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 22 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 79 95 181
Rank change year-on-year +16 +86 +34
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,156 825 623
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.15% 2.44% 1.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.56% 2.77% 1.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 767 556 450
10th Percentile £401 £375 £400
25th Percentile £463 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £688 £731 £700
90th Percentile £780 £825 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.20% -4.76% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 19 29
10th Percentile £31.39 £13.06 £42.50
25th Percentile £42.79 £19.38 -
Median hourly rate £55.50 £26.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +109.43% -42.62% -7.64%
75th Percentile £79.50 £49.97 £47.50
90th Percentile £103.10 £56.00 £65.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £37.34 £46.18
% change year-on-year +74.08% -19.14% -9.89%

All Process and 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 32,441 29,813 38,595
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.26% 88.27% 88.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,403 18,181 25,776
10th Percentile £300 £307 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £743 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,089 968 1,481
10th Percentile £14.53 £15.62 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -25.90% +25.31%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.02 £73.83 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £30.88 £45.00
% change year-on-year -23.89% -31.39% +44.18%

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 22 December 2025.

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 22 December 2025.

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 22 December 2025. 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 +10 973 £575 -4.25% 2,158
London +11 645 £625 -3.85% 845
UK excluding London +50 360 £506 +1.20% 1,465
Work from Home +29 354 £550 +4.76% 1,725
North of England -16 84 £475 -2.56% 430
South East +15 77 £508 -4.47% 412
East of England +21 73 £513 -14.58% 234
Scotland +46 56 £503 +25.63% 25
North West -11 49 £475 -0.31% 205
Midlands -18 39 £511 +27.69% 221
Yorkshire -21 34 £514 -6.55% 171
West Midlands -9 28 £514 +14.22% 118
South West -12 26 £550 -17.60% 146
East Midlands -16 11 £426 +19.66% 103
Wales +2 10 £700 +201.08% 12
North East -19 2 £575 +32.95% 58
Northern Ireland - 2 £675 - 5

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 89 (7.70%) Apache Spark
2 64 (5.54%) Apache Airflow
3 37 (3.20%) Apache
4 22 (1.90%) Jupyter
5 10 (0.87%) Confluence
6 8 (0.69%) Apache Pig
7 7 (0.61%) SAS
8 6 (0.52%) Appian
8 6 (0.52%) GeoServer
8 6 (0.52%) Smallworld
9 4 (0.35%) IIS
10 3 (0.26%) CMS
10 3 (0.26%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.087%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.087%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.087%) nginx
11 1 (0.087%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 44 (3.81%) Chatbot
2 16 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.43%) Simulink
7 1 (0.087%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.087%) GNU Octave
7 1 (0.087%) Sketch
7 1 (0.087%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.087%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
3 2 (0.17%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.17%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.087%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.087%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.087%) Shopify
4 1 (0.087%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 484 (41.87%) Azure
2 389 (33.65%) AWS
3 214 (18.51%) GCP
4 109 (9.43%) Power Platform
5 105 (9.08%) GitHub
6 100 (8.65%) Serverless
7 97 (8.39%) Azure Machine Learning
8 68 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
9 67 (5.80%) Snowflake
10 64 (5.54%) Amazon S3
11 62 (5.36%) Amazon SageMaker
12 58 (5.02%) Vertex AI
13 57 (4.93%) Azure AI
14 52 (4.50%) AWS Lambda
14 52 (4.50%) GitHub Actions
15 51 (4.41%) Azure AKS
16 50 (4.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 44 (3.81%) Azure Data Factory
18 39 (3.37%) Amazon Bedrock
19 35 (3.03%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.73%) Network Security
2 19 (1.64%) HTTP
3 18 (1.56%) DNS
4 14 (1.21%) SSL
5 13 (1.12%) FTP
5 13 (1.12%) SMTP
6 6 (0.52%) Ethernet
6 6 (0.52%) Firewall
6 6 (0.52%) Internet
7 4 (0.35%) InfiniBand
7 4 (0.35%) VPN
8 2 (0.17%) 2G
8 2 (0.17%) 5G
8 2 (0.17%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.17%) Ethernet VPN
8 2 (0.17%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.17%) LTE
8 2 (0.17%) Mobile Backhaul
8 2 (0.17%) Modbus
8 2 (0.17%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (8.30%) Power BI
2 77 (6.66%) Data Warehouse
3 70 (6.06%) Data Lake
4 64 (5.54%) Big Data
5 53 (4.58%) PostgreSQL
6 46 (3.98%) NoSQL
7 44 (3.81%) BigQuery
8 37 (3.20%) Tableau
9 30 (2.60%) Metadata
10 29 (2.51%) Hadoop
11 27 (2.34%) Pinecone
12 21 (1.82%) Amazon Athena
12 21 (1.82%) Elasticsearch
13 19 (1.64%) Delta Lake
14 18 (1.56%) Amazon Redshift
14 18 (1.56%) Data Mining
14 18 (1.56%) MongoDB
15 16 (1.38%) Relational Database
16 15 (1.30%) Weaviate
17 12 (1.04%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 91 (7.87%) Git
2 73 (6.31%) MLflow
3 56 (4.84%) Jenkins
4 36 (3.11%) GitLab
5 26 (2.25%) JIRA
6 18 (1.56%) Selenium
7 16 (1.38%) JMeter
8 15 (1.30%) SonarQube
9 8 (0.69%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.61%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.52%) JUnit
11 6 (0.52%) Postman
11 6 (0.52%) PyCharm
12 5 (0.43%) Gradle
12 5 (0.43%) Mockito
12 5 (0.43%) MSTest
12 5 (0.43%) Snyk
13 4 (0.35%) Android Studio
13 4 (0.35%) Cucumber
13 4 (0.35%) Oracle APEX
General
1 335 (28.98%) Social Skills
2 226 (19.55%) Finance
3 140 (12.11%) Analytical Skills
4 104 (9.00%) Public Sector
5 79 (6.83%) Banking
6 43 (3.72%) Pharmaceutical
7 42 (3.63%) Marketing
8 37 (3.20%) Retail
9 31 (2.68%) Investment Banking
10 30 (2.60%) Manufacturing
11 26 (2.25%) Legal
12 25 (2.16%) Telecoms
13 23 (1.99%) Front Office
14 19 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
15 17 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 16 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
17 15 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
18 14 (1.21%) Electronics
19 11 (0.95%) Aerospace
20 10 (0.87%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 186 (16.09%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 167 (14.45%) Data Scientist
3 145 (12.54%) Architect
4 122 (10.55%) Data Engineer
5 119 (10.29%) Senior
6 108 (9.34%) Developer
7 79 (6.83%) Lead
8 62 (5.36%) Machine Learning Engineer
9 58 (5.02%) Python Engineer
10 51 (4.41%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 50 (4.33%) Analyst
12 44 (3.81%) Software Engineer
13 37 (3.20%) Gen AI Engineer
14 36 (3.11%) Data Architect
15 32 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
16 30 (2.60%) Azure Engineer
17 26 (2.25%) Consultant
17 26 (2.25%) Product Manager
18 25 (2.16%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
19 24 (2.08%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (17.73%) PyTorch
2 180 (15.57%) TensorFlow
3 123 (10.64%) scikit-learn
4 111 (9.60%) Pandas
5 95 (8.22%) LangChain
6 81 (7.01%) FastAPI
7 75 (6.49%) NumPy
8 65 (5.62%) Hugging Face
9 59 (5.10%) React
10 57 (4.93%) Kafka
11 55 (4.76%) LangGraph
11 55 (4.76%) PySpark
12 48 (4.15%) REST
12 48 (4.15%) RESTful
13 42 (3.63%) Node.js
14 37 (3.20%) .NET
15 32 (2.77%) pytest
16 30 (2.60%) Flask
17 25 (2.16%) Faiss
18 21 (1.82%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 179 (15.48%) Algorithms
2 150 (12.98%) Cloud Native
3 98 (8.48%) AI Agents
4 42 (3.63%) Product Ownership
5 40 (3.46%) Distributed Systems
5 40 (3.46%) Onboarding
6 35 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
7 30 (2.60%) Analytical Mindset
8 29 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
9 28 (2.42%) Distributed Computing
10 25 (2.16%) Genomics
11 23 (1.99%) Life Science
12 22 (1.90%) Data Structures
13 21 (1.82%) Hybrid Cloud
13 21 (1.82%) Management Information System
14 17 (1.47%) Enterprise Software
15 14 (1.21%) Cyber Threat
16 13 (1.12%) Cyberattack
16 13 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
16 13 (1.12%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 31 (2.68%) Linux
2 11 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 10 (0.87%) VMS
4 9 (0.78%) Ubuntu
5 8 (0.69%) Unix
5 8 (0.69%) Windows
6 6 (0.52%) Android
6 6 (0.52%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.087%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 855 (73.96%) AI
2 463 (40.05%) Data Science
3 335 (28.98%) LLM
4 305 (26.38%) CI/CD
5 302 (26.12%) Analytics
6 274 (23.70%) Agile
7 267 (23.10%) DevOps
8 232 (20.07%) Generative AI
9 227 (19.64%) Data Pipeline
10 203 (17.56%) MLOps
11 202 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
12 197 (17.04%) Data Engineering
13 171 (14.79%) Natural Language Processing
14 164 (14.19%) Software Engineering
15 152 (13.15%) Containerisation
16 141 (12.20%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 136 (11.76%) Use Case
18 131 (11.33%) Data Modelling
18 131 (11.33%) Visualisation
19 126 (10.90%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 744 (64.36%) Python
2 276 (23.88%) SQL
3 75 (6.49%) R
4 71 (6.14%) Java
5 55 (4.76%) JavaScript
6 52 (4.50%) TypeScript
7 48 (4.15%) C#
8 42 (3.63%) PowerShell
9 35 (3.03%) C++
10 29 (2.51%) Scala
11 20 (1.73%) Bash
11 20 (1.73%) Bicep
12 13 (1.12%) MATLAB
13 12 (1.04%) Go
14 9 (0.78%) C
15 5 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
15 5 (0.43%) Tcl
16 3 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.26%) PL/SQL
16 3 (0.26%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 172 (14.88%) Degree
2 164 (14.19%) Security Cleared
3 122 (10.55%) SC Cleared
4 71 (6.14%) Master's Degree
5 55 (4.76%) MCP
6 48 (4.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (3.37%) PhD
8 34 (2.94%) DV Cleared
9 22 (1.90%) Azure Certification
10 11 (0.95%) AWS Certification
10 11 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (0.69%) CISSP
12 5 (0.43%) HNC
12 5 (0.43%) HND
12 5 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
12 5 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
13 4 (0.35%) Cisco Certification
13 4 (0.35%) CISM
13 4 (0.35%) ISTQB
13 4 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (6.57%) Data Quality
2 59 (5.10%) GDPR
3 43 (3.72%) QA
4 39 (3.37%) NIST
5 32 (2.77%) EU AI Act
6 23 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (1.56%) Accessibility
8 7 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 5 (0.43%) DO-254
9 5 (0.43%) HIPAA
9 5 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 5 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 5 (0.43%) SOC 2
10 4 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.35%) NCSC
10 4 (0.35%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.26%) GRC
12 2 (0.17%) EMIR
12 2 (0.17%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
System Software
1 199 (17.21%) Docker
2 12 (1.04%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.61%) Firmware
5 4 (0.35%) Lustre
6 3 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.17%) Ceph
7 2 (0.17%) GPFS
7 2 (0.17%) HDFS
7 2 (0.17%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.17%) KVM
7 2 (0.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 191 (16.52%) Kubernetes
2 129 (11.16%) Terraform
3 30 (2.60%) Grafana
4 29 (2.51%) Ansible
5 16 (1.38%) Kubeflow
5 16 (1.38%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.21%) Kibana
7 11 (0.95%) logstash
7 11 (0.95%) SCOM
8 9 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
9 8 (0.69%) Argo
10 4 (0.35%) Cilium
10 4 (0.35%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.35%) Rsyslog
11 3 (0.26%) Kustomize
11 3 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.17%) Knative
12 2 (0.17%) Podman
12 2 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.087%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 170 (14.71%) Databricks
2 163 (14.10%) Microsoft
3 107 (9.26%) Google
4 74 (6.40%) OpenAI
5 47 (4.07%) Foundry
6 40 (3.46%) SAP
7 17 (1.47%) Splunk
8 16 (1.38%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.30%) Salesforce
10 14 (1.21%) NVIDIA
11 12 (1.04%) Oracle
12 9 (0.78%) Greenplum
12 9 (0.78%) Solace
12 9 (0.78%) TIBCO
13 7 (0.61%) Cisco
13 7 (0.61%) Pega
14 6 (0.52%) ESRI
14 6 (0.52%) Intel
14 6 (0.52%) Intergraph
15 5 (0.43%) Informatica