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 31 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 96 159
Rank change year-on-year +14 +63 +64
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,391 763 670
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.12% 2.62% 1.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 2.90% 1.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 859 498 493
10th Percentile £411 £375 £413
25th Percentile £494 £451 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £583 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year +1.30% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £700 £725 £717
90th Percentile £788 £874 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £548 £525
% change year-on-year +0.46% +4.29% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 21 19
10th Percentile £42.48 £25.25 £41.22
25th Percentile £50.00 £31.00 £42.50
Median hourly rate £64.00 £57.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.30% +15.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile £83.75 £78.70 £66.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £81.01 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £77.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year -16.13% +24.00% +78.57%

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 38,122 26,294 38,266
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.61% 90.44% 86.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,155 17,082 24,859
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £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 £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,251 966 2,351
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.84
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.24 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £31.88 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.36% -1.91% -10.48%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.72 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £31.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -12.50%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 1,178 £575 -4.17% 1,132
London +21 787 £600 -2.44% 588
Work from Home +28 428 £600 +9.59% 460
UK excluding London +23 418 £550 +0.46% 725
North of England -13 100 £534 +1.71% 168
South East -18 89 £600 +6.67% 249
East of England -6 66 £550 -8.33% 60
Scotland +43 64 £496 +13.43% 36
North West +3 61 £550 +0.46% 94
Midlands -19 61 £575 +27.78% 87
South West -19 40 £550 -16.51% 97
West Midlands -25 40 £550 +18.92% 38
Yorkshire -36 30 £516 -1.67% 46
East Midlands -23 19 £600 +33.33% 49
Wales -6 18 £738 +31.11% 27
North East -7 12 £575 +60.61% 29
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 13

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
1 120 (8.63%) Apache Spark
2 80 (5.75%) Apache Airflow
3 57 (4.10%) Apache
4 29 (2.08%) Jupyter
5 11 (0.79%) Confluence
6 9 (0.65%) Appian
6 9 (0.65%) SAS
7 6 (0.43%) CMS
8 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
10 3 (0.22%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.14%) Luigi
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.072%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.072%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 33 (2.37%) Chatbot
2 14 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.29%) Simulink
6 3 (0.22%) LaTeX
7 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 6 (0.43%) SAP IBP
2 5 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.072%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.072%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.072%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.072%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 616 (44.28%) Azure
2 496 (35.66%) AWS
3 263 (18.91%) GCP
4 148 (10.64%) Power Platform
5 125 (8.99%) GitHub
6 106 (7.62%) Azure Machine Learning
7 103 (7.40%) Azure AI
8 96 (6.90%) Serverless
9 86 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
10 84 (6.04%) Snowflake
11 68 (4.89%) Amazon SageMaker
12 63 (4.53%) GitHub Actions
13 62 (4.46%) Azure Data Factory
14 61 (4.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 59 (4.24%) Amazon S3
15 59 (4.24%) Vertex AI
16 42 (3.02%) AWS CloudFormation
17 41 (2.95%) AWS Lambda
18 39 (2.80%) Amazon Bedrock
19 34 (2.44%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.15%) Network Security
2 11 (0.79%) Firewall
3 7 (0.50%) DNS
3 7 (0.50%) HTTP
4 6 (0.43%) Internet
5 5 (0.36%) FTP
5 5 (0.36%) SMTP
5 5 (0.36%) SSL
6 4 (0.29%) 5G
6 4 (0.29%) Ethernet
6 4 (0.29%) InfiniBand
7 3 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
7 3 (0.22%) LTE
7 3 (0.22%) VPN
8 2 (0.14%) 2G
8 2 (0.14%) 4G
8 2 (0.14%) Bluetooth
8 2 (0.14%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.14%) Modbus
8 2 (0.14%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (8.20%) Power BI
2 87 (6.25%) Data Lake
3 75 (5.39%) Data Warehouse
4 69 (4.96%) Big Data
5 58 (4.17%) NoSQL
6 54 (3.88%) BigQuery
7 50 (3.59%) Metadata
8 40 (2.88%) Tableau
9 38 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
10 36 (2.59%) Pinecone
11 34 (2.44%) Delta Lake
12 32 (2.30%) Hadoop
13 31 (2.23%) SQL Server
14 28 (2.01%) Relational Database
14 28 (2.01%) Weaviate
15 25 (1.80%) Amazon Athena
15 25 (1.80%) Mixpanel
16 20 (1.44%) Amazon Redshift
17 19 (1.37%) MySQL
18 17 (1.22%) OLAP
Development Applications
1 112 (8.05%) Git
2 95 (6.83%) MLflow
3 41 (2.95%) Jenkins
4 32 (2.30%) JIRA
5 28 (2.01%) GitLab
6 13 (0.93%) Visual Studio
7 11 (0.79%) Selenium
8 10 (0.72%) PyCharm
9 9 (0.65%) JMeter
10 7 (0.50%) Gradle
10 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.43%) MSTest
12 5 (0.36%) Maven
13 4 (0.29%) Android Studio
13 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
13 4 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
13 4 (0.29%) RStudio
14 3 (0.22%) Spinnaker
14 3 (0.22%) Vite
General
1 347 (24.95%) Social Skills
2 281 (20.20%) Finance
3 170 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (10.35%) Public Sector
5 81 (5.82%) Banking
6 37 (2.66%) Marketing
6 37 (2.66%) Pharmaceutical
7 33 (2.37%) Legal
8 28 (2.01%) Retail
9 27 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 23 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
11 22 (1.58%) Investment Banking
12 21 (1.51%) Front Office
13 20 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (1.22%) Manufacturing
14 17 (1.22%) Telecoms
15 13 (0.93%) Aviation
16 12 (0.86%) Electronics
17 11 (0.79%) Law
Job Titles
1 196 (14.09%) Architect
1 196 (14.09%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 191 (13.73%) Data Scientist
3 185 (13.30%) Senior
4 134 (9.63%) Data Engineer
5 122 (8.77%) Developer
6 116 (8.34%) Lead
7 64 (4.60%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
8 62 (4.46%) Analyst
9 61 (4.39%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 60 (4.31%) Data Architect
11 57 (4.10%) Python Engineer
12 53 (3.81%) Software Engineer
13 44 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
14 40 (2.88%) Consultant
14 40 (2.88%) Senior Data Scientist
15 39 (2.80%) Gen AI Engineer
16 38 (2.73%) Azure Engineer
17 30 (2.16%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
18 28 (2.01%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 224 (16.10%) PyTorch
2 184 (13.23%) TensorFlow
3 141 (10.14%) scikit-learn
4 110 (7.91%) Pandas
5 82 (5.90%) LangChain
6 80 (5.75%) NumPy
7 77 (5.54%) React
8 72 (5.18%) Kafka
9 61 (4.39%) .NET
10 60 (4.31%) PySpark
11 53 (3.81%) LangGraph
11 53 (3.81%) Node.js
12 52 (3.74%) REST
13 51 (3.67%) Model Context Protocol
14 47 (3.38%) FastAPI
15 46 (3.31%) Hugging Face
16 45 (3.24%) AngularJS
17 40 (2.88%) RESTful
18 29 (2.08%) Faiss
19 27 (1.94%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 197 (14.16%) Cloud Native
2 164 (11.79%) Algorithms
3 131 (9.42%) AI Agents
4 49 (3.52%) Product Ownership
5 43 (3.09%) Onboarding
6 36 (2.59%) Distributed Systems
7 26 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
8 24 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
10 21 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
11 19 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.37%) Fixed Income
12 17 (1.22%) Distributed Computing
12 17 (1.22%) Life Science
12 17 (1.22%) Management Information System
13 15 (1.08%) Data Structures
14 13 (0.93%) Security Posture
15 12 (0.86%) IoT
16 11 (0.79%) Credit Risk
16 11 (0.79%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 37 (2.66%) Linux
2 12 (0.86%) VMS
2 12 (0.86%) Windows
3 9 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (0.58%) Android
4 8 (0.58%) Ubuntu
5 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.29%) Unix
7 1 (0.072%) CentOS
7 1 (0.072%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,088 (78.22%) AI
2 507 (36.45%) Data Science
3 424 (30.48%) CI/CD
4 400 (28.76%) Analytics
5 378 (27.17%) LLM
6 308 (22.14%) DevOps
7 300 (21.57%) Data Pipeline
8 294 (21.14%) Generative AI
9 272 (19.55%) Data Engineering
10 269 (19.34%) Agile
10 269 (19.34%) MLOps
11 216 (15.53%) Problem-Solving
12 192 (13.80%) Natural Language Processing
13 189 (13.59%) Use Case
14 178 (12.80%) Software Engineering
15 177 (12.72%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 172 (12.37%) Containerisation
17 170 (12.22%) Data Governance
18 166 (11.93%) Data Modelling
19 155 (11.14%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 843 (60.60%) Python
2 358 (25.74%) SQL
3 95 (6.83%) Java
4 85 (6.11%) C#
5 71 (5.10%) R
6 57 (4.10%) JavaScript
7 51 (3.67%) TypeScript
8 28 (2.01%) PowerShell
9 22 (1.58%) C++
10 21 (1.51%) Bash
11 17 (1.22%) Bicep
12 16 (1.15%) Scala
13 10 (0.72%) Go
13 10 (0.72%) MATLAB
13 10 (0.72%) Rust
14 7 (0.50%) Kotlin
14 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
15 5 (0.36%) C
16 4 (0.29%) Tcl
16 4 (0.29%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 237 (17.04%) Security Cleared
2 176 (12.65%) Degree
3 159 (11.43%) SC Cleared
4 77 (5.54%) Master's Degree
5 50 (3.59%) PhD
6 44 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
7 42 (3.02%) DV Cleared
8 35 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
9 21 (1.51%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.37%) Azure Certification
11 18 (1.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 15 (1.08%) CISSP
13 11 (0.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 10 (0.72%) CISM
14 10 (0.72%) ISTQB
15 7 (0.50%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
17 5 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
18 4 (0.29%) PMI Certification
18 4 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (9.78%) Data Quality
2 67 (4.82%) GDPR
3 51 (3.67%) QA
4 33 (2.37%) NIST
5 21 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (1.44%) EU AI Act
7 18 (1.29%) Accessibility
8 9 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (0.58%) HIPAA
10 7 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 7 (0.50%) NCSC
11 6 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.36%) GRC
13 4 (0.29%) DO-254
13 4 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.29%) WCAG
14 3 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
15 2 (0.14%) COBIT
System Software
1 218 (15.67%) Docker
2 13 (0.93%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.86%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 7 (0.50%) Firmware
5 3 (0.22%) Lustre
5 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.14%) Ceph
6 2 (0.14%) HDFS
7 1 (0.072%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.072%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 218 (15.67%) Kubernetes
2 142 (10.21%) Terraform
3 21 (1.51%) Kubeflow
4 19 (1.37%) Grafana
5 16 (1.15%) Ansible
6 12 (0.86%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.72%) Podman
8 7 (0.50%) SCOM
9 3 (0.22%) Argo
9 3 (0.22%) Kibana
9 3 (0.22%) Rancher
10 2 (0.14%) Istio
10 2 (0.14%) Knative
10 2 (0.14%) logstash
10 2 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.072%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.072%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.072%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.072%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.072%) SELinux
Vendors
1 223 (16.03%) Databricks
2 193 (13.87%) Microsoft
3 120 (8.63%) Google
4 111 (7.98%) OpenAI
5 74 (5.32%) Foundry
6 36 (2.59%) SAP
7 29 (2.08%) Oracle
8 18 (1.29%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.08%) Informatica
10 14 (1.01%) UiPath
11 11 (0.79%) Automation Anywhere
11 11 (0.79%) NVIDIA
12 10 (0.72%) IBM
13 8 (0.58%) Dynatrace
13 8 (0.58%) Salesforce
14 7 (0.50%) Amplitude
14 7 (0.50%) Greenplum
15 6 (0.43%) Pega
15 6 (0.43%) Siemens
15 6 (0.43%) Talend