Machine Learning Contracts

Machine Learning (ML)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies 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 7 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 104 132 213
Rank change year-on-year +28 +81 -9
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 798 762 711
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.50% 1.76% 1.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.76% 2.06% 1.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 537 516
10th Percentile £393 £413 £425
25th Percentile £459 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £580 £588
Median % change year-on-year -5.17% -1.28% -2.08%
75th Percentile £676 £738 £750
90th Percentile £828 £788 £925
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £523 £550
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 19 16
10th Percentile £31.00 £41.25 -
25th Percentile £45.00 £46.18 £35.00
Median hourly rate £75.00 £52.50 £43.34
Median % change year-on-year +42.86% +21.14% -3.69%
75th Percentile £81.01 £66.25 £59.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.75 £79.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £78.10 £52.50 £40.50
% change year-on-year +48.76% +29.63% +17.39%

All Process and 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 28,907 36,912 51,035
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.67% 85.33% 89.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,194 23,557 35,146
10th Percentile £300 £300 £325
25th Percentile £405 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% +0.92%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,436 2,507 1,728
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £12.79
25th Percentile £17.44 £16.09 £16.98
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £38.99
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% -3.82% +49.95%
75th Percentile £53.75 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £75.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.66 £38.12 £35.03
% change year-on-year -35.31% +8.82% +66.81%

Machine Learning
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Machine Learning as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Machine Learning.

Daily rate trend for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Machine Learning over the 6 months to 7 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Machine Learning.

Hourly rate trend for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Machine Learning over the 6 months to 7 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Top 16 Contract 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 7 July 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 +29 681 £553 -6.75% 3,374
London +9 434 £565 -5.83% 2,137
UK excluding London +97 282 £550 +5.26% 1,507
Work from Home +55 274 £550 -4.14% 1,507
South East +87 74 £563 +7.14% 418
North of England +7 60 £509 -0.92% 376
South West +63 41 £600 - 136
North West +13 37 £550 +9.18% 240
Scotland -2 34 £467 +1.52% 142
East of England +33 30 £575 +13.30% 254
Midlands +12 28 £500 -13.79% 147
West Midlands -1 18 £538 -7.33% 93
Wales +23 16 £575 +134.69% 43
Yorkshire -1 15 £493 -10.69% 115
East Midlands +5 8 £425 -10.53% 52
North East -4 8 £400 - 22

Machine Learning
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
1 109 (13.66%) Apache Spark
2 24 (3.01%) Apache Airflow
3 20 (2.51%) Apache
4 14 (1.75%) Jupyter
5 12 (1.50%) Confluence
6 9 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.50%) CMS
7 4 (0.50%) SAS
8 3 (0.38%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.25%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.25%) Camunda
9 2 (0.25%) IBM Domino
10 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.13%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.13%) Headless CMS
10 1 (0.13%) Luigi
Applications
1 22 (2.76%) Chatbot
2 6 (0.75%) Simulink
3 5 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.25%) Adobe XD
5 2 (0.25%) MadCap Flare
5 2 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.25%) Sketch
6 1 (0.13%) GNU Octave
6 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.13%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.63%) SAP PM
3 2 (0.25%) Distributed Ledger
3 2 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.13%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.13%) Primavera
4 1 (0.13%) SAP IBP
4 1 (0.13%) SAP QM
4 1 (0.13%) SAP SRM
4 1 (0.13%) Shopify
4 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.13%) TrackWise
Cloud Services
1 294 (36.84%) Azure
2 274 (34.34%) AWS
3 141 (17.67%) GCP
4 78 (9.77%) Power Platform
5 62 (7.77%) Azure Machine Learning
6 54 (6.77%) Azure Data Factory
7 40 (5.01%) GitHub
8 39 (4.89%) Snowflake
9 38 (4.76%) Serverless
10 36 (4.51%) Azure DevOps
11 32 (4.01%) Amazon SageMaker
12 31 (3.88%) Azure AI
13 27 (3.38%) AWS Lambda
14 26 (3.26%) GitHub Actions
15 23 (2.88%) Amazon S3
15 23 (2.88%) Cloud Computing
15 23 (2.88%) dbt
16 22 (2.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 17 (2.13%) PaaS
17 17 (2.13%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.13%) Firewall
2 14 (1.75%) DNS
3 12 (1.50%) Network Security
3 12 (1.50%) SMTP
4 11 (1.38%) VPN
5 9 (1.13%) DHCP
5 9 (1.13%) Ethernet
6 5 (0.63%) HTTP
6 5 (0.63%) LTE
7 3 (0.38%) 5G
7 3 (0.38%) DOCSIS
7 3 (0.38%) FTP
7 3 (0.38%) GPON
7 3 (0.38%) Internet
7 3 (0.38%) LAN
7 3 (0.38%) MPLS
7 3 (0.38%) SSL
7 3 (0.38%) VoIP
7 3 (0.38%) WAN
7 3 (0.38%) xDSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (12.28%) Big Data
2 76 (9.52%) Power BI
3 59 (7.39%) Tableau
4 48 (6.02%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (5.89%) Hadoop
6 42 (5.26%) Data Lake
7 37 (4.64%) NoSQL
8 24 (3.01%) BigQuery
8 24 (3.01%) Metadata
8 24 (3.01%) PostgreSQL
9 18 (2.26%) Delta Lake
9 18 (2.26%) Elasticsearch
9 18 (2.26%) MongoDB
10 17 (2.13%) Data Mining
11 16 (2.01%) Neo4j
12 14 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (1.75%) GIS
13 13 (1.63%) Amazon Athena
14 11 (1.38%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (1.38%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 46 (5.76%) Git
2 39 (4.89%) Jenkins
3 33 (4.14%) MLflow
4 22 (2.76%) JIRA
5 9 (1.13%) GitLab
5 9 (1.13%) JUnit
6 7 (0.88%) ERwin
7 4 (0.50%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.38%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.25%) CMake
9 2 (0.25%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.25%) MagicDraw
10 1 (0.13%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.13%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.13%) Gradle
10 1 (0.13%) Mockito
10 1 (0.13%) NetBeans
10 1 (0.13%) Qt Creator
10 1 (0.13%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 234 (29.32%) Social Skills
2 150 (18.80%) Finance
3 128 (16.04%) Analytical Skills
4 67 (8.40%) Banking
5 56 (7.02%) Public Sector
6 45 (5.64%) Investment Banking
7 33 (4.14%) Marketing
8 29 (3.63%) Legal
9 24 (3.01%) Telecoms
10 22 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
11 19 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
11 19 (2.38%) Retail
12 17 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
14 15 (1.88%) Manufacturing
15 12 (1.50%) Financial Institution
16 11 (1.38%) Front Office
16 11 (1.38%) Games
17 8 (1.00%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 128 (16.04%) Architect
2 116 (14.54%) Developer
3 109 (13.66%) Data Scientist
4 99 (12.41%) Senior
5 63 (7.89%) Data Engineer
6 60 (7.52%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 55 (6.89%) Lead
8 47 (5.89%) Analyst
9 42 (5.26%) Python Developer
10 41 (5.14%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 33 (4.14%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
11 33 (4.14%) Data Architect
11 33 (4.14%) Solutions Architect
12 31 (3.88%) Python Engineer
12 31 (3.88%) Senior Data Scientist
13 27 (3.38%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 27 (3.38%) Data Analyst
14 20 (2.51%) Consultant
15 18 (2.26%) Azure Engineer
15 18 (2.26%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (12.28%) PyTorch
1 98 (12.28%) TensorFlow
2 70 (8.77%) Pandas
3 67 (8.40%) scikit-learn
4 59 (7.39%) React
5 46 (5.76%) Kafka
6 43 (5.39%) NumPy
7 36 (4.51%) PySpark
8 32 (4.01%) FastAPI
8 32 (4.01%) LangChain
9 30 (3.76%) Hugging Face
10 27 (3.38%) RESTful
11 24 (3.01%) Django
12 21 (2.63%) AngularJS
13 20 (2.51%) Matplotlib
14 19 (2.38%) .NET
15 18 (2.26%) CSS
16 15 (1.88%) Plotly
16 15 (1.88%) Seaborn
17 14 (1.75%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 140 (17.54%) Algorithms
2 42 (5.26%) Cloud Native
3 38 (4.76%) Distributed Systems
4 28 (3.51%) Distributed Computing
5 24 (3.01%) Data Protection Act
5 24 (3.01%) Product Ownership
6 23 (2.88%) AI Agents
7 22 (2.76%) IoT
8 21 (2.63%) Management Information System
9 18 (2.26%) Data Structures
10 14 (1.75%) Data Centre
10 14 (1.75%) Onboarding
11 13 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.50%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
13 11 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
13 11 (1.38%) Multi-touch
13 11 (1.38%) PKI
13 11 (1.38%) Public Cloud
14 10 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 24 (3.01%) Linux
2 15 (1.88%) Windows
3 9 (1.13%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.50%) Windows Server 2003
5 3 (0.38%) Android
5 3 (0.38%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.38%) Unix
6 2 (0.25%) VMS
7 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 562 (70.43%) Artificial Intelligence
2 306 (38.35%) Data Science
3 229 (28.70%) Analytics
4 181 (22.68%) LLM
5 175 (21.93%) Agile
6 172 (21.55%) CI/CD
7 158 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
8 148 (18.55%) Generative AI
9 143 (17.92%) DevOps
10 122 (15.29%) Visualisation
11 110 (13.78%) Data Engineering
12 107 (13.41%) Computer Science
13 104 (13.03%) Data Pipeline
14 100 (12.53%) Decision-Making
15 93 (11.65%) MLOps
16 91 (11.40%) Natural Language Processing
17 90 (11.28%) Business Intelligence
18 89 (11.15%) Data Modelling
19 87 (10.90%) Data Analysis
20 86 (10.78%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 455 (57.02%) Python
2 202 (25.31%) SQL
3 83 (10.40%) Java
4 79 (9.90%) R
5 66 (8.27%) JavaScript
6 64 (8.02%) TypeScript
7 30 (3.76%) C++
7 30 (3.76%) Scala
8 23 (2.88%) C#
9 20 (2.51%) C
10 18 (2.26%) PowerShell
11 13 (1.63%) Rust
12 12 (1.50%) Shell Script
13 9 (1.13%) Bicep
13 9 (1.13%) MATLAB
13 9 (1.13%) SystemVerilog
13 9 (1.13%) Tcl
14 7 (0.88%) Go
14 7 (0.88%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.75%) Bash
Qualifications
1 143 (17.92%) Degree
2 110 (13.78%) Security Cleared
3 80 (10.03%) SC Cleared
4 64 (8.02%) Master's Degree
5 53 (6.64%) PhD
6 31 (3.88%) Computer Science Degree
7 25 (3.13%) AWS Certification
8 24 (3.01%) DV Cleared
9 14 (1.75%) Azure Certification
10 11 (1.38%) CISSP
11 9 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (0.75%) CISM
12 6 (0.75%) HNC
12 6 (0.75%) HND
13 5 (0.63%) TOGAF Certification
14 4 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (0.50%) Postgraduate
15 3 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
15 3 (0.38%) Numerate Degree
16 2 (0.25%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (9.15%) Data Quality
2 53 (6.64%) GDPR
3 26 (3.26%) QA
4 20 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 17 (2.13%) NIST
6 16 (2.01%) Accessibility
7 11 (1.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 11 (1.38%) EU AI Act
8 7 (0.88%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.75%) DO-254
10 5 (0.63%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.38%) NCSC
11 3 (0.38%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.25%) GRC
12 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.25%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.25%) OASIS TOSCA
12 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.13%) MISRA
13 1 (0.13%) MISRA C
System Software
1 99 (12.41%) Docker
2 10 (1.25%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (1.13%) BitLocker
3 9 (1.13%) Hyper-V
3 9 (1.13%) Microsoft App-V
3 9 (1.13%) Terminal Services
3 9 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (0.75%) Firmware
5 4 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 120 (15.04%) Kubernetes
2 60 (7.52%) Terraform
3 31 (3.88%) Ansible
4 20 (2.51%) Grafana
5 13 (1.63%) Kubeflow
5 13 (1.63%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.25%) Kibana
7 9 (1.13%) Nagios
7 9 (1.13%) Puppet
7 9 (1.13%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.13%) vMotion
8 5 (0.63%) logstash
9 4 (0.50%) ITRS Geneos
10 2 (0.25%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.25%) Argo
10 2 (0.25%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.25%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 1 (0.13%) Apache Ranger
11 1 (0.13%) Istio
11 1 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 113 (14.16%) Databricks
2 90 (11.28%) Microsoft
3 71 (8.90%) Google
4 25 (3.13%) OpenAI
4 25 (3.13%) SAP
5 13 (1.63%) Foundry
5 13 (1.63%) Oracle
5 13 (1.63%) Splunk
6 12 (1.50%) ServiceNow
7 11 (1.38%) VMware
8 10 (1.25%) Dataiku
8 10 (1.25%) Dynatrace
9 9 (1.13%) Citrix
9 9 (1.13%) HP
9 9 (1.13%) Intel
9 9 (1.13%) Symantec
9 9 (1.13%) Xilinx
10 8 (1.00%) Informatica
10 8 (1.00%) Palantir
11 7 (0.88%) Sage