Machine Learning Contract Job Trends

Machine Learning (ML)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Machine Learning skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 100 170
Rank change year-on-year +23 +70 +52
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,286 774 645
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.24% 2.51% 1.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.72% 2.81% 1.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 797 491 473
10th Percentile £402 £360 £413
25th Percentile £469 £457 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £588 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% +2.17% -8.00%
75th Percentile £700 £731 £700
90th Percentile £783 £850 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £525 £543
% change year-on-year - -3.31% -9.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 14 26
10th Percentile £41.75 £22.45 £41.88
25th Percentile £50.00 £25.28 -
Median hourly rate £54.50 £35.75 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +52.45% -22.59% +31.94%
75th Percentile £73.93 £51.56 £53.44
90th Percentile £95.00 £63.13 £66.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £45.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +42.22% -2.56% -7.64%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 34,545 27,534 38,814
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.04% 89.45% 87.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,908 16,837 25,471
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £717 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,083 848 2,117
10th Percentile £14.51 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.78 £21.03 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -2.99% +2.48%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.08 £35.00
% change year-on-year -19.08% -11.20% +8.53%

Machine Learning
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Machine Learning relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Machine Learning job vacancy trend in the UK

Machine Learning
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning

Machine Learning
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Machine Learning over the 6 months to 11 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning

Machine Learning
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Machine Learning over the 6 months to 11 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 11 February 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
England +19 1,076 £575 -4.17% 1,006
London +20 703 £603 -4.37% 519
UK excluding London +40 422 £525 - 737
Work from Home +27 408 £575 +9.52% 563
North of England -11 101 £511 +12.87% 143
South East +2 87 £550 +4.76% 300
Scotland +67 82 £510 +27.50% 44
East of England +10 70 £550 -8.33% 70
North West +5 60 £500 +11.11% 82
Midlands -13 56 £514 +34.38% 82
West Midlands -17 38 £514 +28.50% 31
South West -24 32 £550 -17.60% 93
Yorkshire -40 31 £520 -1.05% 44
East Midlands -11 18 £513 +43.96% 50
Wales -5 15 £738 +31.11% 20
North East -11 12 £575 +60.61% 17
Northern Ireland - 2 £675 - 6

Machine Learning
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 118 (9.18%) Apache Spark
2 73 (5.68%) Apache Airflow
3 59 (4.59%) Apache
4 31 (2.41%) Jupyter
5 13 (1.01%) Appian
6 11 (0.86%) Confluence
7 9 (0.70%) SAS
8 8 (0.62%) Apache Pig
9 6 (0.47%) GeoServer
9 6 (0.47%) Smallworld
10 5 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
10 5 (0.39%) SharePoint
11 4 (0.31%) IIS
12 3 (0.23%) CMS
13 2 (0.16%) Luigi
14 1 (0.078%) Apache Superset
14 1 (0.078%) Apache Synapse
14 1 (0.078%) ArcGIS
14 1 (0.078%) Microsoft Exchange
14 1 (0.078%) nginx
Applications
1 41 (3.19%) Chatbot
2 15 (1.17%) Microsoft Project
3 14 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.39%) Simulink
7 3 (0.23%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.078%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.078%) Sketch
8 1 (0.078%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.078%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.078%) Shopify
3 1 (0.078%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.078%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 566 (44.01%) Azure
2 453 (35.23%) AWS
3 236 (18.35%) GCP
4 135 (10.50%) Power Platform
5 107 (8.32%) Serverless
6 106 (8.24%) GitHub
7 100 (7.78%) Azure Machine Learning
8 86 (6.69%) Azure AI
9 77 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
10 71 (5.52%) Amazon SageMaker
11 69 (5.37%) Snowflake
12 67 (5.21%) Amazon S3
13 61 (4.74%) Vertex AI
14 54 (4.20%) AWS Lambda
14 54 (4.20%) Azure Data Factory
15 52 (4.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 48 (3.73%) GitHub Actions
17 45 (3.50%) Azure AKS
18 41 (3.19%) AWS CloudFormation
19 39 (3.03%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.24%) Network Security
2 9 (0.70%) HTTP
3 6 (0.47%) DNS
3 6 (0.47%) Ethernet
4 5 (0.39%) FTP
4 5 (0.39%) Internet
4 5 (0.39%) SMTP
4 5 (0.39%) SSL
5 4 (0.31%) Firewall
5 4 (0.31%) InfiniBand
6 3 (0.23%) Cisco IPT
6 3 (0.23%) VPN
7 2 (0.16%) 2G
7 2 (0.16%) 5G
7 2 (0.16%) Cisco Nexus
7 2 (0.16%) Ethernet VPN
7 2 (0.16%) Hyperconnected
7 2 (0.16%) LTE
7 2 (0.16%) Modbus
7 2 (0.16%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (8.40%) Power BI
2 93 (7.23%) Data Lake
3 74 (5.75%) Data Warehouse
4 61 (4.74%) Big Data
5 55 (4.28%) NoSQL
6 50 (3.89%) Metadata
7 48 (3.73%) PostgreSQL
8 47 (3.65%) BigQuery
9 36 (2.80%) Hadoop
9 36 (2.80%) Tableau
10 35 (2.72%) Pinecone
11 26 (2.02%) SQL Server
11 26 (2.02%) Weaviate
12 24 (1.87%) Relational Database
13 21 (1.63%) Elasticsearch
14 20 (1.56%) Mixpanel
15 19 (1.48%) Amazon Athena
16 18 (1.40%) Data Mining
16 18 (1.40%) Delta Lake
17 17 (1.32%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 98 (7.62%) Git
2 91 (7.08%) MLflow
3 39 (3.03%) Jenkins
4 26 (2.02%) GitLab
5 24 (1.87%) JIRA
6 16 (1.24%) Selenium
7 13 (1.01%) JMeter
7 13 (1.01%) Visual Studio
8 9 (0.70%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.54%) Gradle
10 6 (0.47%) PyCharm
11 5 (0.39%) Maven
11 5 (0.39%) MSTest
12 4 (0.31%) Android Studio
12 4 (0.31%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.31%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.31%) Oracle APEX
12 4 (0.31%) Robot Framework
12 4 (0.31%) RStudio
13 3 (0.23%) Postman
General
1 334 (25.97%) Social Skills
2 278 (21.62%) Finance
3 136 (10.58%) Analytical Skills
4 132 (10.26%) Public Sector
5 88 (6.84%) Banking
6 42 (3.27%) Pharmaceutical
7 41 (3.19%) Marketing
8 34 (2.64%) Retail
9 31 (2.41%) Legal
10 29 (2.26%) Investment Banking
11 27 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.94%) Front Office
13 23 (1.79%) Manufacturing
14 21 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 19 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
16 17 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.32%) Telecoms
17 14 (1.09%) Electronics
18 12 (0.93%) Financial Institution
19 11 (0.86%) Law
Job Titles
1 191 (14.85%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 182 (14.15%) Data Scientist
3 170 (13.22%) Architect
4 156 (12.13%) Senior
5 134 (10.42%) Data Engineer
6 112 (8.71%) Developer
7 107 (8.32%) Lead
8 65 (5.05%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 61 (4.74%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 60 (4.67%) Python Engineer
11 55 (4.28%) Software Engineer
12 54 (4.20%) Analyst
13 46 (3.58%) Data Architect
14 40 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
15 37 (2.88%) Gen AI Engineer
16 35 (2.72%) Azure Engineer
16 35 (2.72%) Senior Data Scientist
17 34 (2.64%) Consultant
18 27 (2.10%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
19 25 (1.94%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 224 (17.42%) PyTorch
2 185 (14.39%) TensorFlow
3 122 (9.49%) scikit-learn
4 110 (8.55%) Pandas
5 85 (6.61%) LangChain
6 79 (6.14%) NumPy
7 76 (5.91%) React
8 74 (5.75%) FastAPI
9 63 (4.90%) Hugging Face
10 62 (4.82%) Model Context Protocol
11 56 (4.35%) PySpark
12 55 (4.28%) .NET
12 55 (4.28%) Kafka
12 55 (4.28%) REST
13 53 (4.12%) LangGraph
14 47 (3.65%) Node.js
15 44 (3.42%) RESTful
16 33 (2.57%) Flask
17 32 (2.49%) AngularJS
17 32 (2.49%) Faiss
Miscellaneous
1 181 (14.07%) Algorithms
2 172 (13.37%) Cloud Native
3 104 (8.09%) AI Agents
4 48 (3.73%) Onboarding
4 48 (3.73%) Product Ownership
5 41 (3.19%) Distributed Systems
6 34 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
7 32 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (2.18%) Distributed Computing
9 23 (1.79%) Data Structures
9 23 (1.79%) Life Science
10 22 (1.71%) Genomics
11 20 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
12 19 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
13 17 (1.32%) Management Information System
14 14 (1.09%) Fixed Income
15 12 (0.93%) Derivative
16 11 (0.86%) Greenfield Project
17 10 (0.78%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 35 (2.72%) Linux
2 12 (0.93%) Windows
3 9 (0.70%) Apple iOS
3 9 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 9 (0.70%) VMS
4 8 (0.62%) Android
4 8 (0.62%) Ubuntu
5 4 (0.31%) Unix
6 1 (0.078%) CentOS
6 1 (0.078%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 987 (76.75%) AI
2 511 (39.74%) Data Science
3 359 (27.92%) LLM
4 352 (27.37%) CI/CD
5 344 (26.75%) Analytics
6 281 (21.85%) DevOps
7 276 (21.46%) Agile
8 267 (20.76%) Data Pipeline
9 260 (20.22%) Generative AI
10 253 (19.67%) MLOps
11 235 (18.27%) Data Engineering
12 220 (17.11%) Problem-Solving
13 196 (15.24%) Natural Language Processing
14 173 (13.45%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
15 171 (13.30%) Software Engineering
16 162 (12.60%) Containerisation
16 162 (12.60%) Use Case
17 159 (12.36%) Prompt Engineering
18 158 (12.29%) ETL
19 145 (11.28%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 807 (62.75%) Python
2 323 (25.12%) SQL
3 87 (6.77%) Java
4 74 (5.75%) R
5 70 (5.44%) C#
6 60 (4.67%) JavaScript
7 52 (4.04%) TypeScript
8 32 (2.49%) C++
8 32 (2.49%) Scala
9 27 (2.10%) PowerShell
10 18 (1.40%) Bash
11 15 (1.17%) Bicep
12 13 (1.01%) MATLAB
13 11 (0.86%) Go
14 7 (0.54%) Rust
15 6 (0.47%) Kotlin
16 5 (0.39%) C
16 5 (0.39%) SystemVerilog
16 5 (0.39%) Tcl
17 4 (0.31%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 204 (15.86%) Security Cleared
2 174 (13.53%) Degree
3 147 (11.43%) SC Cleared
4 74 (5.75%) Master's Degree
5 45 (3.50%) PhD
6 43 (3.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 35 (2.72%) DV Cleared
8 28 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (1.87%) Azure Certification
10 23 (1.79%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 16 (1.24%) AWS Certification
12 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (0.54%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.47%) CISSP
15 5 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.39%) HNC
15 5 (0.39%) HND
15 5 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
16 4 (0.31%) CISM
16 4 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (8.24%) Data Quality
2 56 (4.35%) GDPR
3 51 (3.97%) QA
4 37 (2.88%) NIST
5 29 (2.26%) EU AI Act
6 18 (1.40%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.54%) GRC
8 7 (0.54%) HIPAA
9 6 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 6 (0.47%) NCSC
10 5 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.39%) DO-254
10 5 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 4 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 4 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.31%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.31%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.16%) EMIR
12 2 (0.16%) NIST 800
System Software
1 210 (16.33%) Docker
2 11 (0.86%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.78%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 8 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.54%) Firmware
6 3 (0.23%) Lustre
7 2 (0.16%) Ceph
7 2 (0.16%) HDFS
7 2 (0.16%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.16%) KVM
7 2 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.16%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.078%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 213 (16.56%) Kubernetes
2 126 (9.80%) Terraform
3 25 (1.94%) Grafana
4 22 (1.71%) Ansible
5 14 (1.09%) Kubeflow
6 13 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.70%) Kibana
7 9 (0.70%) Podman
8 7 (0.54%) SCOM
9 6 (0.47%) logstash
10 5 (0.39%) Argo
10 5 (0.39%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.16%) Istio
11 2 (0.16%) Knative
11 2 (0.16%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.16%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 1 (0.078%) Microsoft Intune
12 1 (0.078%) Progress Chef
12 1 (0.078%) SCCM
12 1 (0.078%) SELinux
Vendors
1 190 (14.77%) Databricks
2 187 (14.54%) Microsoft
3 110 (8.55%) Google
4 97 (7.54%) OpenAI
5 66 (5.13%) Foundry
6 37 (2.88%) SAP
7 24 (1.87%) Oracle
8 19 (1.48%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.24%) Splunk
10 15 (1.17%) Salesforce
11 12 (0.93%) Informatica
11 12 (0.93%) UiPath
12 11 (0.86%) Automation Anywhere
12 11 (0.86%) NVIDIA
13 9 (0.70%) Greenplum
14 7 (0.54%) Cisco
14 7 (0.54%) Pega
14 7 (0.54%) TIBCO
15 6 (0.47%) ESRI
15 6 (0.47%) Intergraph