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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 103 132
Rank change year-on-year +25 +29 +82
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,601 798 762
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 2.51% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.62% 2.77% 2.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 984 489 537
10th Percentile £413 £393 £413
25th Percentile £492 £459 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £580
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -5.17% -1.28%
75th Percentile £675 £676 £738
90th Percentile £775 £828 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £523
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 21 19
10th Percentile £38.93 £31.00 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.00 £45.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £71.25 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +42.86% +21.14%
75th Percentile £83.75 £81.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.88 £88.00 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £78.10 £52.50
% change year-on-year -11.37% +48.76% +29.63%

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 44,261 28,859 36,923
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.68% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,507 18,191 23,560
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.28% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,650 1,433 2,509
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £17.50 £16.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.83 £38.12
% change year-on-year +77.04% -34.86% +8.82%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 +22 1,338 £575 +4.07% 1,495
London +37 892 £575 +1.77% 836
UK excluding London +5 506 £550 - 797
Work from Home +9 451 £598 +8.68% 971
North of England +3 144 £575 +12.97% 166
South East -29 113 £600 +6.67% 255
Scotland +45 101 £450 -3.64% 46
North West 0 80 £599 +8.89% 99
Midlands -19 66 £550 +10.00% 89
Yorkshire -13 50 £550 +11.56% 43
West Midlands -29 49 £525 -2.33% 48
South West -29 45 £530 -11.67% 121
East of England -21 37 £525 -8.70% 96
Wales -15 18 £565 -1.83% 20
North East -28 17 £513 +28.13% 26
East Midlands -8 15 £650 +52.94% 41
Northern Ireland - 1 £334 - 20

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
1 103 (6.43%) Apache Spark
2 75 (4.68%) Apache Airflow
3 53 (3.31%) Apache
4 35 (2.19%) Jupyter
5 22 (1.37%) Confluence
6 8 (0.50%) SAS
7 7 (0.44%) Appian
7 7 (0.44%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
9 5 (0.31%) CMS
9 5 (0.31%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.12%) Luigi
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.062%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.062%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.062%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.062%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 32 (2.00%) Chatbot
2 14 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.19%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.12%) Simulink
7 1 (0.062%) LaTeX
7 1 (0.062%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.69%) SAP IBP
2 7 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.062%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.062%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.062%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.062%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.062%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.062%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.062%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 582 (36.35%) Azure
2 570 (35.60%) AWS
3 288 (17.99%) GCP
4 145 (9.06%) Power Platform
5 116 (7.25%) Serverless
6 104 (6.50%) Amazon S3
6 104 (6.50%) GitHub
7 90 (5.62%) Amazon SageMaker
8 86 (5.37%) AWS Lambda
8 86 (5.37%) Azure AI
8 86 (5.37%) Azure Machine Learning
9 80 (5.00%) Snowflake
10 64 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
11 61 (3.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 59 (3.69%) Vertex AI
13 55 (3.44%) Amazon Bedrock
14 52 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
15 47 (2.94%) Azure Data Factory
16 43 (2.69%) dbt
17 40 (2.50%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.06%) Firewall
2 12 (0.75%) Network Security
3 11 (0.69%) Internet
4 7 (0.44%) DNS
5 6 (0.37%) VPN
6 5 (0.31%) DHCP
7 4 (0.25%) HTTP
7 4 (0.25%) NAS
7 4 (0.25%) SAN
8 3 (0.19%) MQTT
8 3 (0.19%) SMTP
9 2 (0.12%) 4G
9 2 (0.12%) 5G
9 2 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
9 2 (0.12%) Ethernet
9 2 (0.12%) Modbus
9 2 (0.12%) PCoIP
9 2 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
9 2 (0.12%) Remote Desktop
10 1 (0.062%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (7.37%) Power BI
2 102 (6.37%) Data Lake
3 80 (5.00%) Big Data
4 73 (4.56%) Metadata
5 72 (4.50%) Data Warehouse
6 68 (4.25%) BigQuery
7 50 (3.12%) Tableau
8 49 (3.06%) NoSQL
9 42 (2.62%) Amazon Athena
9 42 (2.62%) Amazon Redshift
10 41 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
11 37 (2.31%) Hadoop
12 34 (2.12%) Delta Lake
13 33 (2.06%) Relational Database
14 29 (1.81%) SQL Server
15 25 (1.56%) MongoDB
15 25 (1.56%) Pinecone
16 20 (1.25%) MySQL
17 19 (1.19%) Neo4j
18 18 (1.12%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 101 (6.31%) Git
2 79 (4.93%) MLflow
3 49 (3.06%) GitLab
3 49 (3.06%) JIRA
4 27 (1.69%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.56%) Claude Code
5 9 (0.56%) Vite
6 8 (0.50%) Selenium
7 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.25%) ER Studio
8 4 (0.25%) ERwin
8 4 (0.25%) Maven
8 4 (0.25%) PyCharm
9 3 (0.19%) Gradle
9 3 (0.19%) JUnit
9 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
9 3 (0.19%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.19%) Spinnaker
9 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.12%) NUnit
General
1 334 (20.86%) Social Skills
2 309 (19.30%) Finance
3 206 (12.87%) Analytical Skills
4 150 (9.37%) Public Sector
5 110 (6.87%) Banking
6 46 (2.87%) Marketing
7 38 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
8 32 (2.00%) Retail
9 25 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (1.56%) Legal
10 22 (1.37%) Front Office
11 21 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (1.25%) Aviation
12 20 (1.25%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.06%) Financial Institution
13 17 (1.06%) Law
14 16 (1.00%) Investment Banking
15 15 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
16 13 (0.81%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 237 (14.80%) Architect
2 228 (14.24%) Data Scientist
3 221 (13.80%) Senior
4 151 (9.43%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 147 (9.18%) Data Engineer
6 142 (8.87%) Lead
7 107 (6.68%) Developer
8 76 (4.75%) Data Architect
9 75 (4.68%) Solutions Architect
10 73 (4.56%) Python Engineer
11 69 (4.31%) Analyst
12 68 (4.25%) Software Engineer
13 65 (4.06%) Machine Learning Engineer
14 57 (3.56%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
15 44 (2.75%) Consultant
16 43 (2.69%) Platform Engineer
16 43 (2.69%) Senior Data Scientist
17 39 (2.44%) Python Developer
18 37 (2.31%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 34 (2.12%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (10.62%) PyTorch
2 118 (7.37%) TensorFlow
3 107 (6.68%) scikit-learn
4 102 (6.37%) Kafka
5 92 (5.75%) Pandas
6 85 (5.31%) LangChain
7 72 (4.50%) React
8 71 (4.43%) NumPy
8 71 (4.43%) PySpark
9 64 (4.00%) REST
10 47 (2.94%) .NET
11 45 (2.81%) Hugging Face
12 32 (2.00%) FastAPI
12 32 (2.00%) LangGraph
13 28 (1.75%) Node.js
14 27 (1.69%) AngularJS
14 27 (1.69%) Model Context Protocol
14 27 (1.69%) RESTful
15 22 (1.37%) pytest
16 21 (1.31%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 192 (11.99%) Cloud Native
2 151 (9.43%) AI Agents
3 118 (7.37%) Algorithms
4 60 (3.75%) Product Ownership
5 58 (3.62%) Onboarding
6 55 (3.44%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
8 27 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
9 23 (1.44%) Data Structures
9 23 (1.44%) Life Science
10 19 (1.19%) Fixed Income
11 18 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
12 17 (1.06%) Management Information System
13 16 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
13 16 (1.00%) Security Posture
14 14 (0.87%) Taxonomies
15 13 (0.81%) Distributed Computing
16 12 (0.75%) Enterprise Cloud
16 12 (0.75%) Public Cloud
16 12 (0.75%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 49 (3.06%) Linux
2 17 (1.06%) Windows
3 11 (0.69%) Unix
4 6 (0.37%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.37%) VMS
5 5 (0.31%) Android
6 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,286 (80.32%) AI
2 591 (36.91%) Data Science
3 507 (31.67%) CI/CD
4 469 (29.29%) Analytics
5 449 (28.04%) LLM
6 371 (23.17%) Data Pipeline
7 370 (23.11%) Generative AI
8 322 (20.11%) DevOps
9 311 (19.43%) MLOps
10 305 (19.05%) Agile
11 295 (18.43%) Data Engineering
12 268 (16.74%) Use Case
13 221 (13.80%) Decision-Making
14 220 (13.74%) Software Engineering
15 213 (13.30%) Problem-Solving
16 197 (12.30%) Data Governance
17 191 (11.93%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
18 190 (11.87%) Roadmaps
19 181 (11.31%) Data Modelling
20 177 (11.06%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 888 (55.47%) Python
2 403 (25.17%) SQL
3 116 (7.25%) Java
4 64 (4.00%) R
5 62 (3.87%) TypeScript
6 61 (3.81%) C#
7 57 (3.56%) JavaScript
8 34 (2.12%) Bash
9 19 (1.19%) C++
10 17 (1.06%) PowerShell
11 16 (1.00%) Bicep
11 16 (1.00%) Go
12 15 (0.94%) Scala
13 11 (0.69%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.56%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.56%) SPARQL
15 8 (0.50%) Cypher
16 7 (0.44%) Gremlin
16 7 (0.44%) Rust
17 5 (0.31%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 287 (17.93%) Security Cleared
2 196 (12.24%) SC Cleared
3 135 (8.43%) Degree
4 55 (3.44%) Master's Degree
5 53 (3.31%) DV Cleared
6 50 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 47 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
8 45 (2.81%) AWS Certification
9 32 (2.00%) PhD
10 26 (1.62%) CISSP
11 24 (1.50%) Azure Certification
12 20 (1.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.94%) CISM
14 7 (0.44%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 7 (0.44%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 7 (0.44%) TOGAF Certification
15 5 (0.31%) CEH
15 5 (0.31%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.31%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.31%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (11.81%) Data Quality
2 68 (4.25%) GDPR
3 53 (3.31%) QA
4 28 (1.75%) NIST
5 18 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 17 (1.06%) Accessibility
7 13 (0.81%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.69%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.56%) GRC
9 9 (0.56%) GxP
10 7 (0.44%) NCSC
11 5 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.31%) WCAG
12 4 (0.25%) COBIT
12 4 (0.25%) SLA
12 4 (0.25%) Solvency II
13 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 218 (13.62%) Docker
2 12 (0.75%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.69%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
4 5 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.25%) IAG
5 4 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.19%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.19%) Firmware
6 3 (0.19%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.19%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.062%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 272 (16.99%) Kubernetes
2 173 (10.81%) Terraform
3 25 (1.56%) Grafana
4 23 (1.44%) Kubeflow
5 22 (1.37%) Ansible
6 15 (0.94%) Prometheus
7 13 (0.81%) Podman
8 6 (0.37%) Istio
9 3 (0.19%) Kibana
9 3 (0.19%) Nagios
9 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.19%) Puppet
9 3 (0.19%) Rancher
9 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.19%) vMotion
10 2 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.12%) Argo
10 2 (0.12%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.12%) Packer
10 2 (0.12%) SCCM
Vendors
1 206 (12.87%) Databricks
2 171 (10.68%) Microsoft
3 97 (6.06%) Google
3 97 (6.06%) OpenAI
4 54 (3.37%) Foundry
5 45 (2.81%) SAP
6 36 (2.25%) Oracle
7 30 (1.87%) ServiceNow
8 24 (1.50%) Informatica
9 17 (1.06%) IBM
10 16 (1.00%) UiPath
11 13 (0.81%) Dynatrace
12 8 (0.50%) Automation Anywhere
12 8 (0.50%) Salesforce
13 7 (0.44%) Amplitude
13 7 (0.44%) Sybase
13 7 (0.44%) Talend
14 6 (0.37%) Pega
14 6 (0.37%) Splunk
14 6 (0.37%) Workday