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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 94 109
Rank change year-on-year 0 +15 +92
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,587 934 813
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.89% 2.83% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.43% 3.13% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,007 606 549
10th Percentile £413 £400 £399
25th Percentile £478 £475 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +2.35%
75th Percentile £684 £675 £731
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £529 £498
% change year-on-year +3.96% +6.34% -9.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 20 19
10th Percentile £28.50 £24.94 £13.06
25th Percentile £42.58 £44.71 £25.93
Median hourly rate £77.00 £61.36 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +25.48% +32.88% -
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 46,295 29,870 32,935
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,040 18,573 20,019
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 £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 3,185 1,844 1,407
10th Percentile £13.72 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +1 1,363 £575 +1.77% 5,432
London +16 902 £575 -4.17% 3,770
UK excluding London -15 521 £550 +3.96% 2,059
Work from Home -11 418 £581 +5.68% 2,010
North of England -10 147 £565 +18.95% 420
South East -16 140 £600 +4.35% 479
Scotland +5 98 £475 -9.52% 261
Yorkshire -4 65 £550 +7.00% 104
North West -38 64 £600 +26.32% 261
South West -21 49 £513 -10.87% 318
Midlands -40 48 £575 +9.52% 183
West Midlands -33 39 £575 +9.52% 107
East of England -35 37 £463 -17.78% 283
North East -32 19 £531 +32.81% 57
Wales -10 7 £530 -21.48% 46
East Midlands -12 6 £425 -8.11% 76
Northern Ireland +3 1 £334 -52.29% 87

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 (5.86%) Apache Spark
2 83 (5.23%) Apache Airflow
3 59 (3.72%) Apache
4 33 (2.08%) Jupyter
5 24 (1.51%) Confluence
6 11 (0.69%) SAS
7 7 (0.44%) IIS
8 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.32%) 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
4 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
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
Cloud Services
1 523 (32.96%) Azure
2 520 (32.77%) AWS
3 298 (18.78%) GCP
4 112 (7.06%) Power Platform
5 108 (6.81%) GitHub
6 104 (6.55%) Serverless
7 94 (5.92%) Amazon S3
8 93 (5.86%) Snowflake
9 84 (5.29%) AWS Lambda
10 72 (4.54%) Amazon SageMaker
11 64 (4.03%) dbt
12 62 (3.91%) Amazon Bedrock
13 58 (3.65%) Azure Machine Learning
14 51 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
15 47 (2.96%) Azure AI
16 46 (2.90%) Azure Data Factory
16 46 (2.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 45 (2.84%) SaaS
17 45 (2.84%) Vertex AI
18 42 (2.65%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.32%) Network Security
2 19 (1.20%) Broadband
2 19 (1.20%) Internet
3 13 (0.82%) DNS
4 12 (0.76%) Firewall
4 12 (0.76%) HTTP
5 9 (0.57%) DHCP
5 9 (0.57%) VPN
6 5 (0.32%) SMTP
6 5 (0.32%) TCP/IP
7 4 (0.25%) NAS
7 4 (0.25%) SAN
7 4 (0.25%) VLAN
8 3 (0.19%) CTI
8 3 (0.19%) MQTT
8 3 (0.19%) SMS
9 2 (0.13%) FTP
9 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
9 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
9 2 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (6.55%) Power BI
2 99 (6.24%) Data Warehouse
3 94 (5.92%) Data Lake
4 89 (5.61%) Metadata
5 80 (5.04%) BigQuery
6 63 (3.97%) Big Data
7 54 (3.40%) Amazon Redshift
8 49 (3.09%) Delta Lake
9 45 (2.84%) NoSQL
10 43 (2.71%) Tableau
11 36 (2.27%) Amazon Athena
11 36 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
12 29 (1.83%) Relational Database
13 24 (1.51%) Neo4j
14 21 (1.32%) MongoDB
15 20 (1.26%) Hadoop
16 19 (1.20%) Data Mining
17 18 (1.13%) Elasticsearch
18 17 (1.07%) Looker
19 16 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 106 (6.68%) Git
2 53 (3.34%) GitLab
3 46 (2.90%) JIRA
4 41 (2.58%) MLflow
5 15 (0.95%) Jenkins
6 13 (0.82%) Claude Code
7 7 (0.44%) Vite
8 6 (0.38%) Selenium
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) ERwin
9 5 (0.32%) JMeter
9 5 (0.32%) RStudio
10 4 (0.25%) Postman
11 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Pylint
11 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.13%) Locust
12 2 (0.13%) Newman
12 2 (0.13%) Spinnaker
12 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
General
1 357 (22.50%) Social Skills
2 305 (19.22%) Finance
3 237 (14.93%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (8.95%) Public Sector
5 121 (7.62%) Banking
6 39 (2.46%) Marketing
7 34 (2.14%) Retail
8 33 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 28 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
10 27 (1.70%) Telecoms
11 24 (1.51%) Legal
11 24 (1.51%) Manufacturing
12 23 (1.45%) Aerospace
13 21 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
13 21 (1.32%) Front Office
13 21 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
14 18 (1.13%) Financial Institution
15 17 (1.07%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.01%) Law
17 15 (0.95%) Billing
Job Titles
1 285 (17.96%) Senior
2 255 (16.07%) Architect
3 195 (12.29%) Data Scientist
4 187 (11.78%) Data Engineer
5 179 (11.28%) Lead
6 145 (9.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 97 (6.11%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 72 (4.54%) Developer
8 72 (4.54%) Python Engineer
9 71 (4.47%) Solutions Architect
10 68 (4.28%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
10 68 (4.28%) Data Architect
11 64 (4.03%) Analyst
12 57 (3.59%) Software Engineer
13 54 (3.40%) Platform Engineer
14 53 (3.34%) Senior Data Engineer
15 49 (3.09%) Security Architect
16 48 (3.02%) Senior Data Scientist
17 43 (2.71%) DevOps Engineer
18 39 (2.46%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (12.67%) Terraform
2 110 (6.93%) PyTorch
3 107 (6.74%) Kafka
4 92 (5.80%) PySpark
5 79 (4.98%) TensorFlow
6 70 (4.41%) REST
7 69 (4.35%) LangChain
8 64 (4.03%) scikit-learn
9 62 (3.91%) Pandas
10 57 (3.59%) React
11 49 (3.09%) NumPy
11 49 (3.09%) pytest
12 37 (2.33%) .NET
12 37 (2.33%) LangGraph
13 36 (2.27%) FastAPI
14 28 (1.76%) Hugging Face
15 27 (1.70%) JSON
16 26 (1.64%) Model Context Protocol
17 23 (1.45%) RESTful
18 18 (1.13%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 202 (12.73%) Cloud Native
2 170 (10.71%) AI Agents
3 95 (5.99%) Algorithms
4 72 (4.54%) Onboarding
5 67 (4.22%) Product Ownership
6 66 (4.16%) Distributed Systems
7 39 (2.46%) Data Structures
8 36 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
9 28 (1.76%) Life Science
10 26 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
11 21 (1.32%) Management Information System
12 18 (1.13%) CMDB
12 18 (1.13%) Social Media
13 17 (1.07%) Taxonomies
14 16 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (1.01%) Clustering
15 15 (0.95%) Credit Risk
15 15 (0.95%) Virtual Team
16 14 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 48 (3.02%) Linux
2 19 (1.20%) Windows
3 17 (1.07%) 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
7 1 (0.063%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.063%) VMS
7 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,306 (82.29%) AI
2 576 (36.29%) Data Science
3 504 (31.76%) CI/CD
4 485 (30.56%) Analytics
5 434 (27.35%) LLM
6 390 (24.57%) Generative AI
7 352 (22.18%) Data Pipeline
8 331 (20.86%) Agile
9 323 (20.35%) DevOps
10 290 (18.27%) MLOps
11 280 (17.64%) Data Engineering
12 263 (16.57%) Software Engineering
13 249 (15.69%) Decision-Making
14 242 (15.25%) Stakeholder Management
15 237 (14.93%) Roadmaps
15 237 (14.93%) Use Case
16 219 (13.80%) Infrastructure as Code
17 204 (12.85%) Data Modelling
18 201 (12.67%) Problem-Solving
19 198 (12.48%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 852 (53.69%) Python
2 398 (25.08%) SQL
3 111 (6.99%) Java
4 76 (4.79%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.72%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.52%) Bash
7 38 (2.39%) R
8 37 (2.33%) C#
9 28 (1.76%) PowerShell
10 24 (1.51%) Scala
11 20 (1.26%) C++
12 19 (1.20%) Go
13 17 (1.07%) Bicep
14 14 (0.88%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.69%) Cypher
15 11 (0.69%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.44%) Gremlin
16 7 (0.44%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.38%) Kotlin
18 5 (0.32%) Perl
Qualifications
1 317 (19.97%) Security Cleared
2 248 (15.63%) SC Cleared
3 124 (7.81%) Degree
4 56 (3.53%) Computer Science Degree
4 56 (3.53%) DV Cleared
5 47 (2.96%) AWS Certification
6 41 (2.58%) Master's Degree
7 39 (2.46%) BPSS Clearance
8 32 (2.02%) CISSP
9 28 (1.76%) PhD
10 27 (1.70%) Azure Certification
11 18 (1.13%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 15 (0.95%) TOGAF Certification
13 14 (0.88%) CISM
14 10 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 6 (0.38%) DBS Check
17 6 (0.38%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (14.43%) Data Quality
2 58 (3.65%) QA
3 57 (3.59%) GDPR
4 30 (1.89%) NIST
5 19 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 17 (1.07%) Accessibility
7 15 (0.95%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.63%) SLA
9 9 (0.57%) GRC
9 9 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 8 (0.50%) GxP
11 7 (0.44%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.38%) NCSC
13 5 (0.32%) Basel III
13 5 (0.32%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.32%) Solvency II
14 4 (0.25%) COBIT
14 4 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 213 (13.42%) 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 (0.32%) 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
10 1 (0.063%) zsh
Systems Management
1 277 (17.45%) Kubernetes
2 41 (2.58%) Ansible
3 27 (1.70%) Grafana
4 26 (1.64%) Kubeflow
5 20 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.38%) Istio
6 6 (0.38%) systemd
7 5 (0.32%) 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
9 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.063%) QRadar
Vendors
1 205 (12.92%) Databricks
2 155 (9.77%) Microsoft
3 102 (6.43%) Google
4 59 (3.72%) OpenAI
5 42 (2.65%) SAP
6 33 (2.08%) ServiceNow
7 30 (1.89%) Oracle
8 26 (1.64%) Foundry
9 22 (1.39%) 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 (0.32%) New Relic