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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 91 108
Rank change year-on-year -1 +17 +88
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,590 914 799
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.90% 2.80% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.43% 3.09% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,010 587 542
10th Percentile £413 £400 £400
25th Percentile £488 £475 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +4.35%
75th Percentile £687 £675 £731
90th Percentile £788 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £542 £495
% change year-on-year +1.57% +9.50% -10.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 20 19
10th Percentile £28.50 £24.94 £13.06
25th Percentile £42.58 £40.78 £25.93
Median hourly rate £77.00 £58.25 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +32.19% +26.14% -
75th Percentile £88.62 £80.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £89.25 £87.55 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £65.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +18.46% +40.75% -

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 46,309 29,588 32,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.49% 85.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,063 18,372 19,750
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,189 1,818 1,403
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +4 1,368 £575 +1.77% 5,815
London +23 909 £584 -2.67% 3,947
UK excluding London -17 517 £550 +1.57% 2,286
Work from Home -13 417 £599 +8.91% 2,104
North of England -28 143 £550 +15.79% 468
South East -8 141 £600 +4.35% 531
Scotland +15 97 £463 -11.90% 280
Yorkshire -12 64 £550 +7.00% 114
North West -34 62 £600 +26.32% 292
South West -20 50 £513 -10.87% 355
Midlands -44 47 £588 +11.90% 208
West Midlands -35 38 £588 +11.90% 119
East of England -31 36 £463 -19.57% 322
North East -27 18 £513 +20.59% 64
Wales -9 7 £530 -21.48% 53
East Midlands -20 6 £425 -8.11% 89
Northern Ireland +4 1 £334 -52.29% 89

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 93 (5.85%) Apache Spark
2 82 (5.16%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (3.52%) Apache
4 35 (2.20%) 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%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Superset
12 2 (0.13%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) CMS
12 2 (0.13%) Headless CMS
13 1 (0.063%) Apache Pulsar
13 1 (0.063%) Luigi
13 1 (0.063%) nginx
Applications
1 28 (1.76%) Chatbot
2 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.25%) CPLEX
4 2 (0.13%) DaVinci Resolve
4 2 (0.13%) Notion
4 2 (0.13%) NUKE
5 1 (0.063%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.063%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.063%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.063%) Simulink
5 1 (0.063%) Sketch
5 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.63%) SAP IBP
2 8 (0.50%) 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
1 531 (33.40%) Azure
2 520 (32.70%) AWS
3 302 (18.99%) GCP
4 111 (6.98%) Power Platform
5 109 (6.86%) GitHub
6 103 (6.48%) Serverless
7 93 (5.85%) Snowflake
8 92 (5.79%) Amazon S3
9 83 (5.22%) AWS Lambda
10 73 (4.59%) Amazon SageMaker
11 64 (4.03%) dbt
12 63 (3.96%) Amazon Bedrock
13 59 (3.71%) Azure Machine Learning
14 51 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
15 49 (3.08%) Azure AI
15 49 (3.08%) Azure Data Factory
15 49 (3.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 47 (2.96%) Vertex AI
17 44 (2.77%) SaaS
18 42 (2.64%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.32%) Network Security
2 19 (1.19%) Broadband
2 19 (1.19%) Internet
3 12 (0.75%) DNS
3 12 (0.75%) Firewall
3 12 (0.75%) HTTP
4 9 (0.57%) DHCP
4 9 (0.57%) VPN
5 5 (0.31%) SMTP
6 4 (0.25%) NAS
6 4 (0.25%) SAN
6 4 (0.25%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.25%) VLAN
7 3 (0.19%) CTI
7 3 (0.19%) MQTT
7 3 (0.19%) SMS
8 2 (0.13%) FTP
8 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
8 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
8 2 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (6.54%) Power BI
2 96 (6.04%) Data Warehouse
3 91 (5.72%) Data Lake
4 88 (5.53%) Metadata
5 81 (5.09%) BigQuery
6 65 (4.09%) Big Data
7 53 (3.33%) Amazon Redshift
8 48 (3.02%) Delta Lake
9 45 (2.83%) NoSQL
10 43 (2.70%) Tableau
11 36 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
12 35 (2.20%) Amazon Athena
13 29 (1.82%) Relational Database
14 24 (1.51%) Neo4j
15 21 (1.32%) MongoDB
16 20 (1.26%) Hadoop
17 19 (1.19%) Data Mining
18 18 (1.13%) Elasticsearch
19 17 (1.07%) Looker
20 16 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 104 (6.54%) Git
2 55 (3.46%) GitLab
3 46 (2.89%) JIRA
4 42 (2.64%) MLflow
5 17 (1.07%) Jenkins
6 13 (0.82%) Claude Code
7 7 (0.44%) Selenium
7 7 (0.44%) Vite
8 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.31%) ERwin
8 5 (0.31%) JMeter
8 5 (0.31%) RStudio
9 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.19%) Postman
9 3 (0.19%) Pylint
9 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.13%) Locust
10 2 (0.13%) Newman
10 2 (0.13%) Spinnaker
10 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
General
1 355 (22.33%) Social Skills
2 307 (19.31%) Finance
3 234 (14.72%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (8.93%) Public Sector
5 120 (7.55%) Banking
6 40 (2.52%) Marketing
7 37 (2.33%) Retail
8 33 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 30 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
10 27 (1.70%) Telecoms
11 24 (1.51%) Manufacturing
12 23 (1.45%) Aerospace
12 23 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
12 23 (1.45%) Legal
13 21 (1.32%) Front Office
13 21 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
14 18 (1.13%) Financial Institution
15 17 (1.07%) Investment Banking
15 17 (1.07%) Law
16 15 (0.94%) Billing
Job Titles
1 284 (17.86%) Senior
2 261 (16.42%) Architect
3 195 (12.26%) Data Scientist
4 181 (11.38%) Data Engineer
5 176 (11.07%) Lead
6 147 (9.25%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 98 (6.16%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 73 (4.59%) Python Engineer
9 72 (4.53%) Data Architect
9 72 (4.53%) Solutions Architect
10 71 (4.47%) Developer
11 68 (4.28%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 64 (4.03%) Analyst
13 57 (3.58%) Software Engineer
14 54 (3.40%) Platform Engineer
15 51 (3.21%) Senior Data Engineer
16 50 (3.14%) Security Architect
17 48 (3.02%) Senior Data Scientist
18 45 (2.83%) DevOps Engineer
19 40 (2.52%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (12.45%) Terraform
2 111 (6.98%) PyTorch
3 109 (6.86%) Kafka
4 90 (5.66%) PySpark
5 80 (5.03%) TensorFlow
6 70 (4.40%) LangChain
6 70 (4.40%) REST
7 65 (4.09%) scikit-learn
8 64 (4.03%) Pandas
9 57 (3.58%) React
10 49 (3.08%) NumPy
11 48 (3.02%) pytest
12 40 (2.52%) .NET
13 38 (2.39%) LangGraph
14 36 (2.26%) FastAPI
15 28 (1.76%) Hugging Face
15 28 (1.76%) JSON
16 26 (1.64%) Model Context Protocol
17 23 (1.45%) RESTful
18 19 (1.19%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 198 (12.45%) Cloud Native
2 172 (10.82%) AI Agents
3 96 (6.04%) Algorithms
4 70 (4.40%) Onboarding
5 68 (4.28%) Product Ownership
6 64 (4.03%) Distributed Systems
7 38 (2.39%) Data Structures
8 36 (2.26%) Enterprise Software
9 27 (1.70%) Life Science
10 25 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.26%) Management Information System
13 18 (1.13%) CMDB
13 18 (1.13%) Social Media
14 17 (1.07%) Taxonomies
15 16 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
16 15 (0.94%) Credit Risk
17 14 (0.88%) Clustering
17 14 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
17 14 (0.88%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 47 (2.96%) Linux
2 19 (1.19%) Windows
3 18 (1.13%) Unix
4 4 (0.25%) Android
4 4 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.19%) 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 1,309 (82.33%) AI
2 579 (36.42%) Data Science
3 500 (31.45%) CI/CD
4 482 (30.31%) Analytics
5 435 (27.36%) LLM
6 395 (24.84%) Generative AI
7 354 (22.26%) Data Pipeline
8 331 (20.82%) Agile
9 323 (20.31%) DevOps
10 292 (18.36%) MLOps
11 282 (17.74%) Data Engineering
12 262 (16.48%) Software Engineering
13 250 (15.72%) Decision-Making
14 241 (15.16%) Use Case
15 239 (15.03%) Stakeholder Management
16 234 (14.72%) Roadmaps
17 217 (13.65%) Infrastructure as Code
18 202 (12.70%) Data Modelling
19 199 (12.52%) Problem-Solving
20 198 (12.45%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 853 (53.65%) Python
2 396 (24.91%) SQL
3 111 (6.98%) Java
4 75 (4.72%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.71%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.52%) C#
7 39 (2.45%) Bash
7 39 (2.45%) R
8 28 (1.76%) PowerShell
9 23 (1.45%) Scala
10 20 (1.26%) C++
11 18 (1.13%) Go
12 15 (0.94%) Bicep
13 13 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.69%) Cypher
14 11 (0.69%) PL/SQL
15 7 (0.44%) Gremlin
15 7 (0.44%) SPARQL
16 6 (0.38%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.31%) Perl
Qualifications
1 319 (20.06%) Security Cleared
2 247 (15.53%) SC Cleared
3 124 (7.80%) Degree
4 58 (3.65%) DV Cleared
5 55 (3.46%) Computer Science Degree
6 47 (2.96%) AWS Certification
7 40 (2.52%) Master's Degree
8 38 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 32 (2.01%) CISSP
10 28 (1.76%) PhD
11 27 (1.70%) Azure Certification
12 18 (1.13%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.94%) TOGAF Certification
14 13 (0.82%) CISM
15 11 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
16 10 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
17 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 6 (0.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 6 (0.38%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (14.03%) Data Quality
2 57 (3.58%) GDPR
3 56 (3.52%) QA
4 31 (1.95%) NIST
5 18 (1.13%) Accessibility
5 18 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.01%) EU AI Act
7 10 (0.63%) SLA
8 9 (0.57%) GRC
8 9 (0.57%) GxP
8 9 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 7 (0.44%) HIPAA
9 7 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.38%) NCSC
11 5 (0.31%) Basel III
11 5 (0.31%) Solvency II
12 4 (0.25%) COBIT
12 4 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.25%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 216 (13.58%) 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%) Terminal Services
8 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 2 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.063%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 281 (17.67%) Kubernetes
2 41 (2.58%) Ansible
3 28 (1.76%) Kubeflow
4 27 (1.70%) Grafana
5 20 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.38%) Istio
6 6 (0.38%) systemd
7 5 (0.31%) Podman
8 3 (0.19%) Argo
8 3 (0.19%) Kibana
8 3 (0.19%) Nagios
8 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.19%) Puppet
8 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.19%) vMotion
9 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.13%) Packer
9 2 (0.13%) SCCM
10 1 (0.063%) Cilium
10 1 (0.063%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 209 (13.14%) Databricks
2 158 (9.94%) Microsoft
3 101 (6.35%) Google
4 61 (3.84%) OpenAI
5 42 (2.64%) SAP
6 32 (2.01%) ServiceNow
7 30 (1.89%) Oracle
8 29 (1.82%) Foundry
9 22 (1.38%) Informatica
10 17 (1.07%) Dynatrace
11 14 (0.88%) VMware
12 13 (0.82%) Splunk
13 11 (0.69%) Salesforce
14 10 (0.63%) IBM
14 10 (0.63%) Nexthink
14 10 (0.63%) UiPath
15 7 (0.44%) Cisco
16 6 (0.38%) Pega
16 6 (0.38%) Sybase
17 5 (0.31%) New Relic