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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 112 143
Rank change year-on-year +29 +31 +85
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,425 697 716
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.92% 2.44% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 2.68% 1.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 862 432 519
10th Percentile £413 £393 £413
25th Percentile £491 £457 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £561 £580
Median % change year-on-year +2.45% -3.23% -1.28%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £738
90th Percentile £775 £850 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 18 19
10th Percentile £40.54 £40.80 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.38 £46.56 £46.22
Median hourly rate £65.00 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% +42.86% +50.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £80.76 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.88 £88.00 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.50 £78.10 £56.25
% change year-on-year -17.41% +38.84% +60.71%

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 41,181 26,010 36,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 91.03% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,765 16,696 23,578
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,462 1,066 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%

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 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 27 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 27 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 +17 1,188 £575 - 1,422
London +36 797 £575 - 817
UK excluding London +6 439 £550 -4.35% 738
Work from Home +22 402 £588 +6.82% 650
North of England +2 120 £550 - 216
Scotland +56 94 £518 +10.81% 42
South East -31 85 £630 +9.57% 202
Midlands -29 64 £550 +12.82% 69
North West -10 62 £575 - 132
East of England -18 46 £500 -21.57% 88
West Midlands -30 46 £550 +10.00% 31
Yorkshire -14 45 £519 - 48
South West -28 37 £500 -21.88% 97
North East -11 16 £550 +57.14% 37
East Midlands -21 16 £650 +46.48% 37
Wales -19 12 £759 +31.96% 22
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 14

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
1 114 (8.00%) Apache Spark
2 68 (4.77%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (3.86%) Apache
4 33 (2.32%) Jupyter
5 16 (1.12%) Confluence
6 9 (0.63%) Appian
7 8 (0.56%) SharePoint
8 5 (0.35%) CMS
8 5 (0.35%) Headless CMS
9 4 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
9 4 (0.28%) SAS
10 2 (0.14%) Luigi
11 1 (0.070%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.070%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.070%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.070%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.070%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 27 (1.89%) Chatbot
2 12 (0.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
6 3 (0.21%) LaTeX
7 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (0.77%) SAP IBP
2 6 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.070%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.070%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.070%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.070%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 536 (37.61%) Azure
2 482 (33.82%) AWS
3 245 (17.19%) GCP
4 127 (8.91%) Power Platform
5 91 (6.39%) GitHub
6 87 (6.11%) Azure AI
6 87 (6.11%) Serverless
7 81 (5.68%) Azure Machine Learning
8 75 (5.26%) Amazon SageMaker
9 70 (4.91%) Snowflake
10 69 (4.84%) Amazon S3
11 65 (4.56%) Azure DevOps
12 55 (3.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 54 (3.79%) Vertex AI
14 53 (3.72%) AWS Lambda
15 50 (3.51%) Azure Data Factory
15 50 (3.51%) GitHub Actions
16 36 (2.53%) Amazon Bedrock
17 34 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
18 30 (2.11%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (0.91%) Network Security
2 10 (0.70%) Firewall
3 9 (0.63%) HTTP
4 8 (0.56%) DNS
5 5 (0.35%) FTP
5 5 (0.35%) SMTP
5 5 (0.35%) SSL
6 4 (0.28%) Internet
6 4 (0.28%) NAS
6 4 (0.28%) SAN
7 3 (0.21%) InfiniBand
8 2 (0.14%) 4G
8 2 (0.14%) 5G
8 2 (0.14%) DHCP
8 2 (0.14%) Ethernet
8 2 (0.14%) PCoIP
8 2 (0.14%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.14%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (0.070%) 3GPP
9 1 (0.070%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (6.88%) Power BI
2 95 (6.67%) Data Lake
3 74 (5.19%) Big Data
4 65 (4.56%) Metadata
5 64 (4.49%) BigQuery
6 50 (3.51%) Data Warehouse
7 49 (3.44%) NoSQL
8 41 (2.88%) Tableau
9 35 (2.46%) Hadoop
10 32 (2.25%) Delta Lake
11 30 (2.11%) SQL Server
12 29 (2.04%) Pinecone
12 29 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
13 27 (1.89%) Relational Database
14 25 (1.75%) Amazon Athena
15 24 (1.68%) Mixpanel
16 22 (1.54%) Weaviate
17 21 (1.47%) MongoDB
18 17 (1.19%) Amazon Redshift
19 15 (1.05%) Redis
Development Applications
1 90 (6.32%) Git
2 86 (6.04%) MLflow
3 35 (2.46%) JIRA
4 25 (1.75%) GitLab
5 21 (1.47%) Jenkins
6 9 (0.63%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.49%) Selenium
8 5 (0.35%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.28%) ERwin
9 4 (0.28%) JMeter
9 4 (0.28%) Maven
9 4 (0.28%) PyCharm
10 3 (0.21%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.21%) Gradle
10 3 (0.21%) JUnit
10 3 (0.21%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.21%) Spinnaker
10 3 (0.21%) Vite
11 2 (0.14%) NUnit
General
1 305 (21.40%) Social Skills
2 281 (19.72%) Finance
3 172 (12.07%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (9.61%) Public Sector
5 85 (5.96%) Banking
6 31 (2.18%) Marketing
7 30 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 26 (1.82%) Pharmaceutical
9 25 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (1.75%) Legal
10 23 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.54%) Aviation
11 22 (1.54%) Retail
12 21 (1.47%) Front Office
12 21 (1.47%) Investment Banking
13 18 (1.26%) Telecoms
14 13 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
15 12 (0.84%) Aerospace
15 12 (0.84%) Manufacturing
16 11 (0.77%) Law
Job Titles
1 210 (14.74%) Data Scientist
2 200 (14.04%) Senior
3 188 (13.19%) Architect
4 155 (10.88%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 128 (8.98%) Data Engineer
6 120 (8.42%) Lead
7 95 (6.67%) Developer
8 77 (5.40%) Analyst
9 67 (4.70%) Python Engineer
10 62 (4.35%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 61 (4.28%) Software Engineer
12 58 (4.07%) Solutions Architect
13 56 (3.93%) Data Architect
14 53 (3.72%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
15 42 (2.95%) Senior Data Scientist
16 38 (2.67%) Consultant
17 33 (2.32%) Python Developer
18 31 (2.18%) Business Analyst
18 31 (2.18%) Platform Engineer
19 28 (1.96%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 187 (13.12%) PyTorch
2 135 (9.47%) TensorFlow
3 115 (8.07%) scikit-learn
4 99 (6.95%) Pandas
5 82 (5.75%) Kafka
6 73 (5.12%) LangChain
7 71 (4.98%) NumPy
8 67 (4.70%) React
9 65 (4.56%) PySpark
10 55 (3.86%) REST
11 52 (3.65%) .NET
12 48 (3.37%) Hugging Face
13 36 (2.53%) LangGraph
14 33 (2.32%) Model Context Protocol
15 32 (2.25%) AngularJS
15 32 (2.25%) Node.js
16 28 (1.96%) FastAPI
17 27 (1.89%) RESTful
18 21 (1.47%) Faiss
19 20 (1.40%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 165 (11.58%) Cloud Native
2 138 (9.68%) AI Agents
3 123 (8.63%) Algorithms
4 49 (3.44%) Product Ownership
5 43 (3.02%) Onboarding
6 39 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (1.33%) Data Structures
9 18 (1.26%) Fixed Income
10 17 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
10 17 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
10 17 (1.19%) Life Science
11 16 (1.12%) Management Information System
12 13 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
13 12 (0.84%) Distributed Computing
13 12 (0.84%) Low-Code
13 12 (0.84%) Public Cloud
14 11 (0.77%) Augmented Reality
14 11 (0.77%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.11%) Linux
2 15 (1.05%) Windows
3 11 (0.77%) Unix
4 8 (0.56%) VMS
5 7 (0.49%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.42%) Android
7 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.070%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,136 (79.72%) AI
2 530 (37.19%) Data Science
3 443 (31.09%) CI/CD
4 420 (29.47%) LLM
5 394 (27.65%) Analytics
6 321 (22.53%) Generative AI
7 314 (22.04%) Data Pipeline
8 293 (20.56%) DevOps
9 282 (19.79%) MLOps
10 265 (18.60%) Data Engineering
11 261 (18.32%) Agile
12 204 (14.32%) Use Case
13 193 (13.54%) Problem-Solving
14 180 (12.63%) Software Engineering
15 179 (12.56%) Data Governance
16 176 (12.35%) ETL
17 175 (12.28%) Decision-Making
17 175 (12.28%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
18 152 (10.67%) Containerisation
19 147 (10.32%) Natural Language Processing
Programming Languages
1 820 (57.54%) Python
2 361 (25.33%) SQL
3 106 (7.44%) Java
4 74 (5.19%) C#
5 64 (4.49%) R
6 49 (3.44%) TypeScript
7 44 (3.09%) JavaScript
8 26 (1.82%) C++
9 19 (1.33%) Bash
10 17 (1.19%) PowerShell
11 14 (0.98%) Bicep
12 13 (0.91%) Scala
13 11 (0.77%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.56%) Go
15 7 (0.49%) Rust
15 7 (0.49%) SPARQL
16 6 (0.42%) MATLAB
17 5 (0.35%) Perl
17 5 (0.35%) PL/SQL
18 3 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 239 (16.77%) Security Cleared
2 163 (11.44%) SC Cleared
3 116 (8.14%) Degree
4 55 (3.86%) Master's Degree
5 39 (2.74%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
7 37 (2.60%) PhD
8 34 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 25 (1.75%) AWS Certification
10 21 (1.47%) Azure Certification
11 18 (1.26%) CISSP
12 14 (0.98%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 14 (0.98%) CISM
13 7 (0.49%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 6 (0.42%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.35%) GIAC
15 5 (0.35%) PMI Certification
15 5 (0.35%) PMP
16 4 (0.28%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 156 (10.95%) Data Quality
2 57 (4.00%) GDPR
3 50 (3.51%) QA
4 30 (2.11%) NIST
5 18 (1.26%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 13 (0.91%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
9 10 (0.70%) HIPAA
10 8 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.49%) GRC
11 7 (0.49%) NCSC
12 5 (0.35%) GxP
12 5 (0.35%) WCAG
13 4 (0.28%) COBIT
13 4 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.21%) SLA
15 2 (0.14%) DO-254
15 2 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 191 (13.40%) Docker
2 12 (0.84%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 10 (0.70%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.35%) Firmware
5 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.14%) Ceph
6 2 (0.14%) HDFS
6 2 (0.14%) Lustre
6 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 225 (15.79%) Kubernetes
2 138 (9.68%) Terraform
3 22 (1.54%) Kubeflow
4 19 (1.33%) Grafana
5 13 (0.91%) Ansible
6 12 (0.84%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.63%) Podman
8 5 (0.35%) Istio
9 3 (0.21%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.21%) Rancher
10 2 (0.14%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.14%) Kibana
10 2 (0.14%) Packer
10 2 (0.14%) SCCM
11 1 (0.070%) Argo
11 1 (0.070%) HP Fortify
11 1 (0.070%) Knative
11 1 (0.070%) logstash
Vendors
1 201 (14.11%) Databricks
2 162 (11.37%) Microsoft
3 100 (7.02%) OpenAI
4 89 (6.25%) Google
5 57 (4.00%) Foundry
6 40 (2.81%) SAP
7 33 (2.32%) Oracle
8 23 (1.61%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.12%) IBM
10 15 (1.05%) UiPath
11 13 (0.91%) Informatica
12 12 (0.84%) Dynatrace
13 11 (0.77%) Automation Anywhere
14 9 (0.63%) Amplitude
15 7 (0.49%) NVIDIA
15 7 (0.49%) Sybase
16 6 (0.42%) Talend
16 6 (0.42%) Workday
17 5 (0.35%) Ariba
17 5 (0.35%) Splunk