76%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.08 £71.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.50 £34.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -25.00% -23.60% +48.33%

Machine Learning Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Machine Learning Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Machine Learning Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Machine Learning Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Machine Learning Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Machine Learning Engineer in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Machine Learning Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Machine Learning Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Machine Learning Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 19 December 2025. 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
South East - 3 £700 - 11
North of England - 2 £475 - 2
North West - 2 £475 - 2
Machine Learning Engineer
UK

Machine Learning Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 19 December 2025, Machine Learning Engineer 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 UK excluding London region featuring Machine Learning Engineer in the job title.

1 5 (100.00%) Machine Learning
2 3 (60.00%) Data Science
2 3 (60.00%) LLM
3 2 (40.00%) AI
3 2 (40.00%) AWS
3 2 (40.00%) Azure
3 2 (40.00%) Chatbot
3 2 (40.00%) Conversational AI
3 2 (40.00%) Conversational UI
3 2 (40.00%) Deep Learning
3 2 (40.00%) GCP
3 2 (40.00%) Google
3 2 (40.00%) MLOps
3 2 (40.00%) Natural Language Processing
3 2 (40.00%) NumPy
3 2 (40.00%) Pandas
3 2 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
3 2 (40.00%) Python
4 1 (20.00%) Acceptance Criteria
4 1 (20.00%) Actionable Insight
4 1 (20.00%) Agile
4 1 (20.00%) Ansible
4 1 (20.00%) Apache
4 1 (20.00%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (20.00%) Apache Spark
4 1 (20.00%) API Development
4 1 (20.00%) Big Data
4 1 (20.00%) BigQuery
4 1 (20.00%) Cilium
4 1 (20.00%) Computer Science

Machine Learning Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding 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 1 (20.00%) Apache
1 1 (20.00%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (20.00%) Apache Spark
1 1 (20.00%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 2 (40.00%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 2 (40.00%) AWS
1 2 (40.00%) Azure
1 2 (40.00%) GCP
2 1 (20.00%) dbt
2 1 (20.00%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (20.00%) Big Data
1 1 (20.00%) BigQuery
1 1 (20.00%) Hadoop
1 1 (20.00%) MongoDB
1 1 (20.00%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 1 (20.00%) Git
1 1 (20.00%) JIRA
1 1 (20.00%) SonarQube
General
1 2 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (20.00%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (40.00%) NumPy
1 2 (40.00%) Pandas
2 1 (20.00%) ONNX
2 1 (20.00%) scikit-learn
2 1 (20.00%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 1 (20.00%) Algorithms
1 1 (20.00%) Distributed Computing
1 1 (20.00%) Public Cloud
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (100.00%) Machine Learning
2 3 (60.00%) Data Science
2 3 (60.00%) LLM
3 2 (40.00%) AI
3 2 (40.00%) Conversational AI
3 2 (40.00%) Conversational UI
3 2 (40.00%) Deep Learning
3 2 (40.00%) MLOps
3 2 (40.00%) Natural Language Processing
3 2 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
4 1 (20.00%) Agile
4 1 (20.00%) Computer Science
4 1 (20.00%) Data Visualisation
4 1 (20.00%) Integration Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Software Engineering
4 1 (20.00%) Statistical Modelling
4 1 (20.00%) Statistics
4 1 (20.00%) Use Case
4 1 (20.00%) Video Processing
4 1 (20.00%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 2 (40.00%) Python
2 1 (20.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (20.00%) Degree
1 1 (20.00%) Master's Degree
1 1 (20.00%) OCP
1 1 (20.00%) Oracle Certification
1 1 (20.00%) SC Cleared
1 1 (20.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (20.00%) QA
Systems Management
1 1 (20.00%) Ansible
1 1 (20.00%) Cilium
1 1 (20.00%) Kubeflow
1 1 (20.00%) Kubernetes
1 1 (20.00%) Rsyslog
1 1 (20.00%) SCOM
Vendors
1 2 (40.00%) Google
2 1 (20.00%) NVIDIA