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 8 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 97 143
Rank change year-on-year +15 +46 +69
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,404 764 714
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.96% 2.63% 1.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.50% 2.89% 1.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 870 493 525
10th Percentile £413 £375 £413
25th Percentile £489 £456 £498
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £573 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -0.43% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £679 £725 £733
90th Percentile £776 £874 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £525
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 21 21
10th Percentile £50.00 £25.25 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.99 £45.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.69% +17.14% +50.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £78.70 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.25 £81.01 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £76.25 £60.00
% change year-on-year -14.75% +27.08% +71.43%

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 40,077 26,470 37,223
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.45% 90.96% 86.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,204 17,026 23,967
10th Percentile £321 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +1.77% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,387 1,075 2,431
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.09% -21.23% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.35 £37.50
% change year-on-year +60.88% -27.07% +7.14%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 +15 1,176 £563 -2.17% 1,043
London +25 781 £575 -4.17% 562
UK excluding London +14 432 £550 -4.35% 615
Work from Home +14 400 £588 +6.82% 492
North of England -6 106 £554 +9.11% 190
South East -35 89 £600 +4.35% 190
Scotland +44 85 £518 +10.81% 40
Midlands -28 64 £550 +15.79% 69
North West -14 54 £575 - 102
East of England -13 53 £500 -20.00% 55
West Midlands -26 46 £550 +10.00% 33
South West -34 42 £500 -20.63% 68
Yorkshire -13 41 £550 - 49
East Midlands -19 16 £675 +45.95% 35
North East -10 14 £575 +60.61% 39
Wales -12 12 £759 +31.96% 7
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 5

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
1 121 (8.62%) Apache Spark
2 73 (5.20%) Apache Airflow
3 58 (4.13%) Apache
4 28 (1.99%) Jupyter
5 12 (0.85%) Confluence
6 9 (0.64%) Appian
7 6 (0.43%) CMS
7 6 (0.43%) SAS
8 5 (0.36%) Headless CMS
8 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
9 3 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.14%) Luigi
11 1 (0.071%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.071%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.071%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.071%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 28 (1.99%) Chatbot
2 12 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.21%) LaTeX
5 3 (0.21%) Simulink
6 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 11 (0.78%) SAP IBP
2 5 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.071%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.071%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.071%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 554 (39.46%) Azure
2 482 (34.33%) AWS
3 243 (17.31%) GCP
4 134 (9.54%) Power Platform
5 103 (7.34%) GitHub
6 96 (6.84%) Azure Machine Learning
7 95 (6.77%) Serverless
8 89 (6.34%) Azure AI
9 73 (5.20%) Amazon SageMaker
10 72 (5.13%) Amazon S3
11 70 (4.99%) Azure DevOps
11 70 (4.99%) Snowflake
12 60 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
13 58 (4.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 56 (3.99%) AWS Lambda
14 56 (3.99%) Vertex AI
15 55 (3.92%) Azure Data Factory
16 42 (2.99%) AWS CloudFormation
17 37 (2.64%) Amazon Bedrock
18 28 (1.99%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.00%) Network Security
2 10 (0.71%) Firewall
3 9 (0.64%) HTTP
4 8 (0.57%) DNS
5 5 (0.36%) FTP
5 5 (0.36%) SMTP
5 5 (0.36%) SSL
6 4 (0.28%) InfiniBand
7 3 (0.21%) Ethernet
8 2 (0.14%) 4G
8 2 (0.14%) 5G
8 2 (0.14%) DHCP
8 2 (0.14%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.14%) Internet
8 2 (0.14%) Modbus
8 2 (0.14%) PCoIP
8 2 (0.14%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (0.071%) 3GPP
9 1 (0.071%) Bluetooth
9 1 (0.071%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (7.48%) Power BI
2 93 (6.62%) Data Lake
3 78 (5.56%) Big Data
4 63 (4.49%) Metadata
5 59 (4.20%) BigQuery
5 59 (4.20%) Data Warehouse
6 50 (3.56%) NoSQL
7 38 (2.71%) Tableau
8 36 (2.56%) Hadoop
8 36 (2.56%) Pinecone
9 35 (2.49%) Delta Lake
10 31 (2.21%) SQL Server
11 29 (2.07%) Weaviate
12 28 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
13 27 (1.92%) Amazon Athena
14 24 (1.71%) Relational Database
15 23 (1.64%) Mixpanel
16 19 (1.35%) MongoDB
17 18 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
18 17 (1.21%) Redis
Development Applications
1 93 (6.62%) MLflow
2 92 (6.55%) Git
3 31 (2.21%) JIRA
4 28 (1.99%) Jenkins
5 27 (1.92%) GitLab
6 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.50%) Selenium
7 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.28%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.28%) Gradle
8 4 (0.28%) JMeter
8 4 (0.28%) Maven
8 4 (0.28%) PyCharm
9 3 (0.21%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.21%) ERwin
9 3 (0.21%) JUnit
9 3 (0.21%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.21%) Spinnaker
9 3 (0.21%) Vite
General
1 309 (22.01%) Social Skills
2 270 (19.23%) Finance
3 168 (11.97%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (9.90%) Public Sector
5 85 (6.05%) Banking
6 32 (2.28%) Marketing
7 31 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 27 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
9 26 (1.85%) Legal
10 25 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
11 24 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
12 21 (1.50%) Aviation
12 21 (1.50%) Retail
13 20 (1.42%) Investment Banking
14 19 (1.35%) Front Office
14 19 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
15 18 (1.28%) Telecoms
16 12 (0.85%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.78%) Law
18 10 (0.71%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 207 (14.74%) Data Scientist
2 192 (13.68%) Architect
3 186 (13.25%) Senior
4 169 (12.04%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 136 (9.69%) Data Engineer
6 116 (8.26%) Lead
7 102 (7.26%) Developer
8 74 (5.27%) Analyst
9 64 (4.56%) Python Engineer
10 58 (4.13%) Software Engineer
11 57 (4.06%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 56 (3.99%) Machine Learning Engineer
13 54 (3.85%) Solutions Architect
14 53 (3.77%) Data Architect
15 38 (2.71%) Senior Data Scientist
16 37 (2.64%) Consultant
17 34 (2.42%) Gen AI Engineer
18 32 (2.28%) Azure Engineer
19 31 (2.21%) Business Analyst
19 31 (2.21%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (14.53%) PyTorch
2 149 (10.61%) TensorFlow
3 120 (8.55%) scikit-learn
4 101 (7.19%) Pandas
5 75 (5.34%) Kafka
5 75 (5.34%) LangChain
6 72 (5.13%) NumPy
7 70 (4.99%) React
8 63 (4.49%) PySpark
9 55 (3.92%) .NET
10 51 (3.63%) REST
11 50 (3.56%) Hugging Face
12 45 (3.21%) Node.js
13 40 (2.85%) LangGraph
14 37 (2.64%) Model Context Protocol
15 36 (2.56%) AngularJS
16 35 (2.49%) FastAPI
17 29 (2.07%) Faiss
18 25 (1.78%) RESTful
19 20 (1.42%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 171 (12.18%) Cloud Native
2 138 (9.83%) Algorithms
3 136 (9.69%) AI Agents
4 44 (3.13%) Onboarding
4 44 (3.13%) Product Ownership
5 34 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
6 28 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
7 19 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
8 18 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
8 18 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
9 17 (1.21%) Fixed Income
9 17 (1.21%) Management Information System
10 15 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (1.00%) Data Structures
11 14 (1.00%) Distributed Computing
12 13 (0.93%) Life Science
13 12 (0.85%) Public Cloud
14 11 (0.78%) Augmented Reality
14 11 (0.78%) Low-Code
14 11 (0.78%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 32 (2.28%) Linux
2 12 (0.85%) Windows
3 11 (0.78%) VMS
4 7 (0.50%) Android
4 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 6 (0.43%) Unix
6 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.071%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,106 (78.77%) AI
2 518 (36.89%) Data Science
3 430 (30.63%) CI/CD
4 403 (28.70%) Analytics
5 393 (27.99%) LLM
6 311 (22.15%) Data Pipeline
7 310 (22.08%) Generative AI
8 270 (19.23%) MLOps
9 269 (19.16%) DevOps
10 268 (19.09%) Data Engineering
11 260 (18.52%) Agile
12 200 (14.25%) Problem-Solving
12 200 (14.25%) Use Case
13 178 (12.68%) Data Governance
14 170 (12.11%) ETL
14 170 (12.11%) Software Engineering
15 166 (11.82%) Decision-Making
16 165 (11.75%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 162 (11.54%) Containerisation
18 154 (10.97%) Natural Language Processing
Programming Languages
1 817 (58.19%) Python
2 354 (25.21%) SQL
3 108 (7.69%) Java
4 81 (5.77%) C#
5 68 (4.84%) R
6 51 (3.63%) JavaScript
7 50 (3.56%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.92%) C++
9 20 (1.42%) Bash
9 20 (1.42%) PowerShell
10 18 (1.28%) Bicep
11 15 (1.07%) Scala
12 10 (0.71%) Go
12 10 (0.71%) Kotlin
13 8 (0.57%) MATLAB
14 7 (0.50%) Rust
15 5 (0.36%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.36%) SPARQL
16 4 (0.28%) T-SQL
17 3 (0.21%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 243 (17.31%) Security Cleared
2 164 (11.68%) SC Cleared
3 125 (8.90%) Degree
4 62 (4.42%) Master's Degree
5 41 (2.92%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
7 37 (2.64%) PhD
8 36 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 24 (1.71%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.35%) Azure Certification
11 17 (1.21%) CISSP
12 14 (1.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 13 (0.93%) CISM
14 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 6 (0.43%) ISTQB
15 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
16 5 (0.36%) PMI Certification
16 5 (0.36%) PMP
17 3 (0.21%) HNC
17 3 (0.21%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (10.26%) Data Quality
2 58 (4.13%) GDPR
3 54 (3.85%) QA
4 28 (1.99%) NIST
5 20 (1.42%) Accessibility
6 13 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 12 (0.85%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
8 10 (0.71%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) GRC
11 5 (0.36%) WCAG
12 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.21%) DO-254
12 3 (0.21%) GxP
13 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.14%) Def Stans
13 2 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 2 (0.14%) NIST 800
System Software
1 192 (13.68%) Docker
2 12 (0.85%) Active Directory
2 12 (0.85%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 6 (0.43%) Firmware
4 3 (0.21%) Lustre
4 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.14%) Ceph
5 2 (0.14%) HDFS
5 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.071%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.071%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 214 (15.24%) Kubernetes
2 142 (10.11%) Terraform
3 22 (1.57%) Grafana
4 20 (1.42%) Kubeflow
5 15 (1.07%) Ansible
6 14 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.64%) Podman
8 4 (0.28%) Istio
9 3 (0.21%) Rancher
10 2 (0.14%) Argo
10 2 (0.14%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.14%) Kibana
10 2 (0.14%) Knative
10 2 (0.14%) Packer
10 2 (0.14%) SCCM
11 1 (0.071%) HP Fortify
11 1 (0.071%) logstash
11 1 (0.071%) Opsgenie
11 1 (0.071%) SELinux
11 1 (0.071%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 213 (15.17%) Databricks
2 170 (12.11%) Microsoft
3 103 (7.34%) OpenAI
4 97 (6.91%) Google
5 59 (4.20%) Foundry
6 43 (3.06%) SAP
7 31 (2.21%) Oracle
8 21 (1.50%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.07%) Informatica
9 15 (1.07%) UiPath
10 14 (1.00%) IBM
11 13 (0.93%) Dynatrace
12 11 (0.78%) Automation Anywhere
13 9 (0.64%) NVIDIA
13 9 (0.64%) Salesforce
14 7 (0.50%) Amplitude
14 7 (0.50%) Workday
15 6 (0.43%) Siemens
15 6 (0.43%) Splunk
15 6 (0.43%) Talend