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 16 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 103 139
Rank change year-on-year +19 +36 +85
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,393 748 721
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.90% 2.57% 1.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 2.82% 1.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 857 477 528
10th Percentile £413 £368 £413
25th Percentile £492 £450 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £580
Median % change year-on-year - -0.86% -1.49%
75th Percentile £675 £713 £738
90th Percentile £775 £850 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £525
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 21 19
10th Percentile £50.00 £25.25 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.99 £45.00 £46.22
Median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.69% +17.14% +50.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £78.70 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.25 £81.01 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £76.25 £56.25
% change year-on-year -14.75% +35.56% +60.71%

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 40,526 26,506 36,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.38% 90.99% 86.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,448 17,044 23,613
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,394 1,081 2,430
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.20 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.49 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.43 £37.50
% change year-on-year +76.96% -32.19% +7.14%

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 16 May 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 16 May 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 16 May 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 1,168 £575 - 1,310
London +23 781 £575 - 635
UK excluding London +15 429 £550 -4.35% 857
Work from Home +12 390 £600 +9.09% 865
North of England -4 111 £554 +9.11% 243
Scotland +51 88 £518 +9.87% 51
South East -40 86 £600 +4.35% 243
Midlands -27 64 £575 +22.67% 108
North West -11 54 £575 - 134
East of England -18 50 £500 -20.00% 94
West Midlands -33 46 £550 +10.00% 55
Yorkshire -18 44 £538 - 68
South West -38 37 £500 -20.63% 103
North East -13 16 £575 +60.61% 42
East Midlands -15 16 £675 +52.11% 53
Wales -15 12 £759 +31.96% 19
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 11

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
1 117 (8.40%) Apache Spark
2 69 (4.95%) Apache Airflow
3 55 (3.95%) Apache
4 30 (2.15%) Jupyter
5 14 (1.01%) Confluence
6 9 (0.65%) Appian
7 5 (0.36%) CMS
7 5 (0.36%) Headless CMS
7 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
8 4 (0.29%) SAS
9 3 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.14%) Luigi
11 1 (0.072%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.072%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.072%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 27 (1.94%) Chatbot
2 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.22%) LaTeX
5 3 (0.22%) Simulink
6 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 11 (0.79%) SAP IBP
2 3 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.072%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.072%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.072%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.072%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.072%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 536 (38.48%) Azure
2 483 (34.67%) AWS
3 241 (17.30%) GCP
4 126 (9.05%) Power Platform
5 97 (6.96%) GitHub
6 93 (6.68%) Serverless
7 92 (6.60%) Azure AI
8 86 (6.17%) Azure Machine Learning
9 72 (5.17%) Amazon SageMaker
10 71 (5.10%) Amazon S3
11 67 (4.81%) Azure DevOps
11 67 (4.81%) Snowflake
12 57 (4.09%) GitHub Actions
13 55 (3.95%) AWS Lambda
14 53 (3.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 52 (3.73%) Vertex AI
16 50 (3.59%) Azure Data Factory
17 40 (2.87%) AWS CloudFormation
18 34 (2.44%) Amazon Bedrock
19 28 (2.01%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 13 (0.93%) Network Security
2 10 (0.72%) Firewall
3 9 (0.65%) HTTP
4 8 (0.57%) DNS
5 5 (0.36%) FTP
5 5 (0.36%) SMTP
5 5 (0.36%) SSL
6 3 (0.22%) Ethernet
6 3 (0.22%) InfiniBand
7 2 (0.14%) 4G
7 2 (0.14%) 5G
7 2 (0.14%) DHCP
7 2 (0.14%) Internet
7 2 (0.14%) NAS
7 2 (0.14%) PCoIP
7 2 (0.14%) Radio Access Network
7 2 (0.14%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (0.14%) SAN
8 1 (0.072%) 3GPP
8 1 (0.072%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (6.89%) Power BI
2 90 (6.46%) Data Lake
3 77 (5.53%) Big Data
4 61 (4.38%) BigQuery
5 58 (4.16%) Metadata
6 54 (3.88%) Data Warehouse
7 48 (3.45%) NoSQL
8 38 (2.73%) Tableau
9 35 (2.51%) Delta Lake
9 35 (2.51%) Hadoop
10 32 (2.30%) Pinecone
11 30 (2.15%) SQL Server
12 28 (2.01%) PostgreSQL
13 27 (1.94%) Amazon Athena
14 25 (1.79%) Mixpanel
14 25 (1.79%) Relational Database
14 25 (1.79%) Weaviate
15 19 (1.36%) MongoDB
16 17 (1.22%) Amazon Redshift
17 15 (1.08%) Redis
Development Applications
1 93 (6.68%) MLflow
2 88 (6.32%) Git
3 33 (2.37%) JIRA
4 27 (1.94%) Jenkins
5 24 (1.72%) GitLab
6 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.50%) Selenium
8 6 (0.43%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.29%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.29%) JMeter
9 4 (0.29%) Maven
9 4 (0.29%) PyCharm
10 3 (0.22%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.22%) ERwin
10 3 (0.22%) Gradle
10 3 (0.22%) JUnit
10 3 (0.22%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.22%) Spinnaker
10 3 (0.22%) Vite
General
1 299 (21.46%) Social Skills
2 268 (19.24%) Finance
3 160 (11.49%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (9.91%) Public Sector
5 82 (5.89%) Banking
6 30 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 29 (2.08%) Marketing
8 26 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
9 24 (1.72%) Legal
9 24 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
10 22 (1.58%) Aviation
10 22 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (1.51%) Investment Banking
11 21 (1.51%) Retail
12 19 (1.36%) Front Office
12 19 (1.36%) Telecoms
13 16 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 11 (0.79%) Law
16 10 (0.72%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 207 (14.86%) Data Scientist
2 188 (13.50%) Architect
3 186 (13.35%) Senior
4 164 (11.77%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 133 (9.55%) Data Engineer
6 116 (8.33%) Lead
7 97 (6.96%) Developer
8 71 (5.10%) Analyst
9 68 (4.88%) Python Engineer
10 59 (4.24%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 59 (4.24%) Software Engineer
11 56 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
12 55 (3.95%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 52 (3.73%) Data Architect
14 39 (2.80%) Senior Data Scientist
15 38 (2.73%) Consultant
16 32 (2.30%) Python Developer
17 30 (2.15%) Azure Engineer
18 28 (2.01%) Artificial Intelligence Specialist
19 27 (1.94%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 194 (13.93%) PyTorch
2 140 (10.05%) TensorFlow
3 115 (8.26%) scikit-learn
4 100 (7.18%) Pandas
5 78 (5.60%) Kafka
6 72 (5.17%) LangChain
7 71 (5.10%) NumPy
8 67 (4.81%) React
9 65 (4.67%) PySpark
10 53 (3.80%) .NET
10 53 (3.80%) REST
11 50 (3.59%) Hugging Face
12 37 (2.66%) Node.js
13 36 (2.58%) Model Context Protocol
14 35 (2.51%) LangGraph
15 34 (2.44%) AngularJS
16 30 (2.15%) FastAPI
17 27 (1.94%) RESTful
18 24 (1.72%) Faiss
19 21 (1.51%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 167 (11.99%) Cloud Native
2 135 (9.69%) AI Agents
3 132 (9.48%) Algorithms
4 47 (3.37%) Product Ownership
5 43 (3.09%) Onboarding
6 35 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
8 18 (1.29%) Fixed Income
8 18 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
9 17 (1.22%) Data Structures
9 17 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (1.22%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (1.08%) Life Science
12 14 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
13 12 (0.86%) Distributed Computing
13 12 (0.86%) Public Cloud
14 11 (0.79%) Augmented Reality
14 11 (0.79%) Low-Code
14 11 (0.79%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.15%) Linux
2 14 (1.01%) Windows
3 9 (0.65%) Unix
4 8 (0.57%) VMS
5 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.43%) Android
7 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,098 (78.82%) AI
2 514 (36.90%) Data Science
3 425 (30.51%) CI/CD
4 399 (28.64%) LLM
5 382 (27.42%) Analytics
6 307 (22.04%) Data Pipeline
7 300 (21.54%) Generative AI
8 275 (19.74%) DevOps
9 270 (19.38%) MLOps
10 261 (18.74%) Data Engineering
11 251 (18.02%) Agile
12 194 (13.93%) Use Case
13 191 (13.71%) Problem-Solving
14 173 (12.42%) Data Governance
15 169 (12.13%) Software Engineering
16 168 (12.06%) ETL
17 165 (11.84%) Decision-Making
18 164 (11.77%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
19 158 (11.34%) Containerisation
20 145 (10.41%) Natural Language Processing
Programming Languages
1 804 (57.72%) Python
2 354 (25.41%) SQL
3 103 (7.39%) Java
4 78 (5.60%) C#
5 64 (4.59%) R
6 50 (3.59%) TypeScript
7 48 (3.45%) JavaScript
8 25 (1.79%) C++
9 20 (1.44%) Bash
10 18 (1.29%) PowerShell
11 15 (1.08%) Bicep
12 14 (1.01%) Scala
13 11 (0.79%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.65%) Go
15 8 (0.57%) MATLAB
16 7 (0.50%) Rust
16 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
17 5 (0.36%) PL/SQL
18 4 (0.29%) T-SQL
19 3 (0.22%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 240 (17.23%) Security Cleared
2 164 (11.77%) SC Cleared
3 118 (8.47%) Degree
4 58 (4.16%) Master's Degree
5 41 (2.94%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
7 36 (2.58%) PhD
8 33 (2.37%) Computer Science Degree
9 24 (1.72%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.36%) Azure Certification
11 18 (1.29%) CISSP
12 14 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 14 (1.01%) CISM
13 9 (0.65%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 6 (0.43%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.36%) GIAC
15 5 (0.36%) PMI Certification
15 5 (0.36%) PMP
16 4 (0.29%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (10.27%) Data Quality
2 54 (3.88%) GDPR
3 52 (3.73%) QA
4 28 (2.01%) NIST
5 18 (1.29%) Accessibility
6 14 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 12 (0.86%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
8 10 (0.72%) HIPAA
9 8 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.50%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) GRC
11 5 (0.36%) WCAG
12 4 (0.29%) COBIT
13 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.22%) DO-254
13 3 (0.22%) GxP
14 2 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 1 (0.072%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 187 (13.42%) Docker
2 11 (0.79%) Active Directory
2 11 (0.79%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 6 (0.43%) Firmware
4 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.14%) Ceph
5 2 (0.14%) HDFS
5 2 (0.14%) Lustre
5 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.072%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 214 (15.36%) Kubernetes
2 139 (9.98%) Terraform
3 22 (1.58%) Kubeflow
4 21 (1.51%) Grafana
5 14 (1.01%) Ansible
5 14 (1.01%) Prometheus
6 9 (0.65%) Podman
7 4 (0.29%) Istio
8 3 (0.22%) Rancher
9 2 (0.14%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.14%) Kibana
9 2 (0.14%) Knative
9 2 (0.14%) Packer
9 2 (0.14%) SCCM
10 1 (0.072%) Argo
10 1 (0.072%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.072%) logstash
10 1 (0.072%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 208 (14.93%) Databricks
2 166 (11.92%) Microsoft
3 104 (7.47%) OpenAI
4 94 (6.75%) Google
5 61 (4.38%) Foundry
6 39 (2.80%) SAP
7 31 (2.23%) Oracle
8 22 (1.58%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.01%) IBM
9 14 (1.01%) UiPath
10 13 (0.93%) Dynatrace
10 13 (0.93%) Informatica
11 11 (0.79%) Automation Anywhere
12 9 (0.65%) Amplitude
13 8 (0.57%) NVIDIA
14 7 (0.50%) Workday
15 6 (0.43%) Siemens
15 6 (0.43%) Talend
16 5 (0.36%) Ariba
16 5 (0.36%) Salesforce