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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 99 113
Rank change year-on-year +11 +14 +89
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,573 854 811
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.94% 2.61% 2.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 2.88% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,018 540 575
10th Percentile £413 £400 £413
25th Percentile £492 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £556 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.42% -7.33% +2.13%
75th Percentile £700 £676 £738
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 38 25 19
10th Percentile £28.50 £27.50 £13.06
25th Percentile £37.00 £45.00 £34.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +18.46% +40.75% -
75th Percentile £83.72 £81.01 £53.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £87.80 £58.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.83 £76.25 £49.34
% change year-on-year -1.86% +54.54% +6.84%

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 45,356 29,667 33,233
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.68% 90.51% 85.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,834 18,495 21,131
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,855 1,741 1,763
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -1.22%
75th Percentile £67.94 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -42.17% +12.54%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 21 August 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 +9 1,353 £575 +1.77% 826
London +30 913 £586 +1.08% 375
UK excluding London -5 480 £550 - 606
Work from Home -3 409 £596 +8.27% 366
South East -12 136 £600 +6.67% 202
North of England -28 126 £550 +10.78% 156
Scotland +25 81 £450 -10.00% 31
North West -32 60 £600 +14.29% 81
Midlands -30 57 £550 +4.76% 56
Yorkshire -5 55 £550 +12.82% 52
West Midlands -31 48 £550 - 28
South West -42 45 £525 -4.55% 77
East of England -21 29 £500 -11.11% 78
North East -31 12 £463 +8.82% 26
Wales -11 9 £540 -20.00% 11
East Midlands -17 8 £438 +2.94% 28
Northern Ireland +2 1 £334 -52.29% 10

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 82 (5.21%) Apache Spark
2 77 (4.90%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (2.99%) Apache
4 32 (2.03%) Jupyter
5 20 (1.27%) Confluence
6 11 (0.70%) SAS
7 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
8 5 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
9 4 (0.25%) SharePoint
10 3 (0.19%) CMS
10 3 (0.19%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.13%) Appian
11 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.064%) Luigi
Applications
1 30 (1.91%) Chatbot
2 10 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.32%) CPLEX
4 4 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
6 2 (0.13%) DaVinci Resolve
6 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.13%) Notion
6 2 (0.13%) NUKE
7 1 (0.064%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.064%) Simulink
7 1 (0.064%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (0.64%) SAP IBP
2 8 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 3 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) Cloudability
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.064%) Actimize
6 1 (0.064%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.064%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 1 (0.064%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.064%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.064%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.064%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.064%) SAP APO
6 1 (0.064%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 550 (34.97%) Azure
2 533 (33.88%) AWS
3 313 (19.90%) GCP
4 123 (7.82%) Power Platform
5 109 (6.93%) GitHub
6 106 (6.74%) Serverless
7 89 (5.66%) Amazon S3
8 85 (5.40%) Snowflake
9 80 (5.09%) AWS Lambda
10 72 (4.58%) Amazon SageMaker
11 64 (4.07%) Azure Machine Learning
12 57 (3.62%) Amazon Bedrock
12 57 (3.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 55 (3.50%) Azure AI
14 54 (3.43%) dbt
15 51 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
16 48 (3.05%) Vertex AI
17 45 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
18 43 (2.73%) Azure Data Factory
19 41 (2.61%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.14%) Internet
2 17 (1.08%) Firewall
2 17 (1.08%) Network Security
3 14 (0.89%) Broadband
4 11 (0.70%) DNS
5 10 (0.64%) VPN
6 9 (0.57%) DHCP
7 4 (0.25%) NAS
7 4 (0.25%) SAN
7 4 (0.25%) SMS
7 4 (0.25%) TCP/IP
7 4 (0.25%) VLAN
8 3 (0.19%) HTTP
8 3 (0.19%) MQTT
8 3 (0.19%) SMTP
9 2 (0.13%) CTI
9 2 (0.13%) Modbus
9 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
9 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
10 1 (0.064%) OpenFlow
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (7.06%) Power BI
2 86 (5.47%) Data Lake
3 84 (5.34%) Data Warehouse
4 81 (5.15%) BigQuery
5 76 (4.83%) Metadata
6 66 (4.20%) Big Data
7 51 (3.24%) Amazon Redshift
8 50 (3.18%) NoSQL
9 44 (2.80%) Delta Lake
10 41 (2.61%) Tableau
11 36 (2.29%) Amazon Athena
12 32 (2.03%) Relational Database
13 30 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
14 22 (1.40%) MongoDB
15 21 (1.34%) Hadoop
16 19 (1.21%) Looker
17 18 (1.14%) Data Mining
17 18 (1.14%) Neo4j
18 15 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
18 15 (0.95%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 93 (5.91%) Git
2 50 (3.18%) MLflow
3 49 (3.12%) GitLab
4 45 (2.86%) JIRA
5 22 (1.40%) Jenkins
6 11 (0.70%) Claude Code
7 10 (0.64%) Vite
8 9 (0.57%) Selenium
9 6 (0.38%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.38%) ERwin
10 4 (0.25%) PyCharm
10 4 (0.25%) Spinnaker
11 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.19%) RStudio
12 2 (0.13%) JMeter
12 2 (0.13%) NUnit
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.13%) Pylint
12 2 (0.13%) SonarQube
General
1 337 (21.42%) Social Skills
2 290 (18.44%) Finance
3 216 (13.73%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (8.14%) Public Sector
5 110 (6.99%) Banking
6 43 (2.73%) Marketing
7 36 (2.29%) Retail
8 31 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 29 (1.84%) Telecoms
10 27 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
11 26 (1.65%) Legal
12 23 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
13 22 (1.40%) Front Office
14 19 (1.21%) Aerospace
14 19 (1.21%) Manufacturing
15 18 (1.14%) Financial Institution
15 18 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
16 16 (1.02%) Aviation
17 15 (0.95%) Investment Banking
18 14 (0.89%) Law
Job Titles
1 249 (15.83%) Architect
2 248 (15.77%) Senior
3 206 (13.10%) Data Scientist
4 171 (10.87%) Lead
5 167 (10.62%) Data Engineer
6 138 (8.77%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 95 (6.04%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 90 (5.72%) Developer
9 78 (4.96%) Python Engineer
10 74 (4.70%) Solutions Architect
11 70 (4.45%) Data Architect
12 61 (3.88%) Analyst
13 57 (3.62%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 57 (3.62%) Software Engineer
14 56 (3.56%) Platform Engineer
15 48 (3.05%) Security Architect
16 47 (2.99%) Senior Data Engineer
17 43 (2.73%) DevOps Engineer
18 41 (2.61%) Consultant
19 40 (2.54%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 186 (11.82%) Terraform
2 129 (8.20%) PyTorch
3 109 (6.93%) Kafka
4 94 (5.98%) TensorFlow
5 87 (5.53%) PySpark
6 79 (5.02%) scikit-learn
7 71 (4.51%) LangChain
8 69 (4.39%) REST
9 67 (4.26%) Pandas
10 65 (4.13%) React
11 50 (3.18%) NumPy
12 40 (2.54%) .NET
13 35 (2.23%) LangGraph
14 33 (2.10%) pytest
15 30 (1.91%) FastAPI
16 29 (1.84%) Hugging Face
17 26 (1.65%) Model Context Protocol
17 26 (1.65%) RESTful
18 23 (1.46%) JSON
18 23 (1.46%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 192 (12.21%) Cloud Native
2 167 (10.62%) AI Agents
3 105 (6.68%) Algorithms
4 69 (4.39%) Product Ownership
5 60 (3.81%) Onboarding
6 59 (3.75%) Distributed Systems
7 33 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
8 29 (1.84%) Data Structures
9 25 (1.59%) Life Science
10 22 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
11 17 (1.08%) CMDB
12 16 (1.02%) Virtual Team
13 15 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
13 15 (0.95%) Public Cloud
14 14 (0.89%) Enterprise Cloud
14 14 (0.89%) IoT
14 14 (0.89%) Social Media
15 13 (0.83%) Augmented Reality
15 13 (0.83%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 47 (2.99%) Linux
2 14 (0.89%) Unix
3 12 (0.76%) Windows
4 4 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.19%) Android
5 3 (0.19%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.19%) VMS
6 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,265 (80.42%) AI
2 578 (36.75%) Data Science
3 503 (31.98%) CI/CD
4 452 (28.73%) Analytics
5 426 (27.08%) LLM
6 373 (23.71%) Generative AI
7 353 (22.44%) Data Pipeline
8 335 (21.30%) Agile
9 326 (20.72%) DevOps
10 294 (18.69%) MLOps
11 275 (17.48%) Data Engineering
12 250 (15.89%) Software Engineering
13 239 (15.19%) Use Case
14 221 (14.05%) Decision-Making
15 210 (13.35%) Roadmaps
15 210 (13.35%) Stakeholder Management
16 207 (13.16%) Problem-Solving
17 198 (12.59%) Infrastructure as Code
18 184 (11.70%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
19 181 (11.51%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 852 (54.16%) Python
2 387 (24.60%) SQL
3 115 (7.31%) Java
4 73 (4.64%) JavaScript
5 57 (3.62%) TypeScript
6 46 (2.92%) C#
7 44 (2.80%) R
8 40 (2.54%) Bash
9 25 (1.59%) PowerShell
10 21 (1.34%) C++
11 19 (1.21%) Bicep
12 17 (1.08%) Scala
13 15 (0.95%) Go
14 11 (0.70%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.51%) Cypher
16 7 (0.45%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.45%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.45%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.38%) Gremlin
17 6 (0.38%) Perl
Qualifications
1 272 (17.29%) Security Cleared
2 197 (12.52%) SC Cleared
3 117 (7.44%) Degree
4 55 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
4 55 (3.50%) DV Cleared
5 46 (2.92%) AWS Certification
6 42 (2.67%) Master's Degree
7 35 (2.23%) CISSP
8 30 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
9 28 (1.78%) PhD
10 22 (1.40%) Azure Certification
11 20 (1.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 15 (0.95%) CISM
13 14 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
14 10 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
15 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 8 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
17 7 (0.45%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
17 7 (0.45%) PMP
18 6 (0.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (12.33%) Data Quality
2 59 (3.75%) GDPR
3 53 (3.37%) QA
4 32 (2.03%) NIST
5 22 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.95%) Accessibility
6 15 (0.95%) EU AI Act
7 10 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 9 (0.57%) GxP
8 9 (0.57%) SLA
9 8 (0.51%) GRC
9 8 (0.51%) HIPAA
10 7 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 6 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (0.38%) WCAG
12 5 (0.32%) NCSC
12 5 (0.32%) Solvency II
13 4 (0.25%) COBIT
13 4 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.19%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 217 (13.80%) Docker
2 11 (0.70%) Active Directory
3 9 (0.57%) IAG
4 5 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
4 5 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.19%) BitLocker
5 3 (0.19%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 3 (0.19%) Terminal Services
5 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
6 2 (0.13%) Firmware
6 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.064%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 276 (17.55%) Kubernetes
2 35 (2.23%) Ansible
3 30 (1.91%) Kubeflow
4 26 (1.65%) Grafana
5 19 (1.21%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.38%) Istio
7 5 (0.32%) Podman
8 4 (0.25%) systemd
9 3 (0.19%) Kibana
9 3 (0.19%) Nagios
9 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.19%) Puppet
9 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.19%) vMotion
10 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.13%) Argo
10 2 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.13%) Packer
10 2 (0.13%) Rancher
10 2 (0.13%) SCCM
Vendors
1 204 (12.97%) Databricks
2 161 (10.24%) Microsoft
3 106 (6.74%) Google
4 77 (4.90%) OpenAI
5 46 (2.92%) SAP
6 37 (2.35%) ServiceNow
7 36 (2.29%) Foundry
8 31 (1.97%) Oracle
9 24 (1.53%) Informatica
10 18 (1.14%) Dynatrace
11 13 (0.83%) Splunk
12 12 (0.76%) UiPath
13 11 (0.70%) IBM
14 9 (0.57%) Nexthink
15 7 (0.45%) Salesforce
15 7 (0.45%) Sybase
16 6 (0.38%) Cisco
16 6 (0.38%) Pega
16 6 (0.38%) VMware
16 6 (0.38%) Workday