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 13 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 104 115
Rank change year-on-year +19 +11 +82
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,584 839 784
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.97% 2.55% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.50% 2.82% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,028 534 560
10th Percentile £413 £400 £412
25th Percentile £490 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +3.45%
75th Percentile £700 £675 £738
90th Percentile £788 £800 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £500
% change year-on-year - +10.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 23 21
10th Percentile £28.50 £33.80 £13.06
25th Percentile £40.54 £52.86 £27.75
Median hourly rate £77.00 £75.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +2.67% +62.41% -
75th Percentile £83.75 £83.01 £53.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £88.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £77.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -0.65% +67.82% -

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 45,250 29,801 33,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.48% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,843 18,616 21,279
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,819 1,703 1,838
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.31 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -39.40% -1.55%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.38 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.50
% change year-on-year +93.36% -46.51% +13.33%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 August 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 +13 1,361 £575 +3.23% 4,532
London +30 909 £588 +2.17% 3,199
UK excluding London -6 499 £550 - 1,782
Work from Home +7 409 £592 +7.55% 1,711
North of England -5 137 £550 +11.56% 355
South East -12 133 £600 +6.67% 445
Scotland +33 86 £430 -14.00% 269
North West -25 66 £600 +14.29% 214
Midlands -29 59 £550 +7.32% 153
Yorkshire -1 58 £550 +12.19% 98
West Midlands -18 48 £550 -6.38% 96
South West -31 46 £528 -4.09% 206
East of England -27 30 £500 -16.67% 253
North East -36 13 £463 +8.82% 44
Wales -5 11 £540 -20.00% 57
East Midlands -16 9 £450 +5.88% 57
Northern Ireland +7 1 £334 -52.29% 66

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 84 (5.30%) Apache Spark
2 75 (4.73%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (2.90%) Apache
4 33 (2.08%) Jupyter
5 20 (1.26%) Confluence
6 8 (0.51%) SAS
7 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
8 4 (0.25%) CMS
8 4 (0.25%) Headless CMS
8 4 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
8 4 (0.25%) SharePoint
9 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.13%) Appian
10 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.063%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.063%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.063%) Luigi
11 1 (0.063%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 30 (1.89%) Chatbot
2 10 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.32%) CPLEX
4 4 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
6 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.13%) Notion
7 1 (0.063%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.063%) DaVinci Resolve
7 1 (0.063%) NUKE
7 1 (0.063%) Simulink
7 1 (0.063%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 11 (0.69%) SAP IBP
2 8 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 3 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.063%) Actimize
6 1 (0.063%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.063%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.063%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 1 (0.063%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.063%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.063%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.063%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.063%) SAP APO
6 1 (0.063%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 548 (34.60%) Azure
2 540 (34.09%) AWS
3 310 (19.57%) GCP
4 131 (8.27%) Power Platform
5 107 (6.76%) GitHub
6 105 (6.63%) Serverless
7 90 (5.68%) Amazon S3
8 87 (5.49%) Snowflake
9 81 (5.11%) AWS Lambda
10 74 (4.67%) Amazon SageMaker
11 68 (4.29%) Azure Machine Learning
12 61 (3.85%) Amazon Bedrock
13 59 (3.72%) Azure AI
14 56 (3.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 53 (3.35%) dbt
16 50 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
16 50 (3.16%) Vertex AI
17 44 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
18 43 (2.71%) Azure Data Factory
19 37 (2.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.33%) Firewall
2 18 (1.14%) Internet
3 16 (1.01%) Network Security
4 13 (0.82%) Broadband
5 11 (0.69%) DNS
6 10 (0.63%) VPN
7 9 (0.57%) DHCP
8 4 (0.25%) NAS
8 4 (0.25%) SAN
8 4 (0.25%) TCP/IP
8 4 (0.25%) VLAN
9 3 (0.19%) HTTP
9 3 (0.19%) MQTT
9 3 (0.19%) SMTP
10 2 (0.13%) 4G
10 2 (0.13%) 5G
10 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
10 2 (0.13%) Radio Access Network
10 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
10 2 (0.13%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (7.39%) Power BI
2 89 (5.62%) Data Lake
3 83 (5.24%) Data Warehouse
4 79 (4.99%) BigQuery
5 73 (4.61%) Metadata
6 68 (4.29%) Big Data
7 48 (3.03%) Amazon Redshift
7 48 (3.03%) NoSQL
8 45 (2.84%) Tableau
9 42 (2.65%) Delta Lake
10 37 (2.34%) Amazon Athena
11 32 (2.02%) Relational Database
12 30 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
13 25 (1.58%) Hadoop
14 22 (1.39%) MongoDB
15 20 (1.26%) Looker
16 19 (1.20%) Data Mining
16 19 (1.20%) Neo4j
17 17 (1.07%) Elasticsearch
18 16 (1.01%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 93 (5.87%) Git
2 55 (3.47%) MLflow
3 48 (3.03%) GitLab
4 45 (2.84%) JIRA
5 23 (1.45%) Jenkins
6 10 (0.63%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.63%) Vite
7 8 (0.51%) Selenium
8 6 (0.38%) ERwin
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.25%) PyCharm
10 4 (0.25%) Spinnaker
11 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.13%) JUnit
12 2 (0.13%) NUnit
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.13%) Pylint
12 2 (0.13%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 336 (21.21%) Social Skills
2 291 (18.37%) Finance
3 215 (13.57%) Analytical Skills
4 136 (8.59%) Public Sector
5 109 (6.88%) Banking
6 41 (2.59%) Marketing
7 37 (2.34%) Retail
8 32 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 31 (1.96%) Telecoms
10 28 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
11 26 (1.64%) Legal
12 22 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
12 22 (1.39%) Front Office
13 20 (1.26%) Aerospace
14 19 (1.20%) Manufacturing
15 18 (1.14%) Financial Institution
16 16 (1.01%) Aviation
17 15 (0.95%) Influencing Skills
17 15 (0.95%) Investment Banking
18 14 (0.88%) Law
Job Titles
1 241 (15.21%) Senior
2 238 (15.03%) Architect
3 211 (13.32%) Data Scientist
4 169 (10.67%) Lead
5 168 (10.61%) Data Engineer
6 141 (8.90%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 96 (6.06%) Developer
8 87 (5.49%) Machine Learning Engineer
9 78 (4.92%) Python Engineer
10 73 (4.61%) Solutions Architect
11 69 (4.36%) Data Architect
12 66 (4.17%) Analyst
13 58 (3.66%) Software Engineer
14 57 (3.60%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
15 56 (3.54%) Platform Engineer
16 47 (2.97%) Security Architect
17 45 (2.84%) DevOps Engineer
18 43 (2.71%) Senior Data Engineer
19 40 (2.53%) Consultant
19 40 (2.53%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (8.65%) PyTorch
2 106 (6.69%) Kafka
3 98 (6.19%) TensorFlow
4 86 (5.43%) scikit-learn
5 80 (5.05%) LangChain
6 79 (4.99%) PySpark
7 68 (4.29%) React
8 67 (4.23%) Pandas
9 65 (4.10%) REST
10 50 (3.16%) NumPy
11 39 (2.46%) .NET
12 36 (2.27%) LangGraph
13 30 (1.89%) FastAPI
14 28 (1.77%) Hugging Face
14 28 (1.77%) pytest
15 26 (1.64%) Model Context Protocol
16 25 (1.58%) AngularJS
16 25 (1.58%) Node.js
16 25 (1.58%) RESTful
17 19 (1.20%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 189 (11.93%) Cloud Native
2 170 (10.73%) AI Agents
3 106 (6.69%) Algorithms
4 65 (4.10%) Product Ownership
5 57 (3.60%) Onboarding
6 56 (3.54%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (1.89%) Data Structures
8 28 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
9 23 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
9 23 (1.45%) Life Science
10 22 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (0.95%) CMDB
11 15 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
12 14 (0.88%) Enterprise Cloud
12 14 (0.88%) IoT
12 14 (0.88%) Public Cloud
12 14 (0.88%) Security Posture
12 14 (0.88%) Taxonomies
13 13 (0.82%) Social Media
13 13 (0.82%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 49 (3.09%) Linux
2 12 (0.76%) Unix
2 12 (0.76%) Windows
3 4 (0.25%) Ubuntu
3 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.19%) Android
4 3 (0.19%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.19%) VMS
5 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,279 (80.74%) AI
2 579 (36.55%) Data Science
3 498 (31.44%) CI/CD
4 453 (28.60%) Analytics
5 426 (26.89%) LLM
6 374 (23.61%) Generative AI
7 355 (22.41%) Data Pipeline
8 333 (21.02%) Agile
9 331 (20.90%) DevOps
10 289 (18.24%) MLOps
11 274 (17.30%) Data Engineering
12 247 (15.59%) Software Engineering
13 242 (15.28%) Use Case
14 227 (14.33%) Decision-Making
15 209 (13.19%) Roadmaps
16 206 (13.01%) Problem-Solving
17 195 (12.31%) Stakeholder Management
18 194 (12.25%) Infrastructure as Code
19 190 (11.99%) Data Governance
20 181 (11.43%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 868 (54.80%) Python
2 385 (24.31%) SQL
3 117 (7.39%) Java
4 76 (4.80%) JavaScript
5 63 (3.98%) TypeScript
6 47 (2.97%) C#
7 44 (2.78%) R
8 40 (2.53%) Bash
9 25 (1.58%) PowerShell
10 19 (1.20%) Bicep
10 19 (1.20%) C++
11 17 (1.07%) Scala
12 15 (0.95%) Go
13 11 (0.69%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.51%) Cypher
14 8 (0.51%) SPARQL
15 7 (0.44%) Gremlin
15 7 (0.44%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.44%) Rust
16 6 (0.38%) Perl
Qualifications
1 276 (17.42%) Security Cleared
2 200 (12.63%) SC Cleared
3 120 (7.58%) Degree
4 55 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 52 (3.28%) DV Cleared
6 44 (2.78%) AWS Certification
7 42 (2.65%) Master's Degree
8 32 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.02%) CISSP
9 27 (1.70%) PhD
10 22 (1.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 19 (1.20%) Azure Certification
12 14 (0.88%) CISM
12 14 (0.88%) TOGAF Certification
13 8 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
14 7 (0.44%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 7 (0.44%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 7 (0.44%) PMP
15 6 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
15 6 (0.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 192 (12.12%) Data Quality
2 62 (3.91%) GDPR
3 50 (3.16%) QA
4 32 (2.02%) NIST
5 22 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.95%) EU AI Act
7 14 (0.88%) Accessibility
8 11 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.57%) GxP
10 8 (0.51%) GRC
10 8 (0.51%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 6 (0.38%) SLA
12 6 (0.38%) WCAG
13 5 (0.32%) Solvency II
14 4 (0.25%) COBIT
14 4 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.25%) NCSC
15 3 (0.19%) IFRS
System Software
1 214 (13.51%) Docker
2 12 (0.76%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.51%) IAG
4 5 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
4 5 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.25%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.19%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.19%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.19%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.13%) Firmware
7 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.063%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 269 (16.98%) Kubernetes
2 187 (11.81%) Terraform
3 35 (2.21%) Ansible
4 27 (1.70%) Kubeflow
5 26 (1.64%) Grafana
6 19 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.38%) Istio
7 6 (0.38%) Podman
8 4 (0.25%) systemd
9 3 (0.19%) Kibana
9 3 (0.19%) Nagios
9 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.19%) Puppet
9 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.19%) vMotion
10 2 (0.13%) Argo
10 2 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.13%) Packer
10 2 (0.13%) Rancher
10 2 (0.13%) SCCM
Vendors
1 201 (12.69%) Databricks
2 158 (9.97%) Microsoft
3 104 (6.57%) Google
4 77 (4.86%) OpenAI
5 48 (3.03%) SAP
6 37 (2.34%) Foundry
6 37 (2.34%) ServiceNow
7 28 (1.77%) Oracle
8 22 (1.39%) Informatica
9 18 (1.14%) Dynatrace
10 14 (0.88%) IBM
11 13 (0.82%) Splunk
12 12 (0.76%) UiPath
13 8 (0.51%) Nexthink
14 7 (0.44%) Salesforce
14 7 (0.44%) Sybase
15 6 (0.38%) Pega
15 6 (0.38%) Workday
16 5 (0.32%) New Relic
16 5 (0.32%) VMware