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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 104 132
Rank change year-on-year +26 +28 +79
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,620 810 767
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.09% 2.51% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.62% 2.77% 2.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,005 500 540
10th Percentile £413 £399 £413
25th Percentile £493 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £584
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -5.78% -0.64%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £748
90th Percentile £775 £826 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £523
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 21 20
10th Percentile £36.00 £31.00 £39.30
25th Percentile £50.00 £45.00 £45.26
Median hourly rate £70.00 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +42.86% +21.14%
75th Percentile £83.75 £81.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.75 £88.00 £75.38
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 44,694 29,246 37,042
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.15% 90.54% 85.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,812 18,436 23,663
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -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 2,657 1,477 2,496
10th Percentile £14.94 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% -3.62%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +21 1,355 £575 +3.60% 1,559
London +31 900 £584 +3.18% 991
UK excluding London +5 516 £550 - 744
Work from Home +12 454 £600 +9.09% 570
North of England -3 146 £570 +7.29% 156
South East -17 120 £600 +6.67% 236
Scotland +49 102 £463 -0.96% 45
North West +2 81 £590 +7.36% 91
Midlands -22 66 £550 +10.00% 78
Yorkshire -15 51 £550 +6.74% 40
West Midlands -33 49 £525 -2.33% 48
South West -31 45 £530 -11.67% 127
East of England -16 37 £525 -8.70% 82
Wales -12 18 £565 -1.83% 16
North East -23 17 £513 +28.13% 27
East Midlands -6 15 £650 +52.94% 30
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
1 105 (6.48%) Apache Spark
2 75 (4.63%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (3.40%) Apache
4 36 (2.22%) Jupyter
5 22 (1.36%) Confluence
6 9 (0.56%) SAS
7 6 (0.37%) Appian
7 6 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
7 6 (0.37%) SharePoint
8 5 (0.31%) CMS
8 5 (0.31%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.19%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.062%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.062%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.062%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.062%) Luigi
11 1 (0.062%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 32 (1.98%) Chatbot
2 14 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.43%) 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 (0.68%) SAP IBP
2 7 (0.43%) 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
1 586 (36.17%) Azure
2 576 (35.56%) AWS
3 292 (18.02%) GCP
4 146 (9.01%) Power Platform
5 116 (7.16%) Serverless
6 105 (6.48%) Amazon S3
7 104 (6.42%) GitHub
8 90 (5.56%) Amazon SageMaker
8 90 (5.56%) Azure Machine Learning
9 86 (5.31%) AWS Lambda
10 85 (5.25%) Azure AI
11 80 (4.94%) Snowflake
12 66 (4.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 63 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
14 60 (3.70%) Vertex AI
15 56 (3.46%) Amazon Bedrock
16 51 (3.15%) Azure Data Factory
16 51 (3.15%) GitHub Actions
17 43 (2.65%) dbt
18 39 (2.41%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.05%) Firewall
2 12 (0.74%) Internet
2 12 (0.74%) Network Security
3 7 (0.43%) DNS
4 6 (0.37%) VPN
5 5 (0.31%) DHCP
6 4 (0.25%) HTTP
6 4 (0.25%) NAS
6 4 (0.25%) SAN
7 3 (0.19%) MQTT
7 3 (0.19%) SMTP
8 2 (0.12%) 4G
8 2 (0.12%) 5G
8 2 (0.12%) Broadband
8 2 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
8 2 (0.12%) Ethernet
8 2 (0.12%) Modbus
8 2 (0.12%) PCoIP
8 2 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.12%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (7.35%) Power BI
2 101 (6.23%) Data Lake
3 83 (5.12%) Big Data
4 72 (4.44%) Data Warehouse
4 72 (4.44%) Metadata
5 68 (4.20%) BigQuery
6 50 (3.09%) Tableau
7 49 (3.02%) NoSQL
8 43 (2.65%) Amazon Redshift
9 42 (2.59%) Amazon Athena
9 42 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
10 37 (2.28%) Hadoop
11 34 (2.10%) Delta Lake
11 34 (2.10%) Relational Database
12 28 (1.73%) SQL Server
13 25 (1.54%) MongoDB
14 24 (1.48%) Pinecone
15 20 (1.23%) MySQL
15 20 (1.23%) Neo4j
16 18 (1.11%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 101 (6.23%) Git
2 76 (4.69%) MLflow
3 49 (3.02%) GitLab
3 49 (3.02%) JIRA
4 27 (1.67%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.56%) Claude Code
5 9 (0.56%) Vite
6 8 (0.49%) 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
1 337 (20.80%) Social Skills
2 305 (18.83%) Finance
3 209 (12.90%) Analytical Skills
4 153 (9.44%) Public Sector
5 111 (6.85%) Banking
6 45 (2.78%) Marketing
7 38 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (1.98%) Pharmaceutical
8 32 (1.98%) Retail
9 26 (1.60%) Legal
10 25 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
11 22 (1.36%) Front Office
12 20 (1.23%) Aviation
12 20 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (1.23%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.05%) Financial Institution
13 17 (1.05%) Law
14 16 (0.99%) Investment Banking
15 15 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
16 13 (0.80%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 242 (14.94%) Architect
2 230 (14.20%) Data Scientist
3 225 (13.89%) Senior
4 152 (9.38%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 149 (9.20%) Data Engineer
6 146 (9.01%) Lead
7 107 (6.60%) Developer
8 75 (4.63%) Data Architect
8 75 (4.63%) Solutions Architect
9 73 (4.51%) Python Engineer
10 69 (4.26%) Analyst
10 69 (4.26%) Software Engineer
11 68 (4.20%) Machine Learning Engineer
12 58 (3.58%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 47 (2.90%) Platform Engineer
14 44 (2.72%) Consultant
15 43 (2.65%) Senior Data Scientist
16 39 (2.41%) Azure Engineer
16 39 (2.41%) Python Developer
17 37 (2.28%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (10.49%) PyTorch
2 118 (7.28%) TensorFlow
3 105 (6.48%) Kafka
4 104 (6.42%) scikit-learn
5 90 (5.56%) Pandas
6 87 (5.37%) LangChain
7 72 (4.44%) PySpark
8 71 (4.38%) React
9 69 (4.26%) NumPy
10 64 (3.95%) REST
11 46 (2.84%) .NET
12 44 (2.72%) Hugging Face
13 32 (1.98%) LangGraph
14 31 (1.91%) FastAPI
15 28 (1.73%) Node.js
16 27 (1.67%) Model Context Protocol
17 26 (1.60%) AngularJS
17 26 (1.60%) RESTful
18 22 (1.36%) pytest
19 21 (1.30%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 196 (12.10%) Cloud Native
2 154 (9.51%) AI Agents
3 118 (7.28%) Algorithms
4 60 (3.70%) Onboarding
4 60 (3.70%) Product Ownership
5 54 (3.33%) Distributed Systems
6 28 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
7 27 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
8 23 (1.42%) Data Structures
8 23 (1.42%) Life Science
9 18 (1.11%) Fixed Income
9 18 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
10 17 (1.05%) Management Information System
11 16 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
11 16 (0.99%) Security Posture
12 14 (0.86%) Taxonomies
13 13 (0.80%) Distributed Computing
13 13 (0.80%) Virtual Team
14 12 (0.74%) Enterprise Cloud
14 12 (0.74%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 49 (3.02%) Linux
2 17 (1.05%) Windows
3 11 (0.68%) 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 1,299 (80.19%) AI
2 600 (37.04%) Data Science
3 513 (31.67%) CI/CD
4 475 (29.32%) Analytics
5 455 (28.09%) LLM
6 376 (23.21%) Data Pipeline
7 375 (23.15%) Generative AI
8 329 (20.31%) DevOps
9 315 (19.44%) MLOps
10 309 (19.07%) Agile
11 297 (18.33%) Data Engineering
12 272 (16.79%) Use Case
13 228 (14.07%) Software Engineering
14 223 (13.77%) Decision-Making
15 216 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
16 197 (12.16%) Roadmaps
17 195 (12.04%) Data Governance
18 193 (11.91%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
19 181 (11.17%) Data Modelling
20 179 (11.05%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 901 (55.62%) Python
2 408 (25.19%) SQL
3 117 (7.22%) Java
4 64 (3.95%) R
5 62 (3.83%) TypeScript
6 61 (3.77%) C#
7 57 (3.52%) JavaScript
8 34 (2.10%) Bash
9 19 (1.17%) C++
10 18 (1.11%) PowerShell
11 16 (0.99%) Bicep
11 16 (0.99%) Go
11 16 (0.99%) Scala
12 11 (0.68%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.56%) PL/SQL
13 9 (0.56%) SPARQL
14 8 (0.49%) Cypher
15 7 (0.43%) Gremlin
15 7 (0.43%) Rust
16 5 (0.31%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 293 (18.09%) Security Cleared
2 201 (12.41%) SC Cleared
3 139 (8.58%) Degree
4 58 (3.58%) Master's Degree
5 53 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
5 53 (3.27%) DV Cleared
6 47 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
7 45 (2.78%) AWS Certification
8 34 (2.10%) PhD
9 29 (1.79%) CISSP
10 24 (1.48%) Azure Certification
11 20 (1.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 15 (0.93%) CISM
13 10 (0.62%) TOGAF Certification
14 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
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 (11.67%) Data Quality
2 67 (4.14%) GDPR
3 54 (3.33%) QA
4 29 (1.79%) NIST
5 18 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 17 (1.05%) Accessibility
7 14 (0.86%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.68%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.56%) GRC
9 9 (0.56%) GxP
10 7 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.31%) SLA
11 5 (0.31%) WCAG
12 4 (0.25%) COBIT
12 4 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.25%) Solvency II
13 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 220 (13.58%) Docker
2 12 (0.74%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.68%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (0.31%) IAG
4 5 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
4 5 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
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
1 277 (17.10%) Kubernetes
2 177 (10.93%) Terraform
3 25 (1.54%) Grafana
3 25 (1.54%) Kubeflow
4 23 (1.42%) Ansible
5 15 (0.93%) Prometheus
6 13 (0.80%) Podman
7 6 (0.37%) Istio
8 3 (0.19%) Kibana
8 3 (0.19%) Nagios
8 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.19%) Puppet
8 3 (0.19%) Rancher
8 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.19%) vMotion
9 2 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.12%) Argo
9 2 (0.12%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.12%) Packer
9 2 (0.12%) SCCM
Vendors
1 208 (12.84%) Databricks
2 172 (10.62%) Microsoft
3 101 (6.23%) Google
4 98 (6.05%) OpenAI
5 55 (3.40%) Foundry
6 46 (2.84%) SAP
7 36 (2.22%) Oracle
8 31 (1.91%) ServiceNow
9 25 (1.54%) Informatica
10 17 (1.05%) IBM
11 15 (0.93%) UiPath
12 14 (0.86%) Dynatrace
13 8 (0.49%) Salesforce
14 7 (0.43%) Amplitude
14 7 (0.43%) Automation Anywhere
14 7 (0.43%) Sybase
14 7 (0.43%) Talend
15 6 (0.37%) Pega
15 6 (0.37%) Splunk
15 6 (0.37%) Workday