Machine Learning Contracts in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning (ML)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Machine Learning skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Machine Learning over the 6 months leading up to 23 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 139 223 234
Rank change year-on-year +84 +11 +31
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 235 176 228
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 1.85% 0.87% 1.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.04% 1.03% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 133 108 163
10th Percentile £358 £363 £425
25th Percentile £459 £438 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -
75th Percentile £663 £625 £638
90th Percentile £741 £725 £759
UK median daily rate £563 £580 £588
% change year-on-year -3.02% -1.28% -2.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 12 14
10th Percentile £45.00 £46.69 £20.65
25th Percentile £60.75 £51.25 £22.16
Median hourly rate £77.50 £56.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.78% +60.71% -25.13%
75th Percentile £81.01 £66.25 £50.19
90th Percentile £86.60 £70.75 £53.75
UK median hourly rate £59.50 £52.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +13.33% +50.00% -6.67%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Machine Learning 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 the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,541 17,047 20,456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.66% 84.14% 89.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,211 10,194 14,065
10th Percentile £231 £250 £260
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +3.73%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% +3.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 817 2,072 1,252
10th Percentile £14.09 £12.34 £10.63
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.29 £15.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £38.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.82% +8.57% +75.00%
75th Percentile £62.24 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £36.05 £37.00
% change year-on-year -23.71% -2.58% +44.08%

Machine Learning
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Machine Learning as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Machine Learning in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Machine Learning in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Machine Learning in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Machine Learning in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 23 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Machine Learning in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Machine Learning in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Machine Learning in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 23 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK excluding London

Machine Learning
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 within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 23 May 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 +85 60 £575 -4.17% 2,242
North of England +11 41 £550 - 1,390
South West +58 36 £645 +14.67% 756
East of England +46 35 £650 +67.74% 965
North West +17 32 £575 +9.52% 674
Scotland -13 25 £471 +0.48% 342
Midlands +14 23 £488 -15.95% 1,085
Wales - 16 £575 - 169
West Midlands +6 15 £500 -13.79% 573
East Midlands +12 6 £444 -34.26% 441
Yorkshire +5 6 - - 550
North East -5 3 £350 - 166
Machine Learning
UK

Machine Learning
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 31 (13.19%) Apache Spark
2 8 (3.40%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (2.13%) Apache
3 5 (2.13%) Confluence
4 4 (1.70%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.28%) CMS
6 2 (0.85%) Camunda
7 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.43%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 6 (2.55%) Chatbot
2 4 (1.70%) Simulink
3 2 (0.85%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 5 (2.13%) SAP PM
2 4 (1.70%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.85%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.43%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 80 (34.04%) Azure
2 64 (27.23%) AWS
3 36 (15.32%) GCP
4 21 (8.94%) Azure Machine Learning
5 17 (7.23%) Cloud Computing
5 17 (7.23%) Power Platform
6 13 (5.53%) Serverless
7 11 (4.68%) PaaS
8 10 (4.26%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (4.26%) Azure Data Factory
8 10 (4.26%) GitHub
9 9 (3.83%) OpenShift
10 8 (3.40%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (3.40%) IaaS
11 7 (2.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 7 (2.98%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (2.98%) Snowflake
12 6 (2.55%) Azure AI
12 6 (2.55%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 5 (2.13%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 15 (6.38%) DNS
1 15 (6.38%) SMTP
2 13 (5.53%) Firewall
3 9 (3.83%) Network Security
4 8 (3.40%) DHCP
4 8 (3.40%) VPN
5 7 (2.98%) FTP
5 7 (2.98%) HTTP
5 7 (2.98%) SSL
6 5 (2.13%) LTE
7 4 (1.70%) Ethernet
8 3 (1.28%) 4G
8 3 (1.28%) 5G
8 3 (1.28%) DOCSIS
8 3 (1.28%) GPON
8 3 (1.28%) MPLS
8 3 (1.28%) Radio Access Network
8 3 (1.28%) VoIP
8 3 (1.28%) xDSL
9 2 (0.85%) Converged Networks
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (14.89%) Big Data
2 27 (11.49%) Hadoop
3 25 (10.64%) Tableau
4 17 (7.23%) Power BI
5 13 (5.53%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (4.26%) Elasticsearch
6 10 (4.26%) NoSQL
7 9 (3.83%) Metadata
8 8 (3.40%) Amazon RDS
9 7 (2.98%) Azure SQL Database
10 6 (2.55%) Apache Cassandra
10 6 (2.55%) Delta Lake
10 6 (2.55%) GIS
10 6 (2.55%) MongoDB
11 5 (2.13%) Data Mining
11 5 (2.13%) Neo4j
11 5 (2.13%) Oracle Database
11 5 (2.13%) Relational Database
12 4 (1.70%) Data Lake
13 3 (1.28%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 15 (6.38%) Git
2 7 (2.98%) JIRA
3 5 (2.13%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.13%) JUnit
4 2 (0.85%) GitLab
4 2 (0.85%) MLflow
5 1 (0.43%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.43%) CMake
5 1 (0.43%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.43%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.43%) ERwin
5 1 (0.43%) NetBeans
5 1 (0.43%) SonarQube
General
1 72 (30.64%) Social Skills
2 52 (22.13%) Analytical Skills
3 35 (14.89%) Finance
4 22 (9.36%) Public Sector
5 14 (5.96%) Banking
6 12 (5.11%) Telecoms
7 10 (4.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (4.26%) Investment Banking
8 7 (2.98%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.98%) Pharmaceutical
9 6 (2.55%) Electronics
9 6 (2.55%) Legal
9 6 (2.55%) Manufacturing
9 6 (2.55%) Marketing
10 4 (1.70%) Games
10 4 (1.70%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.28%) Automotive
11 3 (1.28%) Law
12 2 (0.85%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 41 (17.45%) Architect
1 41 (17.45%) Senior
2 38 (16.17%) Developer
3 27 (11.49%) Data Scientist
4 21 (8.94%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 14 (5.96%) Data Science Developer
6 13 (5.53%) Data Engineer
6 13 (5.53%) Python Engineer
7 11 (4.68%) Data Architect
7 11 (4.68%) JavaScript Engineer
7 11 (4.68%) Lead
8 10 (4.26%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
8 10 (4.26%) Senior Developer
8 10 (4.26%) Solutions Architect
9 9 (3.83%) Analyst
10 8 (3.40%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 8 (3.40%) 3rd Line Support
10 8 (3.40%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
10 8 (3.40%) Support Engineer
11 7 (2.98%) Infrastructure Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (14.04%) PyTorch
2 32 (13.62%) TensorFlow
3 24 (10.21%) scikit-learn
4 23 (9.79%) Pandas
5 21 (8.94%) NumPy
6 17 (7.23%) Matplotlib
7 16 (6.81%) Seaborn
8 15 (6.38%) Kafka
9 11 (4.68%) CSS
9 11 (4.68%) PySpark
9 11 (4.68%) React
10 8 (3.40%) AngularJS
10 8 (3.40%) LDAP
11 7 (2.98%) HTML
11 7 (2.98%) Node.js
12 6 (2.55%) RESTful
13 5 (2.13%) Spring
14 4 (1.70%) .NET
14 4 (1.70%) Middleware
15 3 (1.28%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 59 (25.11%) Algorithms
2 22 (9.36%) Management Information System
3 15 (6.38%) IoT
4 13 (5.53%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (5.11%) Data Structures
6 10 (4.26%) Cloud Native
6 10 (4.26%) Cyberattack
7 9 (3.83%) Onboarding
8 8 (3.40%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (3.40%) Blockchain
8 8 (3.40%) Clustering
8 8 (3.40%) Cyber Threat
8 8 (3.40%) Data Centre
8 8 (3.40%) PKI
9 7 (2.98%) Hybrid Cloud
9 7 (2.98%) Security Operations Centre
10 6 (2.55%) CSOC
10 6 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (2.13%) SCADA
12 4 (1.70%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.96%) Linux
2 13 (5.53%) Windows
3 8 (3.40%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.28%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (0.43%) Android
5 1 (0.43%) Unix
5 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (79.15%) Artificial Intelligence
2 87 (37.02%) Data Science
3 68 (28.94%) Analytics
4 53 (22.55%) Agile
5 49 (20.85%) LLM
6 48 (20.43%) Problem-Solving
7 47 (20.00%) Decision-Making
8 43 (18.30%) Generative AI
9 37 (15.74%) Visualisation
10 36 (15.32%) Data Analysis
11 34 (14.47%) CI/CD
12 33 (14.04%) Computer Science
13 32 (13.62%) DevOps
14 30 (12.77%) Data Engineering
14 30 (12.77%) Data Governance
14 30 (12.77%) Natural Language Processing
15 26 (11.06%) Data Analytics
15 26 (11.06%) Roadmaps
16 23 (9.79%) Cybersecurity
17 22 (9.36%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 116 (49.36%) Python
2 39 (16.60%) SQL
3 30 (12.77%) JavaScript
4 28 (11.91%) R
5 26 (11.06%) Java
5 26 (11.06%) TypeScript
6 8 (3.40%) PowerShell
7 5 (2.13%) Kusto Query Language
7 5 (2.13%) Rust
8 4 (1.70%) Bicep
8 4 (1.70%) C#
8 4 (1.70%) C++
8 4 (1.70%) MATLAB
8 4 (1.70%) SystemVerilog
8 4 (1.70%) Tcl
9 3 (1.28%) Scala
10 1 (0.43%) Bash
10 1 (0.43%) C
10 1 (0.43%) Perl
10 1 (0.43%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 49 (20.85%) Security Cleared
2 46 (19.57%) Degree
3 28 (11.91%) SC Cleared
4 23 (9.79%) DV Cleared
5 22 (9.36%) Master's Degree
6 17 (7.23%) PhD
7 4 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (1.70%) HNC
7 4 (1.70%) HND
7 4 (1.70%) Postgraduate
8 2 (0.85%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.85%) CCNA
8 2 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.85%) Numerate Degree
8 2 (0.85%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.43%) CISA
9 1 (0.43%) CISM
9 1 (0.43%) CISSP
9 1 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (18.72%) Data Quality
2 14 (5.96%) GDPR
3 9 (3.83%) QA
4 4 (1.70%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 4 (1.70%) DO-254
4 4 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.85%) Accessibility
5 2 (0.85%) OASIS TOSCA
6 1 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.43%) IEC 61508
6 1 (0.43%) MISRA
6 1 (0.43%) MISRA C
6 1 (0.43%) NIST
6 1 (0.43%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.43%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.43%) SNOMED CT
6 1 (0.43%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 25 (10.64%) Docker
2 8 (3.40%) Active Directory
2 8 (3.40%) BitLocker
2 8 (3.40%) Hyper-V
2 8 (3.40%) Microsoft App-V
2 8 (3.40%) Terminal Services
2 8 (3.40%) VMware ESXi
2 8 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.70%) Firmware
4 2 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.43%) Apache Flume
Systems Management
1 33 (14.04%) Kubernetes
2 20 (8.51%) Terraform
3 16 (6.81%) Ansible
4 9 (3.83%) Grafana
5 8 (3.40%) Nagios
5 8 (3.40%) Puppet
5 8 (3.40%) vCenter Server
5 8 (3.40%) vMotion
6 2 (0.85%) Amdocs OSS
6 2 (0.85%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.43%) Kibana
7 1 (0.43%) logstash
7 1 (0.43%) QRadar
Vendors
1 32 (13.62%) Microsoft
2 23 (9.79%) Databricks
3 17 (7.23%) Google
4 11 (4.68%) SAP
5 9 (3.83%) VMware
6 8 (3.40%) Citrix
6 8 (3.40%) HP
6 8 (3.40%) Symantec
7 7 (2.98%) Splunk
8 6 (2.55%) Dynatrace
8 6 (2.55%) OpenAI
8 6 (2.55%) Oracle
8 6 (2.55%) ServiceNow
9 5 (2.13%) Foundry
9 5 (2.13%) Informatica
10 4 (1.70%) Actel
10 4 (1.70%) Altera
10 4 (1.70%) Intel
10 4 (1.70%) Palantir
10 4 (1.70%) Xilinx