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 2 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 105 165
Rank change year-on-year +28 +60 +68
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,350 759 635
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.26% 2.51% 1.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.77% 2.79% 1.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 833 487 468
10th Percentile £400 £363 £413
25th Percentile £469 £456 £474
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £570 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -0.87% - -8.00%
75th Percentile £688 £725 £700
90th Percentile £775 £850 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £536 £525 £530
% change year-on-year +2.00% -0.94% -7.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 17 25
10th Percentile £41.85 £23.65 £41.16
25th Percentile £50.00 £25.36 £42.50
Median hourly rate £57.77 £45.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +28.37% -2.56% +31.94%
75th Percentile £79.50 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £83.81 £69.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £45.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +42.22% -2.56% +31.94%

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 35,800 27,183 38,766
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.50% 90.06% 86.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,707 16,972 25,287
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £412 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £740 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,144 882 2,256
10th Percentile £14.65 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.24 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £27.61 £32.50 £33.03
Median % change year-on-year -15.06% -1.61% -5.62%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £59.44
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.48 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.00 £34.36
% change year-on-year -21.41% -6.85% -1.84%

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 2 March 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 2 March 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 2 March 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 +17 1,130 £575 -4.17% 1,173
London +24 741 £600 -4.00% 505
UK excluding London +35 446 £536 +2.00% 834
Work from Home +31 428 £575 +5.50% 486
North of England -3 110 £531 +6.13% 200
South East +3 91 £550 +4.76% 238
Scotland +64 86 £501 +11.39% 51
East of England +5 71 £550 -8.33% 98
North West +9 68 £534 +8.32% 105
Midlands -8 61 £550 +29.41% 116
West Midlands -19 41 £550 +33.33% 58
South West -19 34 £550 -17.60% 96
Yorkshire -42 32 £525 - 71
East Midlands -16 19 £525 +10.53% 58
Wales -7 17 £738 +31.11% 35
North East -8 13 £563 +57.12% 25
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 13

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
1 122 (9.04%) Apache Spark
2 83 (6.15%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (4.15%) Apache
4 28 (2.07%) Jupyter
5 13 (0.96%) Confluence
6 11 (0.81%) Appian
7 10 (0.74%) SAS
8 6 (0.44%) GeoServer
8 6 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
8 6 (0.44%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.44%) Smallworld
9 5 (0.37%) CMS
10 2 (0.15%) Apache Pig
10 2 (0.15%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.15%) Luigi
11 1 (0.074%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.074%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.074%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.074%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.074%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 38 (2.81%) Chatbot
2 16 (1.19%) Microsoft Project
3 14 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.37%) Simulink
7 3 (0.22%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.074%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.074%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.074%) Sketch
8 1 (0.074%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.074%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.074%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.074%) SAP IBP
3 1 (0.074%) Shopify
3 1 (0.074%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 596 (44.15%) Azure
2 498 (36.89%) AWS
3 251 (18.59%) GCP
4 136 (10.07%) Power Platform
5 112 (8.30%) GitHub
6 109 (8.07%) Serverless
7 105 (7.78%) Azure Machine Learning
8 93 (6.89%) Azure AI
9 79 (5.85%) Azure DevOps
10 77 (5.70%) Amazon SageMaker
11 75 (5.56%) Snowflake
12 67 (4.96%) Amazon S3
13 61 (4.52%) Vertex AI
14 54 (4.00%) Azure Data Factory
15 53 (3.93%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 52 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
17 51 (3.78%) GitHub Actions
18 44 (3.26%) AWS CloudFormation
19 42 (3.11%) Azure AKS
20 40 (2.96%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.19%) Network Security
2 9 (0.67%) HTTP
3 8 (0.59%) Firewall
4 6 (0.44%) DNS
4 6 (0.44%) Ethernet
5 5 (0.37%) FTP
5 5 (0.37%) Internet
5 5 (0.37%) SMTP
5 5 (0.37%) SSL
6 4 (0.30%) 5G
6 4 (0.30%) InfiniBand
7 3 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
7 3 (0.22%) LTE
8 2 (0.15%) 2G
8 2 (0.15%) 4G
8 2 (0.15%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.15%) Mobile Backhaul
8 2 (0.15%) Modbus
8 2 (0.15%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.15%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (7.78%) Power BI
2 91 (6.74%) Data Lake
3 82 (6.07%) Data Warehouse
4 63 (4.67%) Big Data
5 58 (4.30%) NoSQL
6 55 (4.07%) Metadata
7 51 (3.78%) BigQuery
8 46 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
9 40 (2.96%) Tableau
10 36 (2.67%) Pinecone
11 35 (2.59%) Hadoop
12 28 (2.07%) SQL Server
13 26 (1.93%) Delta Lake
13 26 (1.93%) Weaviate
14 25 (1.85%) Relational Database
15 22 (1.63%) Elasticsearch
15 22 (1.63%) Mixpanel
16 21 (1.56%) Amazon Athena
17 18 (1.33%) Amazon Redshift
18 17 (1.26%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 114 (8.44%) Git
2 95 (7.04%) MLflow
3 39 (2.89%) Jenkins
4 27 (2.00%) GitLab
4 27 (2.00%) JIRA
5 15 (1.11%) Selenium
6 12 (0.89%) JMeter
6 12 (0.89%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.52%) Gradle
7 7 (0.52%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.44%) PyCharm
9 5 (0.37%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.37%) Maven
9 5 (0.37%) MSTest
10 4 (0.30%) Android Studio
10 4 (0.30%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.30%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.30%) RStudio
11 3 (0.22%) Postman
12 2 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 342 (25.33%) Social Skills
2 288 (21.33%) Finance
3 152 (11.26%) Analytical Skills
4 140 (10.37%) Public Sector
5 95 (7.04%) Banking
6 42 (3.11%) Pharmaceutical
7 39 (2.89%) Marketing
8 34 (2.52%) Retail
9 32 (2.37%) Investment Banking
10 27 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
10 27 (2.00%) Legal
11 24 (1.78%) Front Office
11 24 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 22 (1.63%) Manufacturing
13 18 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
15 16 (1.19%) Telecoms
16 14 (1.04%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.96%) Electronics
18 11 (0.81%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 198 (14.67%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 189 (14.00%) Data Scientist
3 175 (12.96%) Architect
4 171 (12.67%) Senior
5 136 (10.07%) Data Engineer
6 123 (9.11%) Developer
7 114 (8.44%) Lead
8 63 (4.67%) Analyst
8 63 (4.67%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 60 (4.44%) Python Engineer
10 58 (4.30%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 56 (4.15%) Software Engineer
12 49 (3.63%) Data Architect
13 40 (2.96%) Gen AI Engineer
14 39 (2.89%) Senior Data Scientist
14 39 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
15 34 (2.52%) Azure Engineer
16 33 (2.44%) Consultant
17 30 (2.22%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
18 23 (1.70%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 237 (17.56%) PyTorch
2 192 (14.22%) TensorFlow
3 139 (10.30%) scikit-learn
4 118 (8.74%) Pandas
5 89 (6.59%) LangChain
6 86 (6.37%) NumPy
7 82 (6.07%) React
8 71 (5.26%) FastAPI
9 61 (4.52%) .NET
10 60 (4.44%) Hugging Face
10 60 (4.44%) Model Context Protocol
11 59 (4.37%) PySpark
12 58 (4.30%) REST
13 56 (4.15%) Kafka
14 53 (3.93%) LangGraph
15 49 (3.63%) Node.js
16 45 (3.33%) RESTful
17 38 (2.81%) AngularJS
18 33 (2.44%) Faiss
19 31 (2.30%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 188 (13.93%) Cloud Native
2 180 (13.33%) Algorithms
3 109 (8.07%) AI Agents
4 50 (3.70%) Product Ownership
5 48 (3.56%) Onboarding
6 37 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
6 37 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
8 25 (1.85%) Distributed Computing
9 23 (1.70%) Data Structures
10 22 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
10 22 (1.63%) Life Science
11 19 (1.41%) Genomics
12 18 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
14 16 (1.19%) Fixed Income
15 15 (1.11%) Management Information System
16 13 (0.96%) Credit Risk
16 13 (0.96%) Taxonomies
17 12 (0.89%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 37 (2.74%) Linux
2 12 (0.89%) Windows
3 10 (0.74%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.74%) VMS
4 9 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.59%) Android
5 8 (0.59%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.22%) Unix
7 1 (0.074%) CentOS
7 1 (0.074%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,050 (77.78%) AI
2 520 (38.52%) Data Science
3 389 (28.81%) CI/CD
4 378 (28.00%) LLM
5 366 (27.11%) Analytics
6 301 (22.30%) DevOps
7 293 (21.70%) Data Pipeline
8 287 (21.26%) Agile
9 275 (20.37%) Generative AI
10 259 (19.19%) MLOps
11 257 (19.04%) Data Engineering
12 226 (16.74%) Problem-Solving
13 192 (14.22%) Natural Language Processing
14 184 (13.63%) Software Engineering
15 183 (13.56%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 177 (13.11%) Use Case
17 169 (12.52%) Containerisation
18 159 (11.78%) Prompt Engineering
19 157 (11.63%) Data Modelling
20 152 (11.26%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 840 (62.22%) Python
2 335 (24.81%) SQL
3 87 (6.44%) Java
4 76 (5.63%) C#
5 73 (5.41%) R
6 60 (4.44%) JavaScript
7 55 (4.07%) TypeScript
8 27 (2.00%) C++
9 25 (1.85%) PowerShell
10 21 (1.56%) Scala
11 18 (1.33%) Bash
12 13 (0.96%) Bicep
13 12 (0.89%) Go
14 11 (0.81%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.74%) Rust
16 6 (0.44%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.37%) C
17 5 (0.37%) SPARQL
17 5 (0.37%) SystemVerilog
17 5 (0.37%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 224 (16.59%) Security Cleared
2 180 (13.33%) Degree
3 161 (11.93%) SC Cleared
4 79 (5.85%) Master's Degree
5 47 (3.48%) PhD
6 40 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (2.67%) DV Cleared
8 30 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
9 23 (1.70%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 22 (1.63%) AWS Certification
11 18 (1.33%) Azure Certification
12 8 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 8 (0.59%) CISSP
13 7 (0.52%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.37%) HNC
15 5 (0.37%) HND
15 5 (0.37%) TOGAF Certification
16 4 (0.30%) CISM
16 4 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (9.04%) Data Quality
2 52 (3.85%) GDPR
3 51 (3.78%) QA
4 37 (2.74%) NIST
5 26 (1.93%) EU AI Act
6 19 (1.41%) Accessibility
7 14 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.52%) GRC
9 6 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.44%) NCSC
10 5 (0.37%) DO-254
10 5 (0.37%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 4 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.15%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.15%) NIST 800
System Software
1 213 (15.78%) Docker
2 11 (0.81%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 10 (0.74%) Active Directory
4 7 (0.52%) Firmware
5 3 (0.22%) Lustre
6 2 (0.15%) Ceph
6 2 (0.15%) HDFS
6 2 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.074%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 212 (15.70%) Kubernetes
2 140 (10.37%) Terraform
3 22 (1.63%) Grafana
4 20 (1.48%) Ansible
5 16 (1.19%) Kubeflow
6 13 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.67%) Podman
8 7 (0.52%) Kibana
8 7 (0.52%) SCOM
9 4 (0.30%) Argo
9 4 (0.30%) logstash
10 3 (0.22%) ITRS Geneos
10 3 (0.22%) Rancher
11 2 (0.15%) Istio
11 2 (0.15%) Knative
11 2 (0.15%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.074%) Cilium
12 1 (0.074%) HP Fortify
12 1 (0.074%) Microsoft Intune
12 1 (0.074%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 197 (14.59%) Databricks
2 183 (13.56%) Microsoft
3 111 (8.22%) Google
4 96 (7.11%) OpenAI
5 73 (5.41%) Foundry
6 37 (2.74%) SAP
7 26 (1.93%) Oracle
8 21 (1.56%) ServiceNow
9 12 (0.89%) Informatica
10 11 (0.81%) Automation Anywhere
10 11 (0.81%) Salesforce
10 11 (0.81%) UiPath
11 10 (0.74%) NVIDIA
12 9 (0.67%) Greenplum
12 9 (0.67%) IBM
13 8 (0.59%) Splunk
14 7 (0.52%) Amplitude
14 7 (0.52%) Dynatrace
14 7 (0.52%) Palantir
14 7 (0.52%) Pega