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 18 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 110 136
Rank change year-on-year +32 +26 +83
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,518 733 744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.01% 2.46% 1.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.55% 2.71% 1.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 921 446 526
10th Percentile £413 £393 £411
25th Percentile £488 £462 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £578
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -4.76% -1.70%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £738
90th Percentile £763 £850 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £563 £525
% change year-on-year -2.22% +7.14% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 21 20
10th Percentile £40.54 £31.00 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.30 £45.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £69.22 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.71% +42.86% +50.00%
75th Percentile £84.69 £81.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.38 £88.00 £75.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £78.10 £52.50
% change year-on-year -18.05% +48.76% +50.00%

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 42,754 27,087 37,306
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,630 17,192 23,755
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -3.79% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,570 1,249 2,608
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.87 £16.02
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.21 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.72% -29.51% +6.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +17.29%

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 18 June 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 18 June 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 18 June 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 +25 1,260 £575 - 963
London +37 848 £575 +0.88% 494
UK excluding London +8 472 £550 -2.22% 688
Work from Home +25 440 £575 +4.55% 377
North of England +7 133 £566 +5.35% 159
Scotland +44 105 £515 +10.28% 29
South East -29 92 £630 +9.57% 226
North West +4 72 £588 +6.82% 101
Midlands -18 61 £550 +10.00% 69
South West -18 46 £500 -19.35% 94
West Midlands -21 46 £550 +10.00% 37
Yorkshire -24 46 £550 -18.52% 43
East of England -24 36 £550 -10.20% 78
North East -26 18 £550 +37.50% 16
Wales -11 17 £550 -4.35% 21
East Midlands -16 13 £700 +64.71% 31
Northern Ireland - 1 £334 - 30

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
1 109 (7.18%) Apache Spark
2 66 (4.35%) Apache Airflow
3 50 (3.29%) Apache
4 36 (2.37%) Jupyter
5 23 (1.52%) Confluence
6 10 (0.66%) Appian
7 7 (0.46%) SharePoint
8 5 (0.33%) CMS
8 5 (0.33%) Headless CMS
8 5 (0.33%) SAS
9 4 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
10 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.13%) Luigi
12 1 (0.066%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.066%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.066%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.066%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.066%) NetWeaver
12 1 (0.066%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 30 (1.98%) Chatbot
2 12 (0.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
6 3 (0.20%) CPLEX
6 3 (0.20%) LaTeX
7 2 (0.13%) Simulink
8 1 (0.066%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.72%) SAP IBP
2 6 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.066%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.066%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.066%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.066%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.066%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.066%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.066%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 558 (36.76%) Azure
2 535 (35.24%) AWS
3 266 (17.52%) GCP
4 140 (9.22%) Power Platform
5 113 (7.44%) Serverless
6 100 (6.59%) Amazon S3
7 95 (6.26%) GitHub
8 90 (5.93%) Azure AI
9 85 (5.60%) AWS Lambda
10 80 (5.27%) Amazon SageMaker
11 73 (4.81%) Azure Machine Learning
11 73 (4.81%) Snowflake
12 69 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
13 55 (3.62%) Amazon Bedrock
14 53 (3.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 53 (3.49%) Vertex AI
15 51 (3.36%) GitHub Actions
16 47 (3.10%) Azure Data Factory
17 38 (2.50%) AWS CloudFormation
17 38 (2.50%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 13 (0.86%) Firewall
2 9 (0.59%) Internet
3 7 (0.46%) Network Security
4 6 (0.40%) DNS
5 5 (0.33%) DHCP
6 4 (0.26%) HTTP
6 4 (0.26%) NAS
6 4 (0.26%) SAN
6 4 (0.26%) VPN
7 3 (0.20%) SMTP
8 2 (0.13%) 4G
8 2 (0.13%) 5G
8 2 (0.13%) Ethernet
8 2 (0.13%) MQTT
8 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
8 2 (0.13%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (0.066%) 3G
9 1 (0.066%) InfiniBand
9 1 (0.066%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (7.44%) Power BI
2 103 (6.79%) Data Lake
3 79 (5.20%) Big Data
4 73 (4.81%) Metadata
5 65 (4.28%) Data Warehouse
6 64 (4.22%) BigQuery
7 49 (3.23%) NoSQL
8 47 (3.10%) Tableau
9 42 (2.77%) Amazon Athena
10 39 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
11 38 (2.50%) Amazon Redshift
12 37 (2.44%) Hadoop
13 33 (2.17%) SQL Server
14 32 (2.11%) Relational Database
15 30 (1.98%) Delta Lake
16 28 (1.84%) Pinecone
17 23 (1.52%) MongoDB
18 19 (1.25%) Weaviate
19 18 (1.19%) Mixpanel
19 18 (1.19%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 93 (6.13%) Git
2 76 (5.01%) MLflow
3 48 (3.16%) JIRA
4 43 (2.83%) GitLab
5 27 (1.78%) Jenkins
6 9 (0.59%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.46%) Claude Code
7 7 (0.46%) Selenium
8 4 (0.26%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.26%) ER Studio
8 4 (0.26%) ERwin
8 4 (0.26%) JMeter
8 4 (0.26%) Maven
8 4 (0.26%) PyCharm
9 3 (0.20%) Gradle
9 3 (0.20%) JUnit
9 3 (0.20%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.20%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.20%) Spinnaker
9 3 (0.20%) Vite
General
1 316 (20.82%) Social Skills
2 295 (19.43%) Finance
3 192 (12.65%) Analytical Skills
4 154 (10.14%) Public Sector
5 95 (6.26%) Banking
6 37 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 37 (2.44%) Marketing
7 29 (1.91%) Pharmaceutical
8 27 (1.78%) Legal
8 27 (1.78%) Retail
9 25 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
10 22 (1.45%) Front Office
11 21 (1.38%) Aviation
11 21 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
12 19 (1.25%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.12%) Law
14 15 (0.99%) Investment Banking
15 14 (0.92%) Financial Institution
16 13 (0.86%) Manufacturing
17 12 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 217 (14.30%) Senior
2 216 (14.23%) Data Scientist
3 204 (13.44%) Architect
4 153 (10.08%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 139 (9.16%) Data Engineer
6 132 (8.70%) Lead
7 101 (6.65%) Developer
8 76 (5.01%) Analyst
9 73 (4.81%) Python Engineer
10 67 (4.41%) Software Engineer
11 65 (4.28%) Machine Learning Engineer
12 64 (4.22%) Data Architect
13 60 (3.95%) Solutions Architect
14 59 (3.89%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
15 45 (2.96%) Consultant
16 40 (2.64%) Senior Data Scientist
17 35 (2.31%) Platform Engineer
17 35 (2.31%) Python Developer
18 32 (2.11%) DevOps Engineer
19 31 (2.04%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (11.66%) PyTorch
2 125 (8.23%) TensorFlow
3 108 (7.11%) scikit-learn
4 91 (5.99%) Pandas
5 84 (5.53%) Kafka
6 75 (4.94%) LangChain
7 70 (4.61%) React
8 69 (4.55%) NumPy
8 69 (4.55%) PySpark
9 59 (3.89%) REST
10 53 (3.49%) .NET
11 45 (2.96%) Hugging Face
12 35 (2.31%) LangGraph
13 34 (2.24%) AngularJS
13 34 (2.24%) FastAPI
14 33 (2.17%) Model Context Protocol
15 31 (2.04%) RESTful
16 29 (1.91%) Node.js
17 23 (1.52%) pytest
18 20 (1.32%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 176 (11.59%) Cloud Native
2 150 (9.88%) AI Agents
3 114 (7.51%) Algorithms
4 54 (3.56%) Product Ownership
5 45 (2.96%) Distributed Systems
5 45 (2.96%) Onboarding
6 26 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
7 22 (1.45%) Data Structures
7 22 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
8 19 (1.25%) Fixed Income
8 19 (1.25%) Life Science
9 18 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
10 14 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
10 14 (0.92%) Low-Code
10 14 (0.92%) Management Information System
11 12 (0.79%) Autonomous Agent
11 12 (0.79%) Distributed Computing
11 12 (0.79%) Public Cloud
11 12 (0.79%) Taxonomies
12 11 (0.72%) Augmented Reality
Operating Systems
1 32 (2.11%) Linux
2 17 (1.12%) Windows
3 11 (0.72%) Unix
4 6 (0.40%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.40%) VMS
5 5 (0.33%) Android
6 4 (0.26%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.066%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,223 (80.57%) AI
2 569 (37.48%) Data Science
3 478 (31.49%) CI/CD
4 444 (29.25%) LLM
5 428 (28.19%) Analytics
6 353 (23.25%) Data Pipeline
7 347 (22.86%) Generative AI
8 317 (20.88%) DevOps
9 302 (19.89%) MLOps
10 287 (18.91%) Agile
11 283 (18.64%) Data Engineering
12 244 (16.07%) Use Case
13 207 (13.64%) Problem-Solving
14 206 (13.57%) Software Engineering
15 201 (13.24%) Decision-Making
16 188 (12.38%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 181 (11.92%) ETL
18 180 (11.86%) Data Governance
19 168 (11.07%) Infrastructure as Code
20 163 (10.74%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 860 (56.65%) Python
2 390 (25.69%) SQL
3 109 (7.18%) Java
4 68 (4.48%) C#
5 66 (4.35%) R
6 52 (3.43%) JavaScript
7 51 (3.36%) TypeScript
8 26 (1.71%) C++
9 21 (1.38%) Bash
10 14 (0.92%) Bicep
10 14 (0.92%) PowerShell
11 13 (0.86%) Scala
12 10 (0.66%) Kotlin
13 8 (0.53%) SPARQL
14 7 (0.46%) Go
14 7 (0.46%) MATLAB
14 7 (0.46%) PL/SQL
14 7 (0.46%) Rust
15 5 (0.33%) Perl
16 3 (0.20%) Korn
Qualifications
1 261 (17.19%) Security Cleared
2 181 (11.92%) SC Cleared
3 116 (7.64%) Degree
4 47 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (3.03%) Master's Degree
6 42 (2.77%) DV Cleared
7 39 (2.57%) AWS Certification
8 38 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
9 30 (1.98%) PhD
10 21 (1.38%) Azure Certification
11 19 (1.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 19 (1.25%) CISSP
12 15 (0.99%) CISM
13 7 (0.46%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (0.46%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 7 (0.46%) ISTQB
14 5 (0.33%) CEH
14 5 (0.33%) CompTIA Security+
14 5 (0.33%) GIAC
14 5 (0.33%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 183 (12.06%) Data Quality
2 62 (4.08%) GDPR
3 50 (3.29%) QA
4 31 (2.04%) NIST
5 18 (1.19%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 13 (0.86%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
8 11 (0.72%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 8 (0.53%) GRC
10 7 (0.46%) GxP
10 7 (0.46%) NCSC
11 5 (0.33%) WCAG
12 4 (0.26%) COBIT
12 4 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 3 (0.20%) SLA
13 3 (0.20%) Solvency II
System Software
1 203 (13.37%) Docker
2 12 (0.79%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.72%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
4 5 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.20%) BitLocker
5 3 (0.20%) Firmware
5 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.20%) Terminal Services
5 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
6 2 (0.13%) HDFS
6 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.066%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.066%) IAG
Systems Management
1 246 (16.21%) Kubernetes
2 165 (10.87%) Terraform
3 23 (1.52%) Kubeflow
4 20 (1.32%) Grafana
5 15 (0.99%) Ansible
6 14 (0.92%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.59%) Podman
8 6 (0.40%) Istio
9 3 (0.20%) Nagios
9 3 (0.20%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.20%) Puppet
9 3 (0.20%) Rancher
9 3 (0.20%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.20%) vMotion
10 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.13%) Argo
10 2 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.13%) Kibana
10 2 (0.13%) Packer
10 2 (0.13%) SCCM
Vendors
1 187 (12.32%) Databricks
2 169 (11.13%) Microsoft
3 107 (7.05%) OpenAI
4 90 (5.93%) Google
5 56 (3.69%) Foundry
6 40 (2.64%) SAP
7 33 (2.17%) Oracle
8 24 (1.58%) ServiceNow
9 20 (1.32%) Informatica
10 15 (0.99%) IBM
10 15 (0.99%) UiPath
11 12 (0.79%) Dynatrace
12 11 (0.72%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.53%) Salesforce
14 7 (0.46%) Amplitude
14 7 (0.46%) Sybase
15 6 (0.40%) Ariba
15 6 (0.40%) Pega
15 6 (0.40%) Talend
15 6 (0.40%) Workday