Artificial Intelligence Specialist Contracts

AI Specialist
UK

The median AI Specialist daily rate in the UK is £850, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 511 577 -
Rank change year-on-year +66 - -
Contract jobs requiring an Artificial Intelligence Specialist 9 5 0
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.031% 0.011% -
As % of the Job Titles category 0.033% 0.012% -
Number of daily rates quoted 5 2 0
10th Percentile £495 £435 -
25th Percentile £600 £450 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £850 £500 -
Median % change year-on-year +70.00% - -
75th Percentile - £550 -
90th Percentile - £565 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £550 -
% change year-on-year -18.18% - -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

Artificial Intelligence Specialist
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Artificial Intelligence Specialist in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Artificial Intelligence Specialist in the UK

Artificial Intelligence Specialist
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Artificial Intelligence Specialist.

Daily rate trend for Artificial Intelligence Specialist in the UK

Artificial Intelligence Specialist
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Artificial Intelligence Specialist over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Artificial Intelligence Specialist in the UK

Artificial Intelligence Specialist
Top 5 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Artificial Intelligence Specialist within the UK over the 6 months to 1 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
England +59 6 £600 +20.00% 12
Work from Home +44 5 £850 - 1
London +40 4 £725 +61.11% 10
UK excluding London +62 1 £450 -18.18% 2
South East - 1 £450 -

Artificial Intelligence Specialist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Artificial Intelligence Specialist contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Artificial Intelligence Specialist in the job title.

1 9 (100.00%) Artificial Intelligence
2 8 (88.89%) LLM
3 7 (77.78%) Generative AI
3 7 (77.78%) Agile
4 6 (66.67%) Python
5 5 (55.56%) Unit Testing
5 5 (55.56%) Integration Testing
5 5 (55.56%) Security Cleared
5 5 (55.56%) Data Science
5 5 (55.56%) End-to-End Testing
5 5 (55.56%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
5 5 (55.56%) Architectural Design
6 4 (44.44%) FastAPI
6 4 (44.44%) Decision-Making
6 4 (44.44%) AWS
6 4 (44.44%) SC Cleared
7 3 (33.33%) Data Ingestion
7 3 (33.33%) Machine Learning
7 3 (33.33%) Sentiment Analysis
7 3 (33.33%) Prompt Engineering
7 3 (33.33%) User Research
8 2 (22.22%) Public Sector
8 2 (22.22%) Chatbot
8 2 (22.22%) Personalization
8 2 (22.22%) PySpark
8 2 (22.22%) Master's Degree
8 2 (22.22%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (22.22%) TensorFlow
8 2 (22.22%) Credit Risk Management
8 2 (22.22%) Conversational UI

Artificial Intelligence Specialist Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 2 (22.22%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 2 (22.22%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (11.11%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 4 (44.44%) AWS
2 1 (11.11%) Azure
2 1 (11.11%) Azure AI
2 1 (11.11%) Microsoft Copilot
2 1 (11.11%) Power Automate
2 1 (11.11%) Power Platform
2 1 (11.11%) PowerApps
2 1 (11.11%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (22.22%) Apache Hive
1 2 (22.22%) Hadoop
1 2 (22.22%) MySQL
General
1 2 (22.22%) Analytical Skills
1 2 (22.22%) Banking
1 2 (22.22%) Finance
1 2 (22.22%) Public Sector
2 1 (11.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 1 (11.11%) Military
2 1 (11.11%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (44.44%) FastAPI
2 2 (22.22%) PySpark
2 2 (22.22%) TensorFlow
3 1 (11.11%) Node.js
3 1 (11.11%) Parceljs
3 1 (11.11%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 2 (22.22%) Credit Risk
2 1 (11.11%) AI Agents
2 1 (11.11%) Algorithms
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (100.00%) Artificial Intelligence
2 8 (88.89%) LLM
3 7 (77.78%) Agile
3 7 (77.78%) Generative AI
4 5 (55.56%) Architectural Design
4 5 (55.56%) Data Science
4 5 (55.56%) End-to-End Testing
4 5 (55.56%) Integration Testing
4 5 (55.56%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
4 5 (55.56%) Unit Testing
5 4 (44.44%) Decision-Making
6 3 (33.33%) Data Ingestion
6 3 (33.33%) Machine Learning
6 3 (33.33%) Prompt Engineering
6 3 (33.33%) Sentiment Analysis
6 3 (33.33%) User Research
7 2 (22.22%) Credit Risk Management
7 2 (22.22%) Deep Learning
7 2 (22.22%) Personalization
7 2 (22.22%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 6 (66.67%) Python
2 2 (22.22%) SQL
3 1 (11.11%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 5 (55.56%) Security Cleared
2 4 (44.44%) SC Cleared
3 2 (22.22%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (22.22%) Degree
3 2 (22.22%) Master's Degree
3 2 (22.22%) PhD
Vendors
1 1 (11.11%) Microsoft
1 1 (11.11%) OpenAI
1 1 (11.11%) SAP