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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 95 107
Rank change year-on-year +3 +12 +86
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,591 867 828
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.92% 2.63% 2.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.45% 2.91% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,009 549 567
10th Percentile £413 £400 £400
25th Percentile £493 £475 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £565 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.77% -5.83% +2.13%
75th Percentile £688 £688 £731
90th Percentile £788 £788 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £500
% change year-on-year - +10.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 23 19
10th Percentile £28.50 £26.34 £13.06
25th Percentile £45.25 £44.42 £25.93
Median hourly rate £77.00 £62.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +23.20% +35.34% -
75th Percentile £88.75 £78.73 £53.75
90th Percentile £90.00 £87.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £75.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +2.67% +62.41% -

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 46,112 29,840 32,750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.46% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,098 18,520 20,299
10th Percentile £325 £300 £312
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,038 1,780 1,507
10th Percentile £13.87 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.38 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.89% -47.37% +8.65%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 +6 1,364 £575 - 2,635
London +29 915 £589 -1.79% 1,789
UK excluding London -8 500 £550 - 1,184
Work from Home -4 425 £600 +9.09% 958
North of England -23 137 £550 +15.79% 232
South East -9 136 £600 +4.35% 278
Scotland +8 92 £450 -14.29% 157
Yorkshire -6 61 £538 +10.54% 78
North West -48 61 £600 +26.32% 127
South West -30 47 £513 -8.89% 195
Midlands -42 47 £500 -6.98% 102
West Midlands -31 39 £525 -4.55% 47
East of England -25 36 £488 -13.33% 162
North East -37 16 £463 +8.82% 30
Wales -6 9 £540 -20.00% 29
East Midlands -16 7 £438 -5.41% 55
Northern Ireland +4 1 £334 -52.29% 46

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 88 (5.53%) Apache Spark
2 80 (5.03%) Apache Airflow
3 53 (3.33%) Apache
4 33 (2.07%) Jupyter
5 24 (1.51%) Confluence
6 11 (0.69%) SAS
7 7 (0.44%) IIS
8 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
9 5 (0.31%) SharePoint
10 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.13%) Apache Superset
11 2 (0.13%) Appian
11 2 (0.13%) CMS
11 2 (0.13%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.063%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.063%) Luigi
Applications
1 30 (1.89%) Chatbot
2 11 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.25%) CPLEX
3 4 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.13%) DaVinci Resolve
5 2 (0.13%) Notion
5 2 (0.13%) NUKE
6 1 (0.063%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.063%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.063%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.063%) Simulink
6 1 (0.063%) Sketch
6 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.63%) SAP IBP
2 7 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.19%) Cloudability
3 3 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
3 3 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.063%) Actimize
5 1 (0.063%) Endur
5 1 (0.063%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.063%) OpenLink RightAngle
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.063%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.063%) SAP APO
5 1 (0.063%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 545 (34.26%) Azure
2 519 (32.62%) AWS
3 307 (19.30%) GCP
4 117 (7.35%) Power Platform
5 116 (7.29%) GitHub
6 104 (6.54%) Serverless
7 91 (5.72%) Snowflake
8 89 (5.59%) Amazon S3
9 80 (5.03%) AWS Lambda
10 72 (4.53%) Amazon SageMaker
11 61 (3.83%) Azure Machine Learning
11 61 (3.83%) dbt
12 59 (3.71%) Amazon Bedrock
13 52 (3.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 51 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
15 49 (3.08%) Azure AI
16 47 (2.95%) GitHub Actions
17 45 (2.83%) Azure Data Factory
17 45 (2.83%) Vertex AI
18 43 (2.70%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.13%) Broadband
1 18 (1.13%) Internet
1 18 (1.13%) Network Security
2 12 (0.75%) Firewall
3 10 (0.63%) DNS
3 10 (0.63%) HTTP
4 9 (0.57%) DHCP
4 9 (0.57%) VPN
5 4 (0.25%) NAS
5 4 (0.25%) SAN
5 4 (0.25%) SMS
5 4 (0.25%) TCP/IP
5 4 (0.25%) VLAN
6 3 (0.19%) MQTT
6 3 (0.19%) SMTP
7 2 (0.13%) CTI
7 2 (0.13%) Modbus
7 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
7 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.063%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (6.85%) Power BI
2 93 (5.85%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (5.59%) Data Lake
4 81 (5.09%) Metadata
5 77 (4.84%) BigQuery
6 67 (4.21%) Big Data
7 52 (3.27%) Amazon Redshift
8 47 (2.95%) NoSQL
9 45 (2.83%) Delta Lake
10 44 (2.77%) Tableau
11 34 (2.14%) Amazon Athena
12 33 (2.07%) PostgreSQL
13 29 (1.82%) Relational Database
14 24 (1.51%) MongoDB
15 23 (1.45%) Hadoop
15 23 (1.45%) Neo4j
16 19 (1.19%) Data Mining
17 18 (1.13%) Looker
18 16 (1.01%) Semantic Layer
19 15 (0.94%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 95 (5.97%) Git
2 53 (3.33%) GitLab
3 49 (3.08%) JIRA
4 48 (3.02%) MLflow
5 19 (1.19%) Jenkins
6 12 (0.75%) Claude Code
7 8 (0.50%) Selenium
7 8 (0.50%) Vite
8 6 (0.38%) ERwin
9 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.31%) JMeter
9 5 (0.31%) RStudio
10 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.19%) Pylint
10 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.19%) Spinnaker
11 2 (0.13%) Locust
11 2 (0.13%) Postman
11 2 (0.13%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
General
1 340 (21.37%) Social Skills
2 296 (18.60%) Finance
3 230 (14.46%) Analytical Skills
4 136 (8.55%) Public Sector
5 112 (7.04%) Banking
6 42 (2.64%) Marketing
7 38 (2.39%) Retail
8 32 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 28 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
9 28 (1.76%) Telecoms
10 25 (1.57%) Legal
11 24 (1.51%) Documentation Skills
12 22 (1.38%) Front Office
13 21 (1.32%) Aerospace
13 21 (1.32%) Manufacturing
14 20 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
15 19 (1.19%) Financial Institution
16 17 (1.07%) Investment Banking
17 16 (1.01%) Law
18 14 (0.88%) Billing
Job Titles
1 269 (16.91%) Senior
2 258 (16.22%) Architect
3 206 (12.95%) Data Scientist
4 174 (10.94%) Data Engineer
5 165 (10.37%) Lead
6 143 (8.99%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 99 (6.22%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 81 (5.09%) Developer
9 73 (4.59%) Data Architect
10 72 (4.53%) Solutions Architect
11 71 (4.46%) Python Engineer
12 63 (3.96%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 61 (3.83%) Analyst
14 56 (3.52%) Software Engineer
15 53 (3.33%) Platform Engineer
16 50 (3.14%) Security Architect
17 49 (3.08%) Senior Data Engineer
18 46 (2.89%) Senior Data Scientist
19 45 (2.83%) DevOps Engineer
20 44 (2.77%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 189 (11.88%) Terraform
2 118 (7.42%) PyTorch
3 109 (6.85%) Kafka
4 90 (5.66%) PySpark
5 85 (5.34%) TensorFlow
6 73 (4.59%) REST
7 72 (4.53%) scikit-learn
8 67 (4.21%) LangChain
9 66 (4.15%) Pandas
10 61 (3.83%) React
11 51 (3.21%) NumPy
12 43 (2.70%) pytest
13 37 (2.33%) .NET
14 34 (2.14%) LangGraph
15 32 (2.01%) FastAPI
16 29 (1.82%) JSON
17 26 (1.63%) Hugging Face
18 25 (1.57%) RESTful
19 22 (1.38%) Model Context Protocol
20 20 (1.26%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 194 (12.19%) Cloud Native
2 165 (10.37%) AI Agents
3 102 (6.41%) Algorithms
4 69 (4.34%) Product Ownership
5 68 (4.27%) Onboarding
6 65 (4.09%) Distributed Systems
7 38 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
8 33 (2.07%) Data Structures
9 27 (1.70%) Life Science
10 23 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
11 21 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
12 19 (1.19%) CMDB
13 17 (1.07%) Management Information System
14 16 (1.01%) Social Media
14 16 (1.01%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.94%) Taxonomies
16 14 (0.88%) IoT
16 14 (0.88%) Public Cloud
17 13 (0.82%) Clustering
17 13 (0.82%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 46 (2.89%) Linux
2 19 (1.19%) Windows
3 14 (0.88%) Unix
4 4 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.19%) Android
6 2 (0.13%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.13%) VMS
7 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,300 (81.71%) AI
2 578 (36.33%) Data Science
3 503 (31.62%) CI/CD
4 469 (29.48%) Analytics
5 427 (26.84%) LLM
6 385 (24.20%) Generative AI
7 349 (21.94%) Data Pipeline
8 335 (21.06%) Agile
9 327 (20.55%) DevOps
10 286 (17.98%) MLOps
11 277 (17.41%) Data Engineering
12 256 (16.09%) Software Engineering
13 247 (15.52%) Decision-Making
14 236 (14.83%) Use Case
15 225 (14.14%) Roadmaps
16 224 (14.08%) Stakeholder Management
17 206 (12.95%) Infrastructure as Code
18 203 (12.76%) Problem-Solving
19 200 (12.57%) Data Modelling
20 189 (11.88%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 860 (54.05%) Python
2 393 (24.70%) SQL
3 111 (6.98%) Java
4 78 (4.90%) JavaScript
5 56 (3.52%) TypeScript
6 43 (2.70%) R
7 42 (2.64%) C#
8 41 (2.58%) Bash
9 30 (1.89%) PowerShell
10 21 (1.32%) C++
10 21 (1.32%) Scala
11 17 (1.07%) Go
12 16 (1.01%) Bicep
13 11 (0.69%) Cypher
13 11 (0.69%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.44%) Gremlin
15 7 (0.44%) SPARQL
16 6 (0.38%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.31%) Perl
Qualifications
1 307 (19.30%) Security Cleared
2 231 (14.52%) SC Cleared
3 121 (7.61%) Degree
4 59 (3.71%) DV Cleared
5 53 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
6 42 (2.64%) AWS Certification
7 41 (2.58%) Master's Degree
8 34 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 34 (2.14%) CISSP
9 28 (1.76%) PhD
10 23 (1.45%) Azure Certification
11 16 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 15 (0.94%) CISM
12 15 (0.94%) TOGAF Certification
13 11 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 7 (0.44%) PMP
17 6 (0.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 5 (0.31%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 214 (13.45%) Data Quality
2 62 (3.90%) GDPR
3 59 (3.71%) QA
4 30 (1.89%) NIST
5 19 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.01%) Accessibility
7 14 (0.88%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.63%) SLA
9 9 (0.57%) GRC
9 9 (0.57%) GxP
9 9 (0.57%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 9 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.38%) WCAG
11 5 (0.31%) NCSC
11 5 (0.31%) Solvency II
12 4 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 214 (13.45%) Docker
2 16 (1.01%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.63%) Hyper-V
4 10 (0.63%) IAG
5 8 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.44%) NFS
7 5 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 3 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.19%) Terminal Services
8 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 2 (0.13%) Firmware
9 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.063%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 279 (17.54%) Kubernetes
2 39 (2.45%) Ansible
3 26 (1.63%) Grafana
3 26 (1.63%) Kubeflow
4 19 (1.19%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.38%) Istio
5 6 (0.38%) Podman
6 4 (0.25%) systemd
7 3 (0.19%) Argo
7 3 (0.19%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) Nagios
7 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
7 3 (0.19%) Puppet
7 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.19%) vMotion
8 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (0.13%) Packer
8 2 (0.13%) SCCM
9 1 (0.063%) QRadar
Vendors
1 206 (12.95%) Databricks
2 163 (10.25%) Microsoft
3 101 (6.35%) Google
4 65 (4.09%) OpenAI
5 44 (2.77%) SAP
6 35 (2.20%) ServiceNow
7 32 (2.01%) Foundry
8 30 (1.89%) Oracle
9 22 (1.38%) Informatica
10 17 (1.07%) Dynatrace
11 14 (0.88%) VMware
12 13 (0.82%) Splunk
13 11 (0.69%) IBM
14 10 (0.63%) Nexthink
14 10 (0.63%) UiPath
15 9 (0.57%) Salesforce
16 7 (0.44%) Cisco
16 7 (0.44%) Sybase
17 6 (0.38%) Pega
18 5 (0.31%) HP