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 27 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 82 101 182
Rank change year-on-year +19 +81 +26
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,132 860 633
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.13% 2.34% 1.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.50% 2.70% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 753 571 463
10th Percentile £402 £378 £382
25th Percentile £475 £472 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £555 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £688 £731 £708
90th Percentile £775 £800 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.65% -4.76% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 19 29
10th Percentile £29.03 £13.06 £42.50
25th Percentile £42.25 £19.38 -
Median hourly rate £51.44 £26.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +94.11% -42.62% -11.19%
75th Percentile £84.50 £46.18 £47.50
90th Percentile £114.60 £56.00 £65.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £46.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year +40.75% - -12.04%

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 32,304 31,906 40,162
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.43% 86.97% 88.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,227 19,221 26,955
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,107 1,156 1,551
10th Percentile £14.52 £15.22 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.52 £20.24 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +25.71%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -29.23% -26.97% +41.14%

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 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 +22 955 £575 -4.17% 1,246
London +15 626 £625 - 531
UK excluding London +48 369 £513 +2.65% 960
Work from Home +30 359 £550 +5.97% 3,405
North of England -8 93 £485 -0.82% 228
South East +28 83 £550 +5.26% 387
East of England +25 64 £531 +1.19% 58
Scotland +43 62 £503 +26.02% 39
North West -7 48 £458 -5.08% 125
Yorkshire -15 39 £525 - 90
Midlands -6 37 £508 +12.78% 149
West Midlands -10 27 £520 +15.44% 83
South West -19 25 £550 -15.38% 79
Wales +2 10 £700 +201.08% 15
East Midlands -10 10 £410 +15.17% 64
North East -18 7 £538 +24.28% 14
Northern Ireland -4 1 £700 - 10

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 88 (7.77%) Apache Spark
2 68 (6.01%) Apache Airflow
3 32 (2.83%) Apache
4 24 (2.12%) Jupyter
5 9 (0.80%) Confluence
5 9 (0.80%) SAS
6 8 (0.71%) Apache Pig
7 6 (0.53%) GeoServer
7 6 (0.53%) Smallworld
8 4 (0.35%) Appian
8 4 (0.35%) IIS
8 4 (0.35%) SharePoint
9 3 (0.27%) CMS
10 1 (0.088%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.088%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.088%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.088%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.088%) nginx
10 1 (0.088%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 42 (3.71%) Chatbot
2 17 (1.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.53%) Simulink
6 1 (0.088%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.088%) GNU Octave
6 1 (0.088%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.088%) Sketch
6 1 (0.088%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.088%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
3 2 (0.18%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.18%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.088%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.088%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.088%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.088%) Shopify
4 1 (0.088%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 476 (42.05%) Azure
2 396 (34.98%) AWS
3 220 (19.43%) GCP
4 108 (9.54%) Power Platform
5 98 (8.66%) GitHub
6 94 (8.30%) Serverless
7 90 (7.95%) Azure Machine Learning
8 71 (6.27%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (5.65%) Snowflake
10 62 (5.48%) Amazon S3
10 62 (5.48%) Amazon SageMaker
11 57 (5.04%) Vertex AI
12 53 (4.68%) Azure AI
13 50 (4.42%) AWS Lambda
14 49 (4.33%) Azure AKS
14 49 (4.33%) Azure Data Factory
15 46 (4.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 46 (4.06%) GitHub Actions
16 37 (3.27%) Amazon Bedrock
17 36 (3.18%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.33%) Network Security
2 14 (1.24%) HTTP
3 13 (1.15%) DNS
4 9 (0.80%) SSL
5 8 (0.71%) FTP
5 8 (0.71%) SMTP
6 7 (0.62%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.53%) Firewall
7 6 (0.53%) Internet
8 4 (0.35%) VPN
9 2 (0.18%) 2G
9 2 (0.18%) BGP
9 2 (0.18%) Cisco IPT
9 2 (0.18%) Cisco Nexus
9 2 (0.18%) Ethernet VPN
9 2 (0.18%) InfiniBand
9 2 (0.18%) LTE
9 2 (0.18%) Modbus
9 2 (0.18%) OSPF
9 2 (0.18%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (8.48%) Power BI
2 80 (7.07%) Data Warehouse
3 66 (5.83%) Big Data
4 61 (5.39%) Data Lake
5 55 (4.86%) PostgreSQL
6 53 (4.68%) NoSQL
7 46 (4.06%) BigQuery
8 39 (3.45%) Tableau
9 35 (3.09%) Metadata
10 30 (2.65%) Hadoop
11 24 (2.12%) MongoDB
12 23 (2.03%) Pinecone
13 20 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
14 19 (1.68%) Amazon Athena
14 19 (1.68%) Data Mining
15 16 (1.41%) Amazon Redshift
15 16 (1.41%) Delta Lake
15 16 (1.41%) Relational Database
16 13 (1.15%) Geospatial Data
17 12 (1.06%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 93 (8.22%) Git
2 66 (5.83%) MLflow
3 59 (5.21%) Jenkins
4 37 (3.27%) GitLab
5 24 (2.12%) JIRA
6 18 (1.59%) Selenium
7 16 (1.41%) JMeter
8 13 (1.15%) SonarQube
9 10 (0.88%) JUnit
10 8 (0.71%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.62%) Visual Studio
12 6 (0.53%) Mockito
12 6 (0.53%) Postman
12 6 (0.53%) PyCharm
13 5 (0.44%) Artifactory
13 5 (0.44%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.44%) Gradle
13 5 (0.44%) MSTest
14 4 (0.35%) Robot Framework
14 4 (0.35%) RStudio
General
1 329 (29.06%) Social Skills
2 213 (18.82%) Finance
3 128 (11.31%) Analytical Skills
4 100 (8.83%) Public Sector
5 75 (6.63%) Banking
6 50 (4.42%) Marketing
7 43 (3.80%) Pharmaceutical
8 39 (3.45%) Retail
9 29 (2.56%) Legal
10 27 (2.39%) Investment Banking
10 27 (2.39%) Telecoms
11 26 (2.30%) Manufacturing
12 21 (1.86%) Front Office
13 19 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
13 19 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 16 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
15 13 (1.15%) Electronics
16 12 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
17 11 (0.97%) Financial Institution
18 10 (0.88%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 170 (15.02%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 159 (14.05%) Data Scientist
3 149 (13.16%) Architect
4 119 (10.51%) Data Engineer
5 118 (10.42%) Developer
6 113 (9.98%) Senior
7 72 (6.36%) Lead
8 56 (4.95%) Machine Learning Engineer
9 55 (4.86%) Python Engineer
10 51 (4.51%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 49 (4.33%) Analyst
12 42 (3.71%) Software Engineer
13 37 (3.27%) Data Architect
14 34 (3.00%) Gen AI Engineer
15 31 (2.74%) Azure Engineer
15 31 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
16 28 (2.47%) Consultant
17 26 (2.30%) Python Developer
18 25 (2.21%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 24 (2.12%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 188 (16.61%) PyTorch
2 166 (14.66%) TensorFlow
3 108 (9.54%) scikit-learn
4 102 (9.01%) Pandas
5 85 (7.51%) LangChain
6 83 (7.33%) FastAPI
7 69 (6.10%) NumPy
8 64 (5.65%) Kafka
9 62 (5.48%) React
10 61 (5.39%) Hugging Face
11 56 (4.95%) RESTful
12 49 (4.33%) LangGraph
13 48 (4.24%) PySpark
14 45 (3.98%) REST
15 36 (3.18%) .NET
15 36 (3.18%) Node.js
16 34 (3.00%) Flask
17 31 (2.74%) pytest
18 23 (2.03%) AngularJS
19 20 (1.77%) OpenCV
Miscellaneous
1 178 (15.72%) Algorithms
2 145 (12.81%) Cloud Native
3 94 (8.30%) AI Agents
4 46 (4.06%) Product Ownership
5 39 (3.45%) Distributed Systems
6 37 (3.27%) Data Protection Act
7 34 (3.00%) Onboarding
8 31 (2.74%) Distributed Computing
9 29 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
10 25 (2.21%) Genomics
11 23 (2.03%) Life Science
12 22 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
13 21 (1.86%) Data Structures
13 21 (1.86%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
14 17 (1.50%) Management Information System
15 14 (1.24%) Greenfield Project
16 11 (0.97%) IoT
17 10 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
17 10 (0.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.65%) Linux
2 11 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 9 (0.80%) Ubuntu
3 9 (0.80%) VMS
3 9 (0.80%) Windows
4 8 (0.71%) Unix
5 5 (0.44%) Android
5 5 (0.44%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.088%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 830 (73.32%) AI
2 450 (39.75%) Data Science
3 326 (28.80%) LLM
4 308 (27.21%) CI/CD
5 304 (26.86%) Analytics
6 285 (25.18%) Agile
7 265 (23.41%) DevOps
8 215 (18.99%) Data Pipeline
9 205 (18.11%) Generative AI
10 198 (17.49%) MLOps
11 194 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
12 184 (16.25%) Data Engineering
13 166 (14.66%) Natural Language Processing
14 161 (14.22%) Software Engineering
15 148 (13.07%) Containerisation
16 136 (12.01%) Visualisation
17 134 (11.84%) Use Case
18 132 (11.66%) Data Modelling
19 129 (11.40%) Computer Science
20 127 (11.22%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 721 (63.69%) Python
2 273 (24.12%) SQL
3 79 (6.98%) R
4 75 (6.63%) Java
5 57 (5.04%) JavaScript
6 52 (4.59%) TypeScript
7 44 (3.89%) C#
8 36 (3.18%) PowerShell
9 35 (3.09%) C++
10 30 (2.65%) Scala
11 20 (1.77%) Bash
11 20 (1.77%) Bicep
12 15 (1.33%) MATLAB
13 13 (1.15%) C
13 13 (1.15%) Go
14 6 (0.53%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.53%) SystemVerilog
14 6 (0.53%) Tcl
15 5 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.27%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 179 (15.81%) Degree
2 161 (14.22%) Security Cleared
3 118 (10.42%) SC Cleared
4 69 (6.10%) Master's Degree
5 47 (4.15%) MCP
6 46 (4.06%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (3.45%) PhD
8 29 (2.56%) DV Cleared
9 24 (2.12%) Azure Certification
10 15 (1.33%) AWS Certification
11 13 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
12 8 (0.71%) CISSP
13 6 (0.53%) HNC
13 6 (0.53%) HND
14 5 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.35%) Cisco Certification
15 4 (0.35%) CISM
15 4 (0.35%) ISTQB
15 4 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.18%) Data Quality
2 56 (4.95%) GDPR
3 40 (3.53%) QA
4 39 (3.45%) NIST
5 32 (2.83%) EU AI Act
6 23 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 21 (1.86%) Accessibility
8 8 (0.71%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 6 (0.53%) DO-254
10 5 (0.44%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 5 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 5 (0.44%) SOC 2
11 4 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.35%) NCSC
12 3 (0.27%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.18%) EMIR
13 2 (0.18%) GRC
13 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 189 (16.70%) Docker
2 11 (0.97%) Active Directory
2 11 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.53%) Firmware
4 3 (0.27%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.18%) GPFS
5 2 (0.18%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.18%) KVM
5 2 (0.18%) Lustre
5 2 (0.18%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.088%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 187 (16.52%) Kubernetes
2 123 (10.87%) Terraform
3 35 (3.09%) Grafana
4 25 (2.21%) Ansible
5 21 (1.86%) Kubeflow
6 18 (1.59%) Prometheus
7 14 (1.24%) Kibana
8 11 (0.97%) SCOM
9 10 (0.88%) logstash
10 9 (0.80%) ITRS Geneos
11 8 (0.71%) Argo
12 5 (0.44%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.35%) Cilium
13 4 (0.35%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.35%) Rsyslog
14 3 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
14 3 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
15 2 (0.18%) Podman
16 1 (0.088%) HP ALM
16 1 (0.088%) SCCM
Vendors
1 166 (14.66%) Microsoft
2 147 (12.99%) Databricks
3 100 (8.83%) Google
4 67 (5.92%) OpenAI
5 42 (3.71%) Foundry
6 37 (3.27%) SAP
7 21 (1.86%) Splunk
8 14 (1.24%) Salesforce
9 13 (1.15%) ServiceNow
10 12 (1.06%) NVIDIA
11 10 (0.88%) Oracle
12 9 (0.80%) Solace
12 9 (0.80%) TIBCO
13 8 (0.71%) Palantir
14 7 (0.62%) Cisco
14 7 (0.62%) Greenplum
14 7 (0.62%) Informatica
14 7 (0.62%) Intel
14 7 (0.62%) Pega
15 6 (0.53%) Sage