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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 108 131
Rank change year-on-year +26 +23 +79
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,643 807 762
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 2.48% 1.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 2.74% 2.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,026 503 538
10th Percentile £413 £400 £413
25th Percentile £493 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £555 £588
Median % change year-on-year +3.60% -5.53% -
75th Percentile £688 £675 £750
90th Percentile £775 £824 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £523
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 22 17
10th Percentile £36.00 £45.00 £18.26
25th Percentile £50.00 £55.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £71.25 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +42.86% +13.69%
75th Percentile £83.75 £81.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.88 £88.00 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £78.10 £52.50
% change year-on-year -11.09% +48.76% +21.14%

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 45,026 29,407 35,968
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.11% 90.34% 85.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,974 18,494 23,016
10th Percentile £325 £300 £301
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,654 1,554 2,302
10th Percentile £14.87 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.37 £16.71
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.55 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.46 £70.00 £73.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.20
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.30% -4.51%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +25 1,382 £575 - 1,175
London +42 918 £584 -0.17% 741
UK excluding London +1 527 £550 - 600
Work from Home +9 451 £600 +9.09% 375
North of England +1 151 £575 +12.97% 129
South East -19 124 £600 +6.67% 209
Scotland +40 99 £440 -8.05% 36
North West -13 82 £600 +9.09% 72
Midlands -16 70 £550 +10.00% 59
Yorkshire 0 56 £550 +12.19% 37
West Midlands -24 55 £550 -6.38% 30
South West -32 48 £530 -7.83% 75
East of England -17 36 £513 -14.58% 77
North East -23 17 £475 +11.76% 22
Wales -8 16 £540 -11.84% 21
East Midlands -7 13 £575 +35.29% 29
Northern Ireland - 1 £334 - 9

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
1 101 (6.15%) Apache Spark
2 76 (4.63%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (3.29%) Apache
4 34 (2.07%) Jupyter
5 22 (1.34%) Confluence
6 10 (0.61%) SAS
7 6 (0.37%) Appian
7 6 (0.37%) ArcGIS
7 6 (0.37%) SharePoint
8 5 (0.30%) CMS
8 5 (0.30%) Headless CMS
8 5 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
9 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.061%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.061%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.061%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.061%) Luigi
11 1 (0.061%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 31 (1.89%) Chatbot
2 14 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
5 6 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.18%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.12%) Simulink
8 1 (0.061%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.67%) SAP IBP
2 9 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.061%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.061%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.061%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.061%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.061%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.061%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.061%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 586 (35.67%) Azure
2 583 (35.48%) AWS
3 300 (18.26%) GCP
4 147 (8.95%) Power Platform
5 125 (7.61%) Serverless
6 112 (6.82%) GitHub
7 108 (6.57%) Amazon S3
8 93 (5.66%) AWS Lambda
9 92 (5.60%) Amazon SageMaker
10 85 (5.17%) Azure Machine Learning
11 83 (5.05%) Azure AI
12 81 (4.93%) Snowflake
13 64 (3.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 61 (3.71%) Azure DevOps
15 59 (3.59%) Amazon Bedrock
16 56 (3.41%) Vertex AI
17 51 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
18 50 (3.04%) Azure Data Factory
19 45 (2.74%) dbt
20 43 (2.62%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.16%) Firewall
2 13 (0.79%) Internet
2 13 (0.79%) Network Security
3 9 (0.55%) DNS
4 8 (0.49%) VPN
5 7 (0.43%) DHCP
6 5 (0.30%) HTTP
7 4 (0.24%) Broadband
7 4 (0.24%) NAS
7 4 (0.24%) SAN
8 3 (0.18%) MQTT
8 3 (0.18%) SMTP
9 2 (0.12%) 5G
9 2 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
9 2 (0.12%) CTI
9 2 (0.12%) Ethernet
9 2 (0.12%) PCoIP
9 2 (0.12%) Remote Desktop
9 2 (0.12%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.12%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (7.36%) Power BI
2 100 (6.09%) Data Lake
3 84 (5.11%) Big Data
4 77 (4.69%) Metadata
5 76 (4.63%) Data Warehouse
6 71 (4.32%) BigQuery
7 53 (3.23%) NoSQL
8 49 (2.98%) Tableau
9 43 (2.62%) Amazon Redshift
10 41 (2.50%) Amazon Athena
10 41 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
11 38 (2.31%) Hadoop
12 35 (2.13%) Delta Lake
12 35 (2.13%) Relational Database
13 28 (1.70%) SQL Server
14 25 (1.52%) MongoDB
15 22 (1.34%) Pinecone
16 21 (1.28%) Neo4j
17 20 (1.22%) MySQL
18 19 (1.16%) Looker
Development Applications
1 105 (6.39%) Git
2 75 (4.56%) MLflow
3 51 (3.10%) GitLab
4 49 (2.98%) JIRA
5 27 (1.64%) Jenkins
6 10 (0.61%) Vite
7 9 (0.55%) Claude Code
8 8 (0.49%) Selenium
9 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.24%) ER Studio
10 4 (0.24%) ERwin
10 4 (0.24%) Maven
10 4 (0.24%) PyCharm
11 3 (0.18%) Gradle
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.18%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.18%) Spinnaker
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
General
1 344 (20.94%) Social Skills
2 305 (18.56%) Finance
3 215 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
4 154 (9.37%) Public Sector
5 116 (7.06%) Banking
6 45 (2.74%) Marketing
7 37 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 33 (2.01%) Retail
9 31 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
10 25 (1.52%) Legal
11 24 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
11 24 (1.46%) Telecoms
12 23 (1.40%) Front Office
13 20 (1.22%) Aviation
14 19 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
15 17 (1.03%) Law
15 17 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (0.97%) Financial Institution
17 15 (0.91%) Investment Banking
18 13 (0.79%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 248 (15.09%) Architect
2 240 (14.61%) Senior
3 231 (14.06%) Data Scientist
4 160 (9.74%) Lead
5 151 (9.19%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 149 (9.07%) Data Engineer
7 107 (6.51%) Developer
8 79 (4.81%) Solutions Architect
9 74 (4.50%) Python Engineer
10 73 (4.44%) Data Architect
10 73 (4.44%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 69 (4.20%) Software Engineer
12 66 (4.02%) Analyst
13 56 (3.41%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
14 53 (3.23%) Platform Engineer
15 48 (2.92%) Senior Data Scientist
16 44 (2.68%) DevOps Engineer
17 41 (2.50%) Consultant
18 39 (2.37%) Azure Engineer
18 39 (2.37%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (9.80%) PyTorch
2 111 (6.76%) TensorFlow
3 110 (6.70%) Kafka
4 100 (6.09%) scikit-learn
5 87 (5.30%) Pandas
6 83 (5.05%) LangChain
7 76 (4.63%) React
8 71 (4.32%) PySpark
9 70 (4.26%) REST
10 68 (4.14%) NumPy
11 45 (2.74%) .NET
12 41 (2.50%) Hugging Face
13 32 (1.95%) FastAPI
13 32 (1.95%) LangGraph
14 30 (1.83%) Node.js
15 28 (1.70%) Model Context Protocol
16 27 (1.64%) AngularJS
16 27 (1.64%) RESTful
17 23 (1.40%) pytest
18 22 (1.34%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 198 (12.05%) Cloud Native
2 161 (9.80%) AI Agents
3 122 (7.43%) Algorithms
4 60 (3.65%) Onboarding
4 60 (3.65%) Product Ownership
5 56 (3.41%) Distributed Systems
6 28 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
6 28 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
7 25 (1.52%) Data Structures
8 24 (1.46%) Life Science
9 20 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
10 18 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
11 17 (1.03%) Management Information System
12 16 (0.97%) Fixed Income
13 15 (0.91%) Security Posture
13 15 (0.91%) Taxonomies
14 14 (0.85%) Public Cloud
14 14 (0.85%) Virtual Team
15 13 (0.79%) Distributed Computing
16 12 (0.73%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 51 (3.10%) Linux
2 17 (1.03%) Windows
3 12 (0.73%) Unix
4 6 (0.37%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.37%) VMS
5 5 (0.30%) Android
6 4 (0.24%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,313 (79.91%) AI
2 602 (36.64%) Data Science
3 525 (31.95%) CI/CD
4 475 (28.91%) Analytics
5 451 (27.45%) LLM
6 380 (23.13%) Generative AI
7 376 (22.88%) Data Pipeline
8 345 (21.00%) DevOps
9 324 (19.72%) Agile
10 318 (19.35%) MLOps
11 294 (17.89%) Data Engineering
12 266 (16.19%) Use Case
13 239 (14.55%) Software Engineering
14 230 (14.00%) Decision-Making
15 222 (13.51%) Problem-Solving
16 204 (12.42%) Roadmaps
17 196 (11.93%) Data Governance
18 193 (11.75%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
19 191 (11.63%) Infrastructure as Code
20 183 (11.14%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 908 (55.26%) Python
2 410 (24.95%) SQL
3 121 (7.36%) Java
4 66 (4.02%) JavaScript
4 66 (4.02%) TypeScript
5 60 (3.65%) R
6 58 (3.53%) C#
7 37 (2.25%) Bash
8 19 (1.16%) PowerShell
9 18 (1.10%) C++
10 17 (1.03%) Go
10 17 (1.03%) Scala
11 16 (0.97%) Bicep
12 12 (0.73%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.55%) PL/SQL
13 9 (0.55%) SPARQL
14 8 (0.49%) Cypher
15 7 (0.43%) Gremlin
15 7 (0.43%) Rust
16 5 (0.30%) Perl
Qualifications
1 300 (18.26%) Security Cleared
2 207 (12.60%) SC Cleared
3 136 (8.28%) Degree
4 57 (3.47%) DV Cleared
4 57 (3.47%) Master's Degree
5 54 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 49 (2.98%) BPSS Clearance
7 47 (2.86%) AWS Certification
8 31 (1.89%) CISSP
9 30 (1.83%) PhD
10 24 (1.46%) Azure Certification
11 22 (1.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 14 (0.85%) CISM
13 13 (0.79%) TOGAF Certification
14 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 6 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 5 (0.30%) AWS Certified Developer
16 5 (0.30%) CEH
16 5 (0.30%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (11.56%) Data Quality
2 68 (4.14%) GDPR
3 55 (3.35%) QA
4 29 (1.77%) NIST
5 18 (1.10%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 14 (0.85%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.67%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.55%) GRC
9 9 (0.55%) GxP
10 6 (0.37%) SLA
10 6 (0.37%) WCAG
11 5 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.24%) COBIT
12 4 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.24%) NCSC
12 4 (0.24%) Solvency II
13 3 (0.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 225 (13.69%) Docker
2 12 (0.73%) Active Directory
3 9 (0.55%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 6 (0.37%) IAG
5 5 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
5 5 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.18%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.18%) Firmware
6 3 (0.18%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.18%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 282 (17.16%) Kubernetes
2 187 (11.38%) Terraform
3 29 (1.77%) Ansible
4 27 (1.64%) Kubeflow
5 25 (1.52%) Grafana
6 17 (1.03%) Prometheus
7 11 (0.67%) Podman
8 6 (0.37%) Istio
9 3 (0.18%) Kibana
9 3 (0.18%) Nagios
9 3 (0.18%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.18%) Puppet
9 3 (0.18%) Rancher
9 3 (0.18%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.18%) vMotion
10 2 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.12%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.12%) Packer
10 2 (0.12%) SCCM
10 2 (0.12%) systemd
Vendors
1 206 (12.54%) Databricks
2 172 (10.47%) Microsoft
3 103 (6.27%) Google
4 93 (5.66%) OpenAI
5 52 (3.16%) Foundry
6 49 (2.98%) SAP
7 36 (2.19%) Oracle
8 32 (1.95%) ServiceNow
9 25 (1.52%) Informatica
10 17 (1.03%) IBM
11 16 (0.97%) Dynatrace
12 15 (0.91%) UiPath
13 8 (0.49%) Salesforce
13 8 (0.49%) Splunk
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%) Nexthink
15 6 (0.37%) Workday